Lesmania? Lesmanniasis?

I brought the Lesmann home today after a trip up to Minneapolis and back with a side trip to Mickey's Diner in St. Paul. That's worth the 265 mile one way trip. So the total today was 530 miles and the Mazda averaged 27.9 mpg-not bad for a rolling barn of an SUV and word that the engine is finally getting broken in.

It is a peach, in very nice condition and I got a demonstration of how the Accordio-organ works. I did not purchase the accordion mostly because I can't play one but I was interested in seeing how the entire shebang operated.

The amplifier has an interconnect cable that goes between the accordion and the amplifier. I would guess that the accordion has some sort of organ like tone generator hardware, and I think that means it must be supplied with power through the interconnect cable.

I would think that the accordion itself was not made in the US but imported and modified by Lesmann. I saw one post that says it's a Giulietti but I've no way of verifying that. The owner says it's quite heavy.

It was very pleasant sounding and I expect that the amplifier was built for the kind of service that electric organs demand.

The person I got this from said that he'd had the setup for fifteen years or so and the previous owner was a person who played Persian folk music exclusively with this rig. It's got a tag on the back that says Terlinde Music, St. Paul, Minnesota, so it never strayed too far from home.

I do not know whether Terlinde Music still exists but I did find that Bob Dylan played a concert there on December 24, 1956. They sure knew talent for what that's worth.

I'll be cross posting stuff in the future from my FB page (Elderly Amplification). Visit it if you've got the time.

It's in very good cosmetic condition and had evidently been well cared for. It looks like it still has all the original RCA tubes in it so I'll check them out tomorrow and post some detailed pictures and notes thereafter.

Ohm On The Range: Wiring an Ampeg V4 Impedance Switch.

I've had a V4 here for quite a while because the owner was going through some changes, had a hiatus in Maryland for a year or so and is now back in town.

So I dragged it out of storage and got it up and running but it still had one of the original issues from the first time I saw it and that was, no 8 ohm output. 2 and 4 are fine but nix on the 8.

So the issue was either the switch was defective, incorrectly wired, or the output transformer was bad. It looked as if the output transformer was recent. I changed the switch with no improvement.
I spent way too much time researching this without success and in the end, made a trip to Polk City where a friend of mine has a similar amp so I could do an inspection and narrow the issue down.

When I pulled the chassis of Barry's amp out, two things were obvious. First, Ampeg had cut a corner of the chassis out so that the switch could be accessed and inspected without complete disassembly.
Second of all, the link between the second and third row of switch terminals had never been installed-I suspect, by the person who installed the output transformer.

This morning, it was the work of a few minutes to take a bit of wire, make a link, and solder it in place.

The moral of the story is never expect that work previously done was done right. As Reagan said "Trust-but verify. Play-but cut the cards. And never be afraid to see what you see."

I promise, I'll cross post stuff from my FB page in the future so the entire world can see some of the stuff I'm cookin up.