Mellotronists

Did Sound Source do these?

* Black control panel with the ugly black-and-pus-yellow knobs

* Single preamp circuit board which replaces the two circuit boards in the
London units

The different pramp design uses a 741 opamp for the lineamp section, but the
preamp is the same circuit as the original. I haven't done any A/B
comparisons regarding the sound quality, but I'm not sure if a 741 gives any
benefit over the original simple transistor push-pull output amp. Maybe they
just wanted to be able to say "upgraded to modern integrated circuit"
because it sounded more space-age. "Downgraded to vacuum tube" was not "in"
at the time.

On another note, this weekend I spent some time driving around in the search
of a spare light bulb for the Orchestron. The old one still works, it's just
the roadie in me calling out the heads-up. Not wanting to subject the thing
to adverse G-forces, I traced it on a piece of paper. Hmmm looks like an
aquarium bulb... the aquarium store employee was (understandably) filled
with wonderment when I described the machine. Buncha weird people out there,
he musta thought. Anyway no luck there - the size/shape was a match but the
filament needs to run the length of the bulb, or at least I think it does...
another fish store, same story, but then I was buying groceries later and
what the heck, let's look on the light bulb isle. Bingo. I hope the original
is 25 watts. How to find out? If it's too strong, will there be overdrive?
Distorted Orchestron - hey that might be cool. Gotta be careful not to melt
the disk, though.

Best Regards,

- Gene

M400S #1023
M400S #1213
M400S #1289

-----Original Message-----
From: Ken Leonard [mailto:ken@...]
Sent: Monday, April 05, 2004 1:12 PM
To: mellotronists@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [Mellotronists] Sound Sales Modifications?


Someone (was it Frank?) said that Sound Sales didn't do much to the M400s 
when they got 'em.

I'm just thankful that neither of my M400s was "improved" by those guys.
:-)

From what I recall of the Sound Sales mods...

1) They tied down the tape take-up box differently using parts from 
elsewhere in the machine.  They got rid of the wooden wedges, and didn't 
they then take the L-brackets from the bottom of the take up box and put 
them on the top sides of the box and tied it to the frame instead of the 
side boards?  (This alone would weaken the side boards, resulting in the 
need for (2).)

2) The side board where the motor is gets some kind of treatment---I don't 
remember what they did there, but I seem to recall it was an attempt to 
prevent the side board from flopping around during transport and only wound 
up making the thing more unreliable.

3) They put a sticker on the power supply.

4) They sold it for twice the price of an M400 ordered from the UK.  :-)

I was unaware that they devised and put in the SMS-3, but that alone is a 
huge improvement over the CMC-10, so that's A Good Thing.

What else did they do?  Anyone got one and can share a few pics with me for 
the web site for a page about "Sound Sales M400 Modifications"?

...kl...
M400 #805 - SMS-4, UK original
M400 #1037 - SMS-2, ditto


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