In 2005 I had a
job to fix an "energy transducer" produced by James B Lansing in about
1959.
The energy transducer was just a two channel amplifier.
It was
originally full of germanium transistors and many were fused.
I
refuse to replace germanium transistors with more of the same in any
circuit unless I am bribed into doing so
with so much money that I cannot refuse. If ever there will be a bunch
of electronics that won't be missed it will be all the junk
with germanium within which lasted on the scene between about 1954 and
1960. The resistors and capacitors of that era also were often very
poor, making all the gear with germanium devices even less worth
collecting.
The first
transistors were point contact germanium items with horrific
characteristics, and makers of tubes
chuckled about then since they were such poor performers.
But production increased and they weasled their way into countless
small radios to give us inferior sound quality
that the poor could afford and carry around in their pockets.
The germanium power transistors were very prone to easy failure from
heat and had poor linearity
and had current leakage problems.
In about 1960, the bipolar junction
transistors were made using silicon and with a new heat process
and suddenly it was all over for vacuum tubes because the silicon was
thermally more rugged than the germanium, and perhaps even better
sounding.
The current linearity of the
new silicon based bjt wonders was a lot better and leakage currents
were not a
problem and
soldering them was easy without having to use heat sinks clipped to the
leads while soldering.
The world
suddenly got a heck of a lot more cheap electronics, but no better
musicality in amplifiers.
The early
JBL "energy transducer" was merely a 30 watt per channel stero
amp for an organ and speaker console a guy has in
Melbourne.
I removed all
the germanium based circuitry and old R&C parts and filed them in
the rubbish bin.
The circuit I
used is as follows :-
Fig 6.

The circuit
uses the original power transformer with CT secondary to produce +/-
27V rails
with a bridge of diodes.
The arrangement
of Q7&Q8 as darlington pairs to drive the Q9&Q10 effectively
give the output emitter followers
stage a high base input resistance because they are effectively
connected as darlington triples.
Therfore the
base input resistance to Q7 and Q8 is very high.
The gain of the VAS stage Q4&Q5 is not disturbed by input
resistance variations of the output stage.
The amp continues to make nice organ music.
But hey, give me a Hammond with a tube amp if you want the best sound!
Fig 7.

I made the
perforated steel cover which slots into position at the bottom and is
firmly
held by two screws for easy access for servicing.
Fig 8.

I fitted new RCA inputs and level adjust pots, IEC mains input socket
and fuse holder.
Fig 9.

The vew is with all the covers off and the amp lying
with the panel in Fig face down.
The boards for each channel are white fibreglass with wire tracks and
surface mounted R,C, and other parts.
New PS capacitors are fitted on the right side with a pair of fuses for
the outputs in front of the caps.
Fig 10.

With all covers screwed into place.
The amplifier unit fits into a long speaker unit for an organ with
speakers at each end.