a newly arrived wurlitzer

[tiger vomitt]

i picked up a wurlitzer 140B yesterday. i have a few questions about it, hopefully someone can help??

-there is a RCA looking plug (it's like RCA with an extra long wang) on the end of the feed that comes off the pickup. being as the amp needs a bit of wiring work, and im most likely to not mic the speaker anyway, can i replace the weird RCA plug that is there with a 1/4" TS plug and hook it right up to an amp?

id just try it but i dont want to be replacing plugs just yet if i dont have to ya know?


-the keys thump acoustically pretty loudly. anyone know how to tame that?

-there is a trim pot inside that says "level." does that feed level to the preamp? is it the preamp output?


mmm that's all for now. thank you!

[pscottm]

i did that w my rhodes and it worked. do you have an adaptor you can use to try it out first?

[tiger vomitt]

i guess you mean the mutant wang-ed RCA? the part that comes out from the collar is like twice the length of a normal RCA plug so an adapter wouldnt work.

but, that's good to know about the rhodes...so it didnt need any kind of preamp before going into a guitar amp or a DI?

[pscottm]

right, of course you can't use an adaptor there, sounds like a mutant connector. on the rhodes, passive into DI sounds awesome but there's no tremolo so i usually just run it into a little silvertone that has sweet tremolo and mic that. combinaton of the two is nice.

[tiger vomitt]

awesome, im gonna try it. thanks!


anyone have any thoughts on the other questions?

[RebSeth]

I would highly recommend Chris from VintageVibe.com for repairs, sales, and any questions. He is an expert Wurlitzer tech in the NY Metro area with some very famous clients.

Here is his contact info:

phone: (917) 880-9763 or (973) 989-2178
email: chris@vintagevibe.com
website: www.vintagevibe.com

He can probably help you over the phone for free!

[tiger vomitt]

thanks RebSeth, i had already checked out that site. good stuff

[Scodiddly]

You can't plug the Wurli pickup into a different amp - the Wurli amp provides a DC bias voltage, and the pickup acts like a big capacitor with the tines.

[morte sicura]

I have a 140b. There is a fair amount of mechanical noise from the key / hammer mechanism. This may lessen somewhat with new felts. I don't know how noisy mine is relative to a newly restored 140b, and I don't really mind. It wouldn't be worth the $$ to me to restore the action, or to even pay to have someone regulate it, unless the problem was severe enough to impede the use of the piano. I've been able to make simple changes in the action myself. I've found the damping changes sometimes on a couple of keys, and small turns of the screw above and to the rear of the offending reed can easily fix this problem.

The RCA is a mono phonograph in, for playing along to records. The 1/4" is a speaker out. The internal amp will drive a cab - I really like the sound of the alnico Jensen 12" - its the P12-R, I believe. I had a tech add a 1/4" line out. I had instructions from the net for this, but he said they were incorrect and instead, he padded the power stage. We used a switching jack for the ext. speaker so that I could either use the line out to go to an amp, or I could bypass the line out pad and have the internal amp at regular power, so I could used it instead to drive a cab. All caps have been replaced - the amp's been rebuilt but it it still noisy, so I am looking into replacing some of the CC resistors to further quieten things. It is a matter of figuring out which ones may be troublesome so that I don't have to pay big $$ to replace them all. The Yahoo Wurlitzer Electric Piano Archives is a nice resource and the fellow from Vintage Vibe posts there. I recommend joining; here's the address:

http://launch.groups.yahoo.com/group/Wu ... lec_Piano/

Also, there's a schematic out there somewhere and i can send it to you if you like.

One last thing - don't expect an acceptable-for-practicing line-level-ish signal out of the headphone jack! That jack wants an 8 ohm load. I blew mine up three days afer getting it back from the shop, but the tech hadn't checked the fuse, which was the wrong rating and would otherwise have (hopefully) blown, and was very sympathetic. He fixed everything again as a part of his guarantee! Be forewarned though - don't use that jack for anything other than old-school headphones!

The 140b is an awesome sounding piano! Best of luck with it!

-Andrew

[tiger vomitt]

so the only way to get signal out is thru the phono output on the back?

edit: this was cross posted, i hadnt yet seen the post above. lots of info there, thank you!

[morte sicura]

Ah, re-reading the initial post I see you are talking about the plug from the pickup rail, not the jack on the rear panel of the amplifier. Sorry, my mistake! Nevertheless, I hope you find all these posts to be useful.

-Andrew

[pscottm]

tiger vomit, i don't think you could possibly harm anything just listening to the pickups. give it a try.

[tiger vomitt]

id really rather not cut off that weirdo connector if there's no reason to. hmmm

what is that thing anyway? anyone ever see a connector like that? an RCA with a super long post? would a regular RCA work as a replacement?