Cordovox Amp Set - it's mine now...

CabanaBoy

CabanaBoy

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Cordovox Amp Set, it's mine now. What is it? Why it's an accordion amp set of course. Used by some guy that gigged with it for a living, stored it for who knows how many years when he stopped playing, some other guy obtained it from him, and I traded one of my home brew amps for it. Now I just gotta figure out what I've got, if it works, and what to do with it.

Cordovox Amp Set-2.jpg
 
Got one with a lime green brim too. The lime green brings out my complexion better, but the orange matches my highlights - it can be a tough call at times.

Clueless on the watts. Or even what to expect to be honest. Or really how it even goes together. The guy said you wanna trade - I asked if it was complete and he said it was the complete set up including pedals, covers, and what not (stuff not in the picture) and I said sure thing. He also bought another amp off me while here.

Some guy used it to gig with his accordion. I'm not sure how old it is or anything. It's just cool - lol.
 
It's a tube driven and not positive, but I think tube preamp also. It looks like you can plug a hi-z mic and other stuff into it so should be convertible to guitar at the very least. Being it was designed/built for an accordion it should (originally anyways) be able to handle any frequency a guitar would throw at it. I think anyways - short of accordion's having an under rated COOL factor and I enjoy accordion's I'm clueless at what their frequency range is. I'll be digging into and being I'm not the only wondering what in the world this thing is I'll try and add pictures and other info as I get it to this thread.

At the moment in needs cleaning as you can tell it spent much time in the bars/clubs and around smokers. And, I gotta figure where I am going to store it. It may become musical living room furniture - lol.
 
2x12" Speaker pair: 985-019314 25930 2857243 (matching pair) , which is Rola , 1972 , 43rd week (9.8893 , September) if I got it correct.

10" Leslie type Speaker: EMI-041061 and also 137 7326 which if I have correct is made by CTS in 1973 in the 26th week (5.9796 , May).
The EMI part being on the same speaker kind of stumps me as I'm under the impression that a different company from CTS and EMI is a Britain company? Maybe someone can shed some light on that.

So, as near as I have it figured so far one of the cabs is a preamp/effects cab that hooks into another cab that is a 75 watt power amp cab with 2x12" speaker in it. And, the Leslie type cab that has a single 10" speaker in it also plugs into the 75 watt power cab..

No testing yet, just cleaning and inspection. There are a TON of carbon composition resistors in the preamp/effects cab and unfortunately they can stray pretty far off value over time. Way too many to replace, so hopefully they'll work - at least kind of anyway ;)

Here are some pictures of the inside:

IMG_20180611_190241.jpg IMG_20180611_190316.jpg IMG_20180611_190425.jpg IMG_20180611_190440.jpg IMG_20180611_190533.jpg IMG_20180611_190549.jpg IMG_20180611_190604.jpg IMG_20180611_190714.jpg IMG_20180611_191715.jpg IMG_20180611_191726.jpg
 
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DID THEY REALLY NEED MORE TECHNOLOGY THAN PUT A MAN ON THE MOON TO AMPLIFY AN ACCORDION?????????????????????

IM SO----- CONFUSED--- AND SLIGHTLY AROUSED-- -BUT MOSTLY CONFUSED....
 
It was the 60's and early 70's. That pretty much says it all - lol.
If, and that's a BIG IF, I can save all three section to some how get it all to work with guitar. The preamp section has sections labeled right hand and left hand for the accordion.
P.S. As can be seen in the pictures turns out this is all solid state. I didn't look too close when I traded or when I first got it in the house. I don't really care though, as it's still neat and that Leslie type cab is going to be very cool if I can get it up to par. The two twelve power cab I can pretty sure I can save, but I could also convert it to an all tube guitar amp combo if the preamp/effects section can't be saved for actual use. See what happens. Figure I'll try and chronicle it here at TTR - who knows, maybe it'll help someone else out and maybe some other owners of the same equipment will weight in...
 
giphy.gif
 
Starting on the Leslie type cab as it's appears to be the easiest and I am really hoping to bring it up to par for real world use. Here are a couple pics of the insides of it.

Leslie Power Box (inside-cables).jpg Leslie Power Box (outside-cables).jpg Leslie Wheel & Motor.jpg

P.S. I snipped the power chord - it has to be replaced...
 
Are you going to butter them?
I think that is ok for ss but a no-no for tubes.

Cool interesting high strangeness factor project.
Potential in some of the components.
Hope something worthwile comes of it.
Is that a reverb tank in there?
 
jtcnj said:
Are you going to butter them?
I think that is ok for ss but a no-no for tubes.

Cool interesting high strangeness factor project.
Potential in some of the components.
Hope something worthwile comes of it.
Is that a reverb tank in there?
Click to expand...

There's no reverb tank in the Leslie cab, but there is in the preamp/effects cab. I've still yet to look much at the preamp/effects cab. It's got one of the biggest circuit boards I've seen and is it ever loaded with carbon comp resistors. I'm saving it for last. After the Leslie I hope to move onto the 75 watt solid state power amp. It won't be hard to save either really.
 
chilipeppermaniac said:
One of the coolest unusual pieces I have seen in all my time on forums. Cool post, Drum.
Click to expand...

I was certainly wow'ed by it. The guy asked if I wanna trade - I asked if it was completer - he said yes - I said yes - lol. Honestly I barley looked at the thing short of him showing me it was all there, as I just wanted it for the hey of it if nothing else. I wish I could find out who owned it, what type of music they played, and where they gigged with it. From what I understand the person the that owned it used it until they stopped playing music - then evidently just stored the thing away. The guy I got it from kind of had the jest of it's history, but not the details.
 
jtcnj said:
Yep I meant the bagged item in an earlier photo.
This must have been the shitzz on the Accordion Rooms forum back in the day.....
:rolleyes:
Click to expand...

In the right hands I imagine it was quite the amp/effects set up with variable speed leslie, echo, reverb, volume swell, right/left hand controls, etc. The only piece that I think is pretty much sink or swim is the preamp/effects section. It just has way, way too many carbon comp resistors that may be strayed in value by who knows how much. No way can I simply replace all these. Well, suppose I could, but that'd take a very long time ;)
 
So, started on the Leslie first as it seems the easiest. Power chord change, couple caps, redo the chassis. And, speaking of the Leslie chassis here are a couple pictures showing WHY the chassis needs redone:

-Ugly Chassis (1).JPG Ugly Chassis (2).JPG
 
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