[78-L] stylus for vertical-cut Edisons

[Graham Newton]

Jack Raymond wrote:

> Several years ago I bought a preamp known as the WaxWorks II from a guy 
> in Florida who I believe was making them in his spare time.  It's a 
> little box with four dials -- (1) Null-balance; (2 ) Function (stereo, 
> mono, left channel, right channel, vertical); (3) Turnover; (4) and 
> Rolloff -- which makes it easy to switch from horizontal to vertical, to 
> select the better groove wall on some Emersons, etc.
> 
> Strangely I've never come across anyone else who owns this great little 
> preamp, which seems odd.  As I recall, it was not very expensive and has 
> worked flawlessly over the years.  Is anybody else out there a fan of 
> the WaxWorks II (named after the 1992 movie, I suppose)?

Well you have just met someone who also has one of these excellent preamps.

The guy who made them (Russ Fisher) was the designer and wanted to sell the 
design to someone else who would manufacture them for sale.  I'm not sure if 
this ever happened, but at the time, he only made about 10 units.  Too bad, 
because they were a very good design.

Here's all the details from a 1999 email from Russ:-

WaxWorks II is a complete 2 channel preamp designed for use with both older
monaural records, including vertical cut, as well as newer stereo records.
The front panel has four controls including a Null/Balance, Function Switch,
Rolloff and Turnover control.

The specs are as follows:

Rolloff - 6 positions - flat -5 -10 -12 -13.7 -16 dB
Turnover - 6 positions - flat 250 300 400 500 800 Hz
Function switch - 5 positions - Stereo/Mono/Left/Right/Vertical

Null/Balance control provides a very small stereo balance about
+1/-2 dB.

The Mono function sums together left and right input channels and outputs
mono on both output channels.  The Left function routes the left groove
to both output channels.  Similarly the Right function routes the right
groove to both output channels.  Vertical performs an electronic
phase reversal of one channel and sums it with the other channel for
playback of vertical cut records.

When playing a lateral cut mono record, flipping the function switch
momentarily to vertical allows for tweaking of the Null/Balance pot
for a null.  This will set the unit (and your cartridge etc.) to a
near perfect mono mix.

Input impedance is a nominal 240 pf in parallel with 47K ohms.

Output level is consumer audio, 250 mV rms nominal.

Noise < 70 dB.

Frequency response in the flat position is -1 dB from 20 Hz to 90 Khz.

Power is 115 VAC, 60 Hz.  Unit has a red LED power on lamp but no
off/on switch.

Finish is black anodized aluminum with white legends.  Approximate size
is 9 3/8w x 3 1/2h x 7 1/2d.




... Graham Newton

-- 
Audio Restoration by Graham Newton, http://www.audio-restoration.com
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