George's Leak Troughline Antenna

Aha! The Trough Line is back!

Marvellous! It is sounding not the least bit obviously vintage!

Right, that’s it! Off to fix tea ready for the Archers! And then, let’s see if there is a nice concert on Radio Three ...

ATB from George

George, out of interest did they say what they did to repair it?

One valve base alone, plus trying to hunt where the discontinuity was! When you look at the number of wires and components it can only be a steady methodical process.

It so completely better though. I guess that they fettled more than they said. 

This is the other tuner I had that was so say spares, not the one that broke down. I’ll keep that for the mains transformer though as none of these have been made for decades, and getting one rewound it very expensive. It is completely original except for a modern mains lead [fitted for safety], retaining its original captivated output lead with nickel RCA plug on the end.

They wanted to replace this, but I asked for the least amount of change necessary to bring it back to life! I think they rather approved of that. After all the nickel RCA plug will match the socket on a contemporary pre-amp!

They did say that the old tuner was one of the tidiest they had worked on in recent times.

Best wishes from George 

I wasn't aware of your part Welsh ancestry until now George!

Chris

Half Norwegian, and about three eighths Welsh!

ATB from George

Bang tidy!

C.

Hi George,

Thats great news about getting the Troughline back and a bit of fettling to it for good measure.Sounds like you have got some fine evenings of radio bliss.Just been listening to Paul Jones's An hour of Rythmn and Blues on radio 2.I always listen to it on a monday night.Some weeks are so,so.Tonights was fabulous,every track a gem.I always tape it but forgot to press record which was a shame.

Radio can certainly give you a buzz its hit the spot here !

You must investigate some Psvane valves for the troughline.Less than sixty pounds.My mates who run SET amps are useing Psvanes with good results.

Cheers Ian

It is warming up nicely. I guess even valve stuff settles down over the first couple of hours after a repair. 

If you did not see the tuner, then from the sonic you would not guess it was an old one!

Unfortunately the concert on R3 is far from my ideal favourite music. I am not against completely contemporary or even twelve tone music, but it is hardly something to sooth the soul!

But on a purely technical level it shows the old tuner is no slouch at unpicking extremely dense music and laying out is individual lines! No sense of impressionism here!

The audience did not seem to know quite when to clap.

ATB from George

Second day. I suppose two things are at work. Firstly is waking up a tuner that has not seen service for a number of years, and secondly it recovering from the replacement of a valve base that stopped continuous signal output, so I imagine that there may have been a bit of settling there as well.

But today I can say that I have never heard a source component that I preferred to this. And I have heard some very nice ones. If a person simply listened and did not know the age of this tuner, they would not guess that it is more than half a century old!

A little precise re-positioning of the aerial and the tuner settling of itself has led to the level of back-ground noise being so small as to be inaudible to me. 

That the first and last step for me on getting a first rate radio going. I am so pleased.

And once again I’d like to thank Simon in particular for his advice in helping refining my aerial. The Forum is priceless at such moments as that!

ATB from George

George, you are welcome, and the forum is all the better, in my opinion, with characters such as yourself contributing on it.

Simon

Out of interest George does the Troughlines sound change much from switch on from cold.Or do you leave it powered up 24 - 7 ?

The more I think about your current set up its the ultimate vintage radio especially with the single 57.

Cheers Ian

You seen the prices on them valves?!!!

C.

Lots of chat on the web .........   seems the ECC88 is an improved replacement for the ECC84, although the base connections aren't the same needing some minor wiring mods or a pin converter is available.  It draws a slightly higher anode current.   Reading the www it says the 88 makes the reception a lot more sensitive & receives distant stations the 84 would not get close to;  this might mean the strong stations like R3 are aso better.

Dear Ian,

It takes about ten minutes to settle down from turning on. Not that it sounds unpleasant from turn on, but that the sound is a bit narrow - bass reduced. Also it stabilises onto the station nicely after ten minutes and then remains stable. When cold you need to tune it a bit and then retune after ten minutes. 

I have not tried seeing if it will find the station properly if not adjusted cold, but I expect it would.

I would not leave it on when not actually using it. Valves can last a very long time, but certainly leaving on always would shorten their live. As Chris notes, valves are not all that cheap. 

I am at an interesting point, because I am putting out feelers to find a single mono Leak Tl 10.1 or TL 12.1 and these were the best mono amps that Leak made [and i the case of the TL 12.1 widely used by the BBC]. Point One refers to the distortion at full power, and the number shows the power in Watts. So not what we would call powerhouse these days, but quite enough to drive an ESL. Combine one of these with their matching pre-amp, with the Trough Line and an ESL, and I really would have one of the great wireless sets. 

I have to think about the digital side though. The V1 is so much to my liking, and the NAP 100 is a match that is perfect, so it might be that I run a valve power am set for radio, and the NAP for the digital side. Changing source would in that case involve switching speaker wire! And of course the old Leak pre-amps of the period had a phono input with six different equalisation curves. This is now hushed up as cutting LPs became more standardised in the 1960s and 1970s, but in the 1950s there were three main LP equalisation curve. The British one used on Decca and EMI, and two US curves for RCA and American Columbia [CBS], Likewise the curves for 78s were different in the USA and the UK, and each is catered for on these ancient pre-amps. But I do not expect to start buying 1950s vinyl to try these curves out!

What may be surprising is that the Trough Line driving the NAP 100 directly [it having a good volume control built in] is much more similar to the V1 than you could possibly expect. Indeed until you have heard one of them working nicely it would be hard to imagine quite how good they are even all these years on.

Dear Mike,

I had be persuasive to keep the old Trough Line as original as possible when it was repaired. It is normal nowadays to remove the captivated output lead and fit an RCA phono socket on the casework. I asked them to keep the captivated lead, because I assume that this cable really matches the rest of the cabling used. I also asked them to keep the old nickel RCA plug, commenting that one day I hoped to plug it into a matching socket on a Leak pre-amp!

I am a bit against altering old designs to “improve” them. As it happens Radio Three is not a strong or loud signal at the output, but it is so free of broadcasting noise that I cannot detect it from the listening chair. Of course If I put my ear right against the speaker there is a gentle hiss not unlike what comes of a good analogue LP. 

So I shall be sticking with absolutely standard as far as possible. I want to keep it as original as possible, ...

Best wishes from George

Or simply use the variable output of the Trough Line straight onto a TL 10 or 12. 

Those old amps are so much more sensitive to small input currents than modern amplifiers so that the old Leak pre-amps [not unusually for the time] actually put out a smaller power than goes in on the tuner input! The Trough Line will not actually not very loud [though quite loud enough] driving directly onto the NAP 100 ...

ATB from George

Hi George

like your idea of combining the V1 - 100 for digital duties and The Leak poweramp when you get one for the radio side.Although swapping speaker wire does'nt sound ideal,maybe some splitter could be used,but don't know if that would degrade sound.

I am using a Nagra PLL line stage which has 2 ECC 83 valves and 1 ECC 81 in it and its warm up time from cold is about 30 mins.

Wishing you a good weekend Cheers Ian

Dear Ian,

After a lot of thought I am sure that the dual system idea has a lot going for it.

And if anything goes wrong then most options are still available.

I am not really worried about swapping speaker wires at the speaker end.

The NACA 5 is suitable for the NAP 100, but I would use a high quality traditional type of wire between a Leak power amp and the ESL. And get the proper pins for ESL soldered at the speaker end.

I do not use the big system for speech radio, but the Tivoli or a small portable DAB [Sandstrom] receiver. For concerts on the radio I set up and sit down properly. Obviously I do not leave the NAP 100 powered up when not in use, and neither would I leave a valve amp on when not in use. 

I have the tuner, and now all I have to do is save up and get a suitable amp set ...

When it comes to this sort of thing, then patience is my middle name.

ATB from George

Why swap speaker cables. You have 2 ESLs, wire one to the digital side, the other to the radio side. Mono x2 :-)

I really do not want two speakers in my living room - neither in the ideal place. One of the delights of one speaker is that you can put it in exactly the right place. An option that is rarely approached when two speakers are used. 

Plus, I like less clutter in front of me!

But I do take your point.

Best wishes from George

The speaker is now about a third of the room length from the rear wall. I could not have two that far out!

George just been looking at the Pink Fish media forum and in the audio section there is a Thread about a Troughline repair worth having a look.

Dear Ian,

I am in overdrive looking for the best ways forward. The Trough Line was beautifully serviced with the minimum of modification necessary to make it work properly and make it safe from electrocuting me. One Thing Audio are the people who make a superb stereo decoder for the mono TL3 [and TL2], and they know their stuff regarding this old machine. I am happy with what they do and have done with it so far. Of course I think that they found my wish to stay mono somewhat rare, if I may put it that way!

ATB from George

Figured as much, but thought I'd throw it in the ring just in case...  Looks..... elegant. 

Elegant is nice for you to say. Minimalist is also true.

Almost like Mondrian. My favourite Bach performances have a Modrian-esque quality. Just play the music clearly, and without exaggeration, and all becomes both clear and involving! A bit like Folk Music ...

The ESL is an enigma, because it looks nothing like any other speaker. All you have to do is shut your eyes and listen, and all becomes clear!

Very best wishes from George

Is totally true, really. Ciao George

I am working on two systems. For Radio the Trough Line feeding direct from its level controlled output [similar to the DAC V1] onto the Leak TL 12.1 [or TL 10.1] power amp [made between 1948 and the late 1950s], and retaining the V1 and NAP 100 [as fed a mono feed from the MAC Mini] for Digital - both systems onto a single ESL alternatively. To change system will require turning off the power amp that is on, and swapping speaker cable at the speaker end, as I shall use a suitable speaker cable for the TL 12.1 rather than NACA 5. 

It will be interesting so see if vintage valve radio can be comparable in quality to a modern digital system. My experience so far is the cause my experimenting!

Strangely, the two methods are more similar than different with the NAP 100 amplifying the Trough Line directly without a pre-amp as such [though the Trough Line out put is effectively a fine a minimalist pre-amp to a maximum of one volt], which will probably surprise many. The Trough Line is a very modern sounding tuner. Not remotely what is characterised as typical valve style, gentle and slow. Gentle perhaps, but certainly as articulate and lucid [in musical balances] as anything as I have ever heard! Slightly less silent [in noise] than modern solid state, but not a problem ... Quieter than LP for example for noise ...

Of course the ESL is in a very good position to define the differences.

ATB from George