There has been a few SHC-6 units popping up lately, some with external speakers and some without. Here is my SHC-6 with a SHS-8 speaker cabinet which both are VERY close in design and styling. Like the other optional speaker cabinets RCA never made any of them an exact match to any one main unit and no matter how similar they appear they are not 100% identical.

Beautiful! Come to Mommy! :drool:

Although as you say there is no exact match, I think that your speaker is the closest match, style-wise. As you know, Bus, I just finally got one of these with the SHS-9 speaker and it does look great, but it's not as perfect a match as that one.

Something that puzzles me now that I finally have seen one of these in the flesh is WHY they made the console lower than the speaker. The SHC-6 sits a good 4 inches lower than its many SHC siblings, and maybe 2 inches lower than my SHS-9 speaker. Looks like same deal with the SHS-8.

And if I haven't said it before, yours is a real looker, Bus. Seeing a YouTube video of this same model was what got me interested in the New Orthophonics about 3 years ago after being a Zenith guy for the previous 30. I think the SHC-6 is the best looking of the medium-sized consoles. Kind of looks like an SHF-6 (another of my favorites) with a tuner.

Not only didn't the cabinets match but the speakers inside the cabinets could be different too. Stereo was evolving and this stuff was the first generation. Still, they sound great and the cabinet designs were starting to change from the ‘50s look of the HF and SHF mono consoles to a little more ‘60s Danish modern style.

Todd, that is a blonde Magnavox Baton on top of the RCA SHP-12. How about some details on that one.

I have five of the RCA optional external speakers right now and they all have the exact same speaker and set up. They all use the same 12" always found in the new orthos of that time. They also use the same tweeters.

The Magnavox 45 player is pretty cool. It belongs to a fellow I am restoring several record players for. His Grandfather worked for Magnavox in the `50s and `60s. The owner told me he thought his grandfather pulled it from the assembly line because it had a flaw. It is not blonde but looks like it has been sprayed with a strange primer. The owner thinks when it was pulled it was unfinished and grandad brought it home (and I have found several issues that support that theory). Now, you know how family stories are so it could be wrong...but it looks unfinished and does have a severe issue with the wood of the case. I was going to post some pics and story about it when I get to it but that won't be for a couple weeks, I am busy as all get out.

I know you have one of these but in a dark color....what do you know about this one I have here? Was THAT an actual color or is it just unfinished in primer still. It is definitely not a blonde finish of any sort it has been sprayed on crudely and covers the original screws. The wood is a cheap particle board junk. The wood on the left side is separating and you can tell this was from a flaw in the plywood NOT due to damage. It is also missing one of the screws holding the baffle in place, not just missing but never had it installed. There is a hole in the baffle but no screw hole in the underlying wood thus this screw was missing from day one. Perhaps it was yanked from the line before Rosie had a chance to install that screw...

Todd,

You’re lucky if all of your Orthophonic’s have 274 stamped RCA built speakers, I think they sound the best. I have seen many 232 stamped Magnavox 12-inch woofers, 285 Stamped Rola 8 and 15-inch speakers and 270 stamped Quam tweeters all with RCA logos stamped on them in different models. I’ve seen sets with Magnavox’s in the main cabinet and RCA’s in the remote and vise versa.

The finish that was sprayed on them was called Magnatex. Magnavox put it on radios and some table top TV sets as well. That type of textured finish was actually fairly popular at the time. It was sprayed on heavily over the hinges on my brown one too. The whole cabinet including the inside is finished. I believe they would have completed the finish before any of the components or brass knob plates were mounted in or on the cabinet. I saw a light "blond" colored one on eBay several years back. The seller wouldn't send any additional photos so I decided not to bid on that one. It's has an orange peel texture with variations in color. When I masked mine off to polish and coat the brass knob plates, some of the texture stuck to the blue painters tape when I removed it but not enough to be noticeable.

I have a Magnavox table radio that uses the same chassis as the 45 player and the cabinet has the same texture finish. It's in rough shape. It looks like it spent its life in a machine shop. It seems like the raw cabinet box was made of plywood then it was covered with a thick paper like material to give the texture coat a nice smooth surface to be applied to. If the cabinet gets wet the paper starts separating from the plywood box, it gets ugly.

I felt that the 45 player I bought may have been a lemon. It still had the hang tags and paperwork that came with it. It had manufacturing issues that would have made it almost impossible to enjoy listening to. It had to have ended up just stored someplace because it had no signs of normal use.

Doug, when you first stated "different speakers". I thought you meant...well "different" speakers. So do you mean the same speaker but built by different manufacturers?

I took a quick look of the main units in my house I could actually see the numbers easily on and here is the results. Every 12" speaker was a 274...guess I am a lucky man...?
SHF4 - both 274
SHS4- 274
SHP8- both 274
SHS4- 274
7HF3- 274
SHS4- 274

I could not see the tweeters easily from my position leaning over the top with a flashlight... so no idea on those but I have see several different styles of those intermixed on New Orthos both closed and open back style.

This appears to be the same unit in blonde. i picked it up in march at one of those outdoor tent/shanty style flea markets for 10.00 bucks. it has the same 12" speaker and (2) horns. i havent done anything to it but use it as external speakers from the webcor record player. it has very nice sound.
in the other pic you can see a little rca speaker i picked up at a junk store in PA for 10.00 bucks. it has its own volume regulator on the back.

By flyingturns at 2012-04-30

By flyingturns at 2012-04-30

By flyingturns at 2012-04-30

By flyingturns at 2012-04-30

Nice RCA speakers FT. Good to see that SHS-8 being put to use as intended chock full of records! I have been looking for one of those small external speakers in Blonde like you have. What interested me the most is you mention it has a volume control on the back. I wonder if this was an original item or something someone installed?
Do you have a couple pics of the volume control on the back you can post. Is the control an L pad or ?

I really like that Webcor as well. My Grandfather had a larger Webcor mono console with a similar design.

It sure appears to be original. ill get a pic up for you. i think it has the model number and such on the back as well.
The control seems to act like a rheostat would. the volume will only be as loud as sent from the unit but can be adjusted down to balance out the room.

here are (2) pics. the mdl is SHS-12.

By flyingturns at 2012-04-30

By flyingturns at 2012-04-30

I would be surprised if that control were original. A rheostat should not be used in series with a speaker -- turned down it would present an open circuit to the amplifier which the output transformer would not like. Speaker volume controls are usually L-pads providing constant impedance regardless of setting.

-David

Good pictures!

Yes that is a L pad which is indeed a special configuration of rheostats used to control volume while maintaining a constant load impedance on the output of the audio amplifier. It consists of a parallel and series resistor in an "L" configuration. As one increases in resistance, the other decreases, thus maintaining a constant impedance.

That L pad looks to be added on after the fact, there is no RCA part number and it looks to be service installed. I have never seen a SHS-12 or any other RCA SHS model external speaker with a factory installed L. If RCA did install a L Pad I am sure the speaker unit would have a different model number as well. That is why I was really curious to see what the back looked like. I have a similar small external speaker and am installing a L pad in it right now because it is mounted high on top of a cabinet and because of that it needs to have the volume brought down some and I will be installing a L on it.

Great piece...if you come across another blonde SHS-12 let me know I am really looking for one to go with one of my RCAs.

T

IINM an L-pad must be a 3-terminal device: Input, Output, and Common. The device in the picture has only two terminals connected. It might be an L-pad, it might be a simple pot, but it seems to be connected as a rheostat. It should not be used this way lest the amplifier's output transformer be damaged by high-voltage transients.

-David

Correct, yes this "looks" to be a L pad but check the diagram on this page for the correct set up of an L pad.

http://www.parts-express.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?Partnumber=260-248

The 274 stamped 6.5-inch speaker in the SHS-12 has a whizzer cone.

Ok. so im learning some new things. if this was added it was probably many yrs ago as it looks as old as the speaker itself.
If it is in fact an L pad, then based on the diagram bastardbus provided there should be a wire from the 3rd pole to the speaker crossover in the unit, Correct?
If i add this wire will the speaker function correctly AND safely?

Doug, what is a whizzer cone, if you please?

If that's an L-pad, it's mighty small. An L-pad has to be large enough to dissipate the entire power of the amplifier when the L-pad is turned all the way down. That looks like a 1 or 2-watt potentiometer to me.

I believe an L-pad would have the terminals labeled "IN - COMM - OUT."

-David

That early ’59 SHS-12 speaker was used with RCA model SHP-12 stereo phonograph. The amp was good for something less than 2-watts per channel. The main phonograph cabinet had three speakers, a 6 1/2-inch woofer and two angled 4-inch tweeters. The SHS-12 remote speaker cabinet didn't have the 4-inch tweeters. It had a dual cone or a whizzer added to the speaker cone to increase the high frequency response and take the place of the tweeter pair. It's not as good as a pair of tweeters but it's better than nothing.
If you removed the speaker from the cabinet and looked at the front of the cone you would find a second smaller paper cone coaxially mounted on the main cone.
The wire wound pot was not factory installed. The amp in the main phonograph had balance adjustments making something like that unnecessary.

If you still wish to control the speaker volume and not being 100% sure what that pot is for sure, I would just buy a new L pad and wire it up correctly they are only a couple bucks.

You can always just direct wire the speaker as it was originally designed if you don't need the volume control.