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Vintage threads from the first ten years

Anyone heard of Bogen Amps?

7/18/1997 3:21 PM
Erik M. Wood	Anyone heard of Bogen Amps? Has anyone ever heard of a company called Bogen? It was apparently based in Paramus New Jersey in the 60's. I am not sure when it went out of business, but I recently picked up a tube PA system at a flea market which bears it's name. The front panel says Bogen Challenger, with the model number CHB-35. It works, the tubes light up and everything, but I don't have the user's manual or a schamatic of the thing for reference. I am interested in tinkering with the thing. It has some interesting features, like a 70 Volt output along with the preamp output. I have been told this is to power remote distribution amps for long cable runs without signal degradation. If anyone knows anything about this company or can give me some suggestions on where to get more information/ manual/schematics, please reply here. I would really appreciate it. Thanks. -Erik.

7/18/1997 3:21 PM

Erik M. Wood
email

Anyone heard of Bogen Amps?

Has anyone ever heard of a company called Bogen? It was apparently based in Paramus New Jersey in the 60's. I am not sure when it went out of business, but I recently picked up a tube PA system at a flea market which bears it's name. The front panel says Bogen Challenger, with the model number CHB-35. It works, the tubes light up and everything, but I don't have the user's manual or a schamatic of the thing for reference. I am interested in tinkering with the thing. It has some interesting features, like a 70 Volt output along with the preamp output. I have been told this is to power remote distribution amps for long cable runs without signal degradation. If anyone knows anything about this company or can give me some suggestions on where to get more information/ manual/schematics, please reply here. I would really appreciate it.
Thanks.
-Erik.

7/19/1997 9:26 PM
S.Fillipp	You bet! I'll bet three quarters of the small p.a. systems ever installed in schools, churches,and the like used Bogen amps. I used to play in a garage band in high school that used one for an organ amp, of all things. Most of the ones I ever saw were less than 50 watts, but they no doubt made bigger ones. The 70 volt tap is used for distributed speaker systems such as in a school where you have a speaker in every classroom, or lots of small speakers spread around a large room. Each speaker would have a transformer that matched the output of the amp to the speaker. I don't think it was ever used to drive separate amps. This is still pretty much the way that's done - look at most small p.a. mixer/amps intended for this type application, and chances are you'll find a 70V output along with the usual speaker outputs. I don't think this output is of much use otherwise. Schematics...don't know about that - there's an article by Joe Jasniewski that addresses conversion of P.A. and integrated amps into guitar amps at http://www2.aros.net/~tboy/ampage/pa2g.html If you haven't seen it, check it out, it's very informative and has lots of ideas on what to do with this kind of iron. His e-mail address is at the bottom of his article - as many of these types of amps as he has probably seen, he may be of some help. Sounds like fun! Good luck, Steve Fillipp

7/19/1997 9:26 PM

S.Fillipp

You bet! I'll bet three quarters of the
small p.a. systems ever installed in
schools, churches,and the like used
Bogen amps. I used to play in a garage
band in high school that used one for
an organ amp, of all things. Most of the ones
I ever saw were less than 50 watts, but they no
doubt made bigger ones.

The 70 volt tap is used for distributed
speaker systems such as in a school where
you have a speaker in every classroom, or
lots of small speakers spread around a
large room. Each speaker would have a transformer
that matched the output of the amp to
the speaker. I don't think it was ever used
to drive separate amps. This is still
pretty much the way that's done - look at
most small p.a. mixer/amps intended for this
type application, and chances are you'll find
a 70V output along with the usual speaker outputs.
I don't think this output is of much use otherwise.

Schematics...don't know about that - there's
an article by Joe Jasniewski that addresses
conversion of P.A. and integrated amps into guitar amps
at http://www2.aros.net/~tboy/ampage/pa2g.html
If you haven't seen it, check it out, it's very
informative and has lots of ideas on what to do
with this kind of iron.

His e-mail address is at the bottom of his
article - as many of these types of amps as he
has probably seen, he may be of some help.

Sounds like fun! Good luck, Steve Fillipp

Wednesday

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7/21/1997 1:33 PM
Steve M.	Hi, I have a Bogen CHB-100 chassis that came with four 7868 tubes, I'm guessing that it puts out about 50 to 100 watts. I had a heck of a time finding a schematic for it. I finally found it in the fourth edition of Jack Darr's Guitar amp repair book. Anyone have any idea wha the plate load impedence, i.e. the output transformer primary would be for four 7868s? It is not marked on the schematic. I want to rebuild this as a guitar amp, but don't know which tubes to use. TIA, Steve

7/21/1997 1:33 PM

Steve M.

Hi,

I have a Bogen CHB-100 chassis that came with
four 7868 tubes, I'm guessing that it puts out
about 50 to 100 watts. I had a heck of a time
finding a schematic for it. I finally found it
in the fourth edition of Jack Darr's Guitar amp
repair book.

Anyone have any idea wha the plate load impedence,
i.e. the output transformer primary would be
for four 7868s? It is not marked on the schematic. I want to rebuild this as a guitar
amp, but don't know which tubes to use.

TIA,

Steve

7/21/1997 2:53 PM
Erik M. Wood	Steve, your CHB-100 sounds exactly like my CHB-35 except that yours has an extra pair of output tubes. They are of the same variety -7868. I am curious, in the book you mentioned, was there a schematic for the 35 watt version? I need one of those, myself. If not, in your travels, did you come across any info on Bogen which might prove useful? -Erik.

7/21/1997 6:48 PM
David Axr	Erik, Steve, Why don't you try www.bogen.com and e-mail them your request for schematics. Let me know what you find out. /David

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