Mike, there are a couple of points regarding changing amps here; the
most important is that your machine uses a field coil speaker (I
believe) this is an electric coil instead of magnet at the rear of the
speaker.

If you change to a later amp, you'll also have to change the speaker
as again I believe, the 1454 was the last year to use a field coil.

As for AVC efficacy, ALL these circuits are subtractive in nature.
That is, they reduce the level (gain) as the level from the pickup
increases. So, a loud record with get attenuated and a low one will
get little/no attenuation.

The original ceramic pickup was fairly high output, it also was not
designed for dealing with stereo records. If you change over to a more
modern pickup, it is possible that it's output will be somewhat lower
and thus the AVC's ability to equalize all records will be less
effective.

In my own experience with the 1458 and 1465 I replaced the original
pickup (same as yours) with a Pickering magnetic and used an outboard
pre-amp. I tested the amount of gain reduction on the AVC and found
that a loud record was compressed by about 16 decibels and thus a low
record was brought up to approx the same level.

The sort of modification that you envision requires a degree of
electronics knowledge, but it is not that difficult. In the case of a
1454 it might be better to consider selling the machine and getting a
slightly later one. A simple compromise might be to use a remote
volume control (RVC) that allows you to adjust the level without have
to get to the back of the machine. These are available used and fairly
easy to set up, in fact you could probably just lengthen the wire on
your existing volume control and mount it in a box.

Rob.













On Feb 18, 8:03*am, NJ Mike wrote:
Thanks for the info rob. I'll have to check into what amp might be
swapable with the one I have.

Also, how effective is the AVC on the Rockolas? *I haven't had a lot
of exposure to the different models when playing.

Mike