Spotted a old console stereo on someone's front porch a couple weeks back.
The home had a yard sale a couple days prior, and the console was unsold I guess.

Seen a guy there and hit him up. 20 bucks.....

It might be a decent sounding amp. That scary wiring job is factory Admiral. Even the black tape.
The PS kinda sucks, with no choke. Even when new, the amplifier more than likely had some PS hum...who knows.
I have a smallish 1 henrie choke I might be able to weasel in there.

The driver tubes are Admiral labled RCA 12AU7A cleartops, kind of a coveted tube....
Admiral brand RCA 6BQ5 output tubes, probably wanked......I hope not.....
Cathodyne phase splitter, and only one of the balance resistors is within the 10% spec. There is a bit more out of spec resistors, and the first multisectional capacitor has visible leakage.

The guy said it worked, but it has to be noisy.

Get the resistors back in spec, mess around with the PS and set it up CLC.

The output transformers have 8 and 16 ohm taps.
Most the messy wiring can be ditched, and layout cleaned up a bit.
A power switch, and most important...a power fuse!
The coupling caps may be good, then again, maybe not.
I hope they don't leak.....0022 uF is a goofy value I don't have.

Should a pretty good sounding amp at around 12 to 14 watts max.
I'll listen to it for a bit, then maybe flog on eBay.

I dunno...the amp has a bad cap, out of spec resistors and I haven't even started checking out and measuring the PS xformer and OPT's. (Though the chances of the iron being fried is pretty slim....)
I tested the three 12AU7A's the console had, one was shorted and the other two matched-up and quite strong, luckily.
And I don't have much luck with RCA 6BQ5's for some reason, which those are....

And now I have a empty console stereo sitting in the front yard, with no room inside the place for it, I have two in here already.
And 9/10th's of the vintage console stereos (classic IB boombox) have pretty much shit speakers in them. They are usually designed for infinite baffle, the amplifiers used have lowish damping factors to go along with IB. Something like that.....

Hell, I've bought a ten doller Montgomery wards console stereo that worked right off the bat, it was a 1959 model. The console was really butt-ugly, but the single-ended 6BQ5 AM/FM/phono amplifier sounded oh so sweet with my Klipsch Cornwalls.

The little amp has all the top notch passive parts for 1959, except the iron ain't nuthin' special. Slyvania black plate 6BQ5's and 7025's (low-noise 12AX7) were nice touches.
The little AM/FM/phono amp lasted about a year before it died, I should try to fix it.....

I bought a '64 model Monkey ward console stereo at a estate sale for 17 bucks and it worked as well. Not very well, but it did.....
Complete reverse here, the console was a nice clean sparton looking thing in Blonde. No goofy phony cabinet handles to make it look like a dresser.
The looks reminded me of a '64 chevy nova, clean with no gaudy crap.

The AM/FM/phono amplifier used the same chassis as the '59 model, but was chock full of the cheapest parts imaginable for the time-frame.
Ceramic caps instead of the molded mylar or whatever they had for coupling, boat resistors instead of nice wirewound metal oxides, ceramic PEC's were used to save cost.
And to top it off, it was jammed full of cheap japanese tubes, most all of course were toast. I had to swap out some tubes to get it to work in a somewhat normal matter. The FM would work for a while, then drop out.....

When you compare the 1959 unit to the 1964 unit, you can really tell that vacuum tubes were on their way out in '64. (With regards to audio...)

It won't be nothing difficult to get the '61 Admiral console amp up and going,  it's just a matter of going through it.

Ya know, this Admiral amp would probably push your HE-12's to moderate levels, with the subwoofer to make up the bottom end.

A pair of mono volume controls or a stereo control mounted on the amp would make it plug an play with most sources except a turntable.

I listened to this Admiral console amp in stock form with the 12AU7 cathodyne driver circuit over some time and it started to grate on me.

Cathodyne or concertina or whatever, where the driver tube's cathode drives one grid of a push-pull pair.
If I recall, the Dyna ST-70 is a cathodyne type phase splitter, maybe not.
7199 is a pentode/triode in one bottle, with the pentode side for input /voltage/gain stage, and the triode section for one side of the splitter. (Sumthin' like that......)

The Admiral seemed ok at first, but over time you could hear the amp's shortcomings. A kinda overall raspyness with a touch of sibilance, and would come unglued when pushed way too easy.
It got shelved for awhile.....

The I tried the driver circuit from the Dynaco low power (6BQ5/6V6) amplifier schematic. It uses a 12AX7 for a driver, and the paraphase inverter splitter.
The paraphase uses both plates of the driver tube to drive a PP pair.
Here's the schematic.....

The Dynaco circuit uses the Dynaco A-410 output transformer. They have a pimary impedance of around 8K. I'm using the stock Admiral OPT's, with a 6.7K primary impedance.
The Dynaco A-410 in the circuit is hooked up in ultra-linear with the screen tap connected as shown.

I'm using a screen B+ from the main PS. The stock Admiral power supply is a bit similiar to the Dynaco schematic. Simple CRC, with another RC for the driver tubes.
I swapped to a 5Y3 rectifier from the 5U4, because I was having a bitch of a time dropping the B+ for the plates. It's holding up so far, and it helped drop voltage to reasonable levels
The amp is actually real quiet on the Klipsch speakers. I thought it be worse.

I copied the schematic part for part. I'm using a 1060 picofarad silver mica for the feedback compensation capacitor. The schematic calls for .001 uF?
I took a big stab and stuck the feedback comp cap value in the circuit hoping for the best. I need scope probes still.....

It worked on the bench with junk midrange speakers, and 12AX7's, no motorboat action or HF oscillation that I could hear, which don't mean shit....

I tossed in some nice new and strong Mullard 12AX7's, and a good strong quad of EI yugo EL-84's.

I thought the amp would either sound about the same or way worse.
 
It sounds a helluva better than it did. Clean and open sound, good power, and doesn't come unglued unless you flat clip the amp.
Bass is to be pretty good for the OPT's used, though a little feedback work with a scope could possibly help gain a bit more.....

The stereo image is wider with no smearing. The amp was worthless at that before.

The EE friend brought up the Dynaco paraphase inverter circuit in the past. We tried it once with a pair of Eico HF-12 mono 6BQ5 PP amps, but the circuit mod to paraphase didn't work at all.

But the paraphase inverter works with this amp.

Dunno how the amp would measure on the bench, probably pretty scary.
Maybe 9-10 watts a side?

It sounds rather good however. I guess I'm delusional or just lucked out, but it did improve the quality of this commercial amplifier.