Friday, September 02, 2011

Open letter to HP

Guys,

I know you are having a hard time right now (and by the way, my HP stock is way down), but this is not the time to be running from the hardware business. My opinions vary on your consumer products, but my ongoing good experiences with your server class hardware tells me that you should keep doing that. Your background in instrumentation and testing gives you a good perspective on how to develop systems that can be monitored and maintained effectively. Keep it up.

--tom

Hammond T-595

From Hammond T-595
My new, old Hammond T-595. The previous owner got as far as painting the organ to match the room. Has a built in Leslie. From the symptoms (hum, very low sound), I'm guessing bad capacitors or a bad output transistor.

The Hammond T-500's were the last of the tonewheel organs that Hammond produced. Tonewheels generate sound via spinning metal discs and electromagnets. The drawbar controls allow a specific mix of harmonics in the output.

Amusingly, the T-500 Hammond incorporates circuitry to eliminate the uniqueness, classic, Hammond B3 sound. Forutunately, The modifications to reverse these "improvements" are well documented.