This is very odd. I have a Cadet II here its all in one unit and the riaa
stage is controlled by anoctal plug in device in one side of the chassis.
IE Ceramic or Magnetic.
Most of the issues mine has are around hum, some crackling on some of the
valveholders the preamp seems worse, and some cosmetic issues and it needs a
new switched volume control. Did they then make these uniits as seperates as
well as integrated. i bought this new in the mid 1960s and its present use
is on a pc as an amp.
My valves are Mullard and have never been changed either. It does keep the
room nice and warm so I doubt if its that efficient. the light on the front
panel needs a clout from time to time to make it come on. The front mounted
Didn socket for tape is a bit mangled now, but its rivetted on and needs to
be drilled to get it off.
The way the amp is split at the tape socket is a bit odd also the mono
button on radio seems to just use one of the aux in sockets not the other
one.
These sockets need a bit of tlc.
The rear mounted mains sockets wer in a previous thread on here.
Still after all this time it was obviously built to last. The two filters
on the front panel seem a bit pointless.
It was used for many years to drive a pair of Denton speakers which are
still in use in a front room and still sound quite reasonable.

Big play was made in the amp of it having ferrite cored speaker tansformers
and several impedence terminals for different speakers.

Last time the power was checked the output was similar to yours, though it
claimed it was 12.5 watts per channel. Intrigingly it seems to be able to
run very loud and sound nice, so I suspect other amps watts are poorer
quality ones than these are grin.

I alway remember an amp made by a couple of Sinclair z12s which on the
surface sounded pretty good but there was a weird overhang caused by the
crossover effect of germanium transistors changing with local heating one
supposes. On tests of course it looked good, but as we all know ears are
not test instruments.
Brian

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This newsgroup posting comes to you directly from...
The Sofa of Brian Gaff...

Blind user, so no pictures please!
"Phil Allison" wrote in message
...

** Hi all,

speaking of UK Vintage Hi-Fi, a Rogers Cadet II system turned up for repair
this week. Three units in a cardboard box - main amp, control unit and phono
pre-amp. See pic of similar system:

http://lab.sekaimon.com/img/fetch/i/321656407324

There was a little rust on the tops of the units suggesting storage in a
garage for some time, the white plastic buttons on the push switches had
disintegrated and the front of the control unit was discoloured. OTOH, the
large can electros had been replaced and all the valves were Mullard made in
UK. I doubt if they were the originals.

Both power amps were dead or good as. A check with a multimeter showed that
many composition resistors had gone high value or were open. Once they were
replaced, good operation was restored. The control unit needed similar
attention while the RIAA pre-amp was OK.

I guess the ECL86s are a bit worn as the most power I could get was 6.5
watts into 15 ohms. At 4 watts, THD was around 0.2%.

Internal wiring is very neat with no PCB or tag board used, components are
strung between pillars fitted to the chassis and travelling through in case
of the two pre-amps. Not the fastest way to build something, but it sure
makes repair easy.

Is the Cadet II "a poor man's Leak" or is that too harsh ?? Making the phono
pre-amp an option surprises me, limiting use to Ceramic PUs and radio tuners
for most buyers.

The ECL86 valves are no longer made and only NOS and used examples are on
offer - at rather high prices. Might be smart to rewire the main amp to use
EL84s and add a pair of ECC83s on the chassis. Replace the selenium
rectifier with a silicon bridge and you could get 10 watts per channel.



..... Phil