Conference napalm::guitar

    No idea what it's worth..probably not much but those guitars had
    a real nice sound to them.....
    
    dave

    
    Breadwinners didn't begin production until about 1970 or 71.
    
    The Deacon was the same guitar, but set up with gold hardware and
    fancier inlay.
    
    The guitar has an onboard preamp (maybe the first such production
    guitar) with a three position switch giving various tone shapes
    (theoretically it allowed both Gibson and Fender-like timbres).
    
    The Ovation solidbodies I've played have been nice guitars but they
    have little resale value due to the fact that noone famous ever
    played them.  
    
    I'd say $250 with the case if it's in real good shape.  But the
    store probably wants more  8^) 8^)  8^)
    
    The models, as best as I can recall:
    
    Breadwinner/Deacon
    
    began in production around 1970, ran till about 1978
    Deacon XII 12-string model was also made

    Preacher
    
    double cutaway shape, like Les Paul Jr., twin humbuckers, passive
    circuit, stereo wired, rosewood fingerboard
    began production around 1978, stopped about 1984
    
    Preacher Deluxe
    
    Preacher with Breadwinner electronics, not stereo...from maybe 1980
    to 1984...12-string model was available
    
    Viper
    
    Les Paul shape, two single coils, passive circuit, not stereo,
    Tele-sounding; early models had maple fingerboards, later ones were 
    rosewood..also built from about 1978 to 1984
    
    
    Magnum Bass
    
    One large humbucker at neck, one single coil at bridge, graphite
    neck
    Magnum I and Magnum III were passive circuit, stereo wired
    Magnum II and IV were active circuit, mono, 3-band EQ
    I,II had radical body style (kind of Breadwinner-like) III and IV
    were more normal...made from about 1978 to 1984
    
    Ultra
    
    Started around 1986...these are just your run of the mill
    Japanese/Korean copy guitars
    
    

    There's one hanging in ACE LOANS (a local pawn shop that I frequent,
    looking for exceptional deals) than can be had for $125.00 - This
    is Colorado Springs, so the used market may be different than somewhere
    else. My guess is that it's not a collectable (sort of like the
    MARTIN electrics), and it doesn't have an exceptional resale value.
    This doesn't mean it isn't an good instrument, just not a popular
    one. I'm one into playing off the wall guitars (this seems to be
    occasionally done these days by the pro's also), and I find that
    I tend to sound just about the same on any guitar that I play. If
    you like what you see & can get a good price, you might enjoy the
    guitar.
    
               Jens_who_has_9_guitars_&_always_looking_for_a_few_more

        All I have seen are under $150 used.

Well, lo and behold. In my mailbox yesterday was a envelope from 
Ovation Instruments in which I found a copy of the Breadwinner/Deacon
owners manual complete with neck removal and tension rod adjustment
section. 

It goes on to discuss the new FET pre-amp and the "myriad possible tone
changes without loss of volume". there is no indication what FET stands
for. Anyone know or got a guess?

Following is an interesting chart on how to set your tone knobs and 
switches.


			FULL TONAL RANGE OF INSTRUMENT

Desired			Selector  Pickup	Tone		Notch
Sound			Switch			Control		Switch
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Allman Brotheres, Les	  B	  Bridge	3		E-out
Paul Bridge Pickup

Les Paul Neck Pickup	  A	  Neck		3		E-out

Doobie Brothers Sound	  B	  Bridge	0		D-in

Gibson SG		  A	  Neck		5		E-out

Fender Telecaster	  B	  Bridge	5		D-in

Loggins&Messina		  A	  Neck		4		D-in
Stratocaster

Funky, Soul Sound	  C	  Out of phase	4		E-out

Max Treble		  C	  Out of Phase	10		D-in

Max Bass		  A	  Neck		0		D-in

Ovation Sound		  C	  Out of Phase	0		D-in


	These Settings were determind at Ovation through a
			Marshall 50 Watt Amp


What do you mean no one famous. I think I saw Keith Partridge playing one
    of these!

Dave.

    FET's have operating characteristics very similar to vacuum tubes,
    and high input impedance.  When they were developed, it was claimed
    that they would be the best of both worlds (tubes and transistors).
    I don't know how that's panned out.
    
    Bob
    

    FET's are voltage controlled devices rather than current controlled.
    vacuum tubes are voltage controlled, bipolar transistors are current
    controlled. The prevaling theory being that since the FET was voltage
    controlled it would sound like a tube in the guitar amp application.
    In practice this is only partly true. They sound more like a tube
    than a bipolar transistor amplifier. The other advantage was that
    being solid state they were inherantly more reliable, operated on
    a lower voltage, thus saving the cost/weight of the massive
    transformers needed in tube amps to get the voltage up to 400-450v
    required by most tubes. 
    
    Part of the reason that solid state doesn't sound like tubes in my
    opinion is that fact that most are direct coupled to the speakers,
    allowing a greater bandwidth to the speaker and adding a great deal of
    high end harmonics that the transformer woudl have filtered out in a
    tube amp...ie: warmer sounding with less clash in the high harmonics. 
    
    I once built a fuzz box using fet's. it was better than nothing
    but not, I repeat not a great "tube" sounding fuzzer. 
    
    It seems like Sun was marketing amps with a FET preamp for a while on
    the theory that they sounded 'exactly' like tubes without all the
    hassles...they didn't soudn that good to me... 
                                                                         
    
    db2

    Don't know if this makes sense but the book says:
    
    Ovations engineers...determined that the mid-range of the musical
    scale (between 400 and 1200 cycles ps) produces less volume than
    the rest of the scale. The FET pre-amp allows the volume in this
    region to be decreased as well as allowing All controls to be volume
    compensated and electronically isolated. In most guitars, the tone
    control greatly diminishes the volume of the treble strings as wells
    as causing a slight decrease in the bass strings; but with our FET
    preamp, you enjoy a myriad of possible tone changes without loss
    of volume.
    
    How do the pre-amps of today match up in purpose? Or are they used
    more today for effects. 
    
    Ovation also goes on to say that the FET
    also solves the problem of conflicting amp impedance to give full
    pick up performance.
    
   I didn't know there was a problem, or is that why my strat hummmms.
    
    Dave who doesn't know anything about pre-amps.
    

    One of the disadvantages (depending on what you really have in mind)
    of direct coupled output stages, versus transformers, is that the
    transformer output stage can reach a point where the magnetic core
    becomes saturated, and can't transfer it's analog signals without
    distorting them in some way. The Fender Twin Reverb's unique sound is 
    most recognisable, when overdriven, in fact, many distortion boxes
    attempt to the a similar thing using op-amps, and diodes.
    
    My Ovation 12 string has a similar FET preamp, and while it's
    versitile, I find that I really want a good average acoustic
    12 string sound, and I've never been able to get it to sound the
    way I like it, even with the tone controls (you really need a
    graphic equalizer).
    
    							Jens

    The primary distinction between tube and solid state amps is that
    tube amps have crossover distortion as well as peak distortion.
    Here's a wave that shows what I mean:
    
    Solid state:    --+    +----+    +----+    +--
                      |    |    |    |    |    |
                      +----+    +----+    +----+
    
    Tube:           -+      +--+      +--+      +-
                     +-+  +-+  +-+  +-+  +-+  +-+
                       +--+      +--+      +--+
    
    The significant effect of this is that the harmonics are spread
    out into the even nodes as well as the odd nodes that you find with
    straight peak distortion. It gives a richer sound.
    
    Now, simply using FETs is not going to do it for you. You need a
    push pull amplifier with an AC coupled input, where the gate voltage
    saturates the transistor and causes the gate bias to swing.
    The effect is caused by a signal in the gate bias.
                  
    						John.