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Hey @ChrisMartin , nice to see you back posting. There might be others from Germany here that could add to or refute my experience, but since I like languages and culture, I'll comment on the Germans and Latin connection. I did have a friend when I lived in Germany who named his kid Felix, which is Latin derived. I found there was some base knowledge of Latin in general in the populace and it was likely taught in the higher level high schools. German itself does have some "borrow" words from Latin, most notably Kaiser=Caesar.
Historically, after Charlemagne/Karl der Grosse/Karolus Magnus was crowned Holy Roman Emporer in 800 AD, the German kings (in various lineages) held that title for many hundreds of years and the kings of Germany/Franks/Lombardy/Lorraine/etc would typically travel to Rome for their coronation. All of those royal "houses" were Germanic as we consider it today. So there are historical connections between the 2 cultures that wouldn't necessarily rule out the use of Latin for a brand name. What was interesting to me was Murray saying that RCA connectors didn't show up until the 1970s, especially with such a large US military presence in W. Germany. I would have expected the Base Exchange/PX system would have stocked audio equipment with RCA jacks included. Guess that didn't filter out to the local community.
Back posting? Well I did notice that the snowflake who got upset when I referred to him as a snowflake (thus proving my point anyway) has long since disappeared from here, and decided the abuse from a so-called moderator must have been down to his misunderstanding of my non-American (and non-PC) humor. Anyway, I have often kept in touch with others on here re ongoing guitar research and thought it might help to keep everyone participating in the discoveries and discussions.
As for the German/Latin question, yes of course there would have been some history, the most obvious use in modern times I could think of is the car company Audi which is the Latin word for listen and was translated from the surname of the man who started the company August Horch, being the German word for listen. But I did wonder for a minor maker of musical accessories of which no history is known could a Latin name imply origins in a European country where the language is more Latin-based. Just guessing though.....
Christiann Yves Guen sent me a friend request on FB (has nearly 5000 friends, so I shouldn't feel profoundly honored). He has quite the library on vintage European electronics. I sent him the same photos to inquire if recognized, but no response yet.
"The No RCA phono connectors until..."remark came from Dirk Wacker.
Google is garbage-filled with AI guesses so pathetically now I immediately scroll past it's Overview hogwash.
If I recognize dead-wrong info immediately when researching a topic I already have knowledge of, but seek more, I can only imagine how untrustworthy it must be for 'ignorant' searches.
When it's not dead-wrong, it's frustratingly misleading. I used to think Google last year was 80% valid. I feel like it's 20% now. I'd prefer to be told it can't find anything, over delivery of something it pulled out of its digital hindquarters or was fed by Bing to throw it off the trail.
Unfortunately, you are right. The ratio of correct info against any random guesses or deliberate misinformation is slipping away daily. Unrelated to anything guitar, another of my interests is researching and writing about the more obscure corners of the classic car world and I make sure I check ALL facts thoroughly before publication. Thus, I have found so many cases where some fairy-tale has become fact just by repetition.
As an example I wrote 'Alfa Romeo Alfasud - The Complete Story' back in 2021. If you search Google with these four words - Alfasud rust Russian steel - you will find so many references to old stories that these cars rusted badly because they were built with recycled Russian steel. This myth has been around a long time, it appears to have started in the British motoring press maybe back as far as the 1980s and gained traction such that many respected writers in the classic car world have repeated it and so with their - well-known - names attached to the story it must therefore be fact, yes?
Well no, when I took on the project I too believed this story must be true but on digging deeper and through contacts in Italy I found government documents confirming that the factory near Naples was contracted to buy steel from the Italsider steel mill at Taranto as both factories were funded by the same government owned bank to provide decent paying jobs in the impoverished south of the country. Apart from repeated hearsay there is NO evidence of any deals with Russia. There is however a rock solid paper trail detailing the history of the factory and the Italian steel industry. Further a report was published by Alfa Romeo themselves written by their chief quality control engineer following his investigations into the rust problem and he laid the blame squarely at poor working practices, short cuts in the painting processes, untrained staff, high absenteeism, frequent strikes and other internal factors confirming there was nothing wrong with the steel supplies. My book has hopefully gone some way to correcting that history but how much more that we read is true? And that is just one of many such myths I have shot down.
The point I am making is that the above story is typical of how myth can easily become fact and as the modern world relies more and more on Google or similar online facilities for information there is nobody behind your computer screen checking facts. It is all about speed and laziness, why dig through a dusty old library or search for government files and records, or track down reliable primary sources when a quick online search will give us all the answers.
And consequently the misinformation multiplies and spreads such that we can no longer be sure anything we read or are told is true.
I had heard 70's Fiat's were rust-prone due to the factory being near salt water (I didn't know that was a thing), & it doesn't explain certain eras of US cars having paint problems, being near a freshwater lake or two...
On the Fidelis pickup, Mr. Guen recognized it and is going through his library of literature...and info is better than nothing, and the evident problems are in the 'control box', not the pickup. But the whole mess has to come off & I want to see what I can learn first.
Inside, what a mess. A piece of black foam and sticky adhesive. Underneath, a combination of hot glue & a hard, brittle white potting material. The foam and hot glue were easy to get out. The white stuff, no.
The pots say RADIOHM Paris. That company is or was in Montreuil since 1933.
I made a schematic I am not 100% happy with but it's a start. The pots like one is intermittent, and one does nothing.
The component that must be a capacitor looks fractured, but the pots don't measure intermittently so it COULD be the capacitor.
The guitar has two long cracks on the top that need stabilization. I'll have it looked at...
A Yves Guen S51 is going on while I figure out the brittle white material.
Is the pickup magnet testing ok for resistance? Can't you build a vol/tone box of your own choosing?
.
It is French. **** sent me a photo of an ad for it, on what looks like a DiMauro Chorus.
Pickup is good. Disconnected from pots it's 5k (4985) resistance and 2.7 H inductance at 50 mV test. Pots, interestingly, are 53k and 57k, which I'd call 50K +/- 20% which was common tolerance for pots. They are linear or close to it, estimating half the rotating by hand...close enough. They seem good by ohmmeter opinion. I'll have to listen before I decide how to button it up.
CY Guen sent me a secret photo of his pots and his capacitors have the same proportions but different (modern) markings. He showed me a 0.047 uF modern value. I could read 05 on what was left of the fractured one. Probably 0.05 before 0.047 became modern value.
I picked the potting materials out & cleaned other unpleasantries out. Control box is brass, maybe silver-plated. I have to re-solder the end plate opposite the output jack. I'm just going with a metallized Mylar (MKT) radial capacitor because it is small. I don't believe in tone cap mojo when it's diverting signal to ground. In series, like in an amplifier, I might be fussier, but there is nothing wrong with MKT, compared to ceramic or paper/foil. I am not going to look for polypropylene. I already have a suitable replacement.
I really hope the pots sound quiet. They seemed fine until I noted the tone control did nothing. They are not going to be easy to replace if not. They have no threaded bushings. They are mounted by solder to the metal box! 20 mm diameter pots with 6mm round, 6 mm long shafts & no threaded bushing. I've never seen anything like that, but it was obviously made. Instead there is a brass disc 7/16" or 1/2" or 12 mm diameter that centers the pots in the control box holes. That is larger than anything I have every seen. If there wasn't such large holes in the control box, other pots would be relatively easy to use. But for now, there is only one bad part that explains the failure I observed. (Just not why).