I just finish a 2-week restoration of 2 Philips BR397A. One from Juvenal and the other from my own collection. Juvenal's set was electricaly in a very good shape but, with a very bad looking and broken cabinet. On the other hand, mine was electricaly in a bad shape and a nice looking cabinet.

To get them back to live, I got a third set to supply parts. Cabinet and knobs went to Juvenal's. Tone control, xfmr, rect socket, a couple of resistors, and a AZ1 tube went to mine.

I replaced electrolytics, some film caps, and power cord. After a very good cleaning, a new cabinet, and knobs, Juvenal's set was looking great and playing with a very rich sound.

Mine gave me some headache. In the same way, I replaced electrolytics, some film caps, tone parts, and a couple of resistors. To my surprise, the xfrmer was 5V rect rather than 4V required by AZ1. Besides, the plate voltage was not enough to run an AZ1. Well, I finished the work with a pair of diodes to do the rectification job. The set works great, but I'll keep searching for an original or even compatible xfrmer.





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