Pignose amp design history

[TooTall]

I'm interested in the design of the original Pignose 7-100 amplifier. According to several sources, the product was designed by Richard Edmund and Wayne Kimball. Both were in the graphics business and not likely circuit designers.

Edlund mentions seeing a 5W amplifier at Pacific Radio (A Burbank CA Electronics store). It is unclear, but likely, that this was a pre assembled amplifier circuit board that he housed in the famous English leather case.

At that time, Lafayette Radio, Archer, Olson and Calrad all had similar products with very similar designs.

The Pignose I have (early model) has 'Japan'
Etched on the trace side of the circuit board, making me think it was an OEM module.

Can anyone here shed some light on this?

Thanks in advance.

[J M Fahey]

Original Pignose amp was a *cheesy* power  module, think a somewhat beefed up transistor radio power amp, bought premade at one of many Electronics suppliers.

Post original Pignose amp schematoc here and I will search and find a commercial si ila amplifier for comparison.

Pignose was 99% COOL visual design and idea, 1% Electronics.

And the right product at the right moment, there was nothi ng like it.

Today any 10W practice amp is better.

[g1]

Here's one version of schematic.  4 transistors, driver transformer, output transformer. 

[Tim Escobedo]

In the 90s, I went into an electronics store in Hollywood, and saw some amplifier boards hang packaged for sale that looked suspiciously like the circuit in my own Pignose. Same 4 transistor transformer coupled module, looked like it would be a drip-in fit. I believe it was Calrad branded packaging and sold as a 3 or 5 Watt amplifier module for less than $10 as I recall. Interestingly, there was also a larger 10 or 12 Watt version sold right next to it for a few bucks more that looked more or less like the exact same circuit, just scaled up. 

I agree, as an amplifier, the circuit was pretty antiquated well before the 90s when I saw it, and I've no idea why one would want such a thing. Except maybe to drop in replace an identical failed module.