Viscount Jubileum 232

[Guest]

Hi Everyone. I'm new here. I'm intending to buy a used Viscount Jubileum 232 organ for home use. Is this a wise buy as I am on a tight budget and I'm not a handyman should it fail? I'm also concerned with the availability of spares. Is there anything else that I should know about this organ brand/model before I commit to buy? Please advise. Thanks in advance.

[jbird604]

I used to have a small Viscount organ at home, and I think it was that very model. I certainly enjoyed it. Nice keys, and decent enough pedals, stops, and other hardware. The cabinet was very plain and not even a real wood finish, but it looked ok. The sound, as with most any relatively modern but low-end digital, was excellent on individual stops but less interesting as numerous stops were piled on. Some nice extras, such as multiple temperaments, adjustable tremulant, master volume for the internal speakers, good built-in reverb, headphone jack.

It did sound better with some extra speakers added. Note that the internal amplifiers are not very powerful or heavy-duty. I only added a couple of Allen Presence Projectors up on top pointing at the ceiling, and they don't have woofers, thus didn't draw much current from the amps. If you want to add a pair of full-range organ cabinets (such as Allen HC-15 or similar), you might disconnect the internal speakers entirely and tie into the wires that run to the console speakers.

Overall, one of the better home organs I've owned. And Viscount is pretty good at supporting their products, even older ones, so repairs and parts shouldn't be a problem, at least in the near term. The one I had never needed any parts or service, though once it did get its memory scrambled into some kind of weird operating mode and I had to do a hard reset. (I don't even remember the procedure, but a Viscount tech told me what to do. Something like holding in a certain combination of pistons while powering up.)

[Guest]

Thanks, John, for the good tips. I'll be happy to leave the organ with its original speakers as this would be my first classical home organ. I won't attempt to do any modifications until I'm familiar with the entire workings of it.