Rodgers 925 Speaker Cables and Manuals

[Guest]

I have just been the recipient of a fabulous Rodgers Oxford 925 and need a few speaker wire connectors. I am also looking for an owners manual and a spec book for the organ. If anyone has anything good to say about this instrument, please send your comments my way!  Thanks guys and gals!

[jbird604]

Re: Rodgers 925 Speaker Cables and Manuals



Shawn,</P>


Congratulations! that is one fine organ from the peak years of Rodgers analog. Just about every imaginable stop and more resources than all but the largest analogs ever built.</P>


At church I play on an 890, which is more or less the same organ without the festival trumpet and a few other stops. I have played on a couple of 925's though, and they can sound awesome.</P>


You can get an owner's manual from Rodgers Instruments LLC in Hillsboro, Oregon USA. Don't have phone number at hand, but google it and give them a call with your credit card in hand. They might sell you a service manual too, but I'm not certain. It will come in very handy if they will. If they won't, find a friendly Rodgers dealer or tech to order it for you.</P>


If all you need is speaker wire, common zip cord (lamp cord) is sufficient. However, if you are actually needing those special cables that run from the output panel to the remote amplifiers, you'll have to get them from Rodgers.</P>


I think the 925 has 6 channels of amplification in the console, and should have terminals for those channels on the output panel. You only need to run zip cord to the appropriate speakers for those channels to work. It may be that the festival trumpet is supposed to have its own amp and speaker, and if so, it won't work until you get the amp plugged in for that channel. But I'm not certain. It may work through one of the internal amps unless certain jumpers are removed, or something.</P>


The service manual should help you clear that up. A huge analog organ like that with so many ranks of independent stops would benefit greatly from a dedicated and knowledgeable voicer's work. It should also have all its (several hundred) oscillators correctly tuned. If you are up to all this, or if you just want to tinker, have at it, though. You can't do any permanent harm by playing with things in there. But the service manual will help you do a complete tuning and voicing in a proper manner.</P>


John</P>
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[Guest]

Re: Rodgers 925 Speaker Cables and Manuals



John,</p>

Thank you so much for answering my questions. I am very excited about the 925. The seller <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">did</span> say that the Trompette de fete (must be the same as the Festival Trumpet) had its own amplifier. Another question I have is regarding the speakers. This particular installation has the very large brown and black cabinets. Are there other speakers that I can substitute in place of these big MACHO guys or am I stuck looking like I collect speakers?</p>

Where are you located John and what is your dealings with organs? I just recently sold a Rodgers 333 Olympic Theatre Organ to a physician in the Los Angeles area. It came loaded with a truck load of speakers as well.</p>

Thanks so much again. I hope to chat with you again soon.</p>

Shawn</p>

[arie v]

Re: Rodgers 925 Speaker Cables and Manuals



Hi,</P>


I concur with John here. The 925 is really quite a good organ, and could give you great joy playing it. What is important though is getting it setup right, and tuning it, so that it sounds it's maximum potential.</P>


I think this model may even have MIDI, so you can add sequencers or MIDI modules to it.</P>


AV</P>

[jbird604]

Re: Rodgers 925 Speaker Cables and Manuals



Shawn,</P>


I'm in Arkansas and am the Rodgers, Allen, and Johannusservice tech for most of the state. I used to sell Allen organs, but have been solely a serviceman for the past 20 years. Also a church choir director/organist.</P>


RE: speakers. You can use any kind of reasonably heavy-duty speakers. My friend had a Rodgers analog of that era in his homeand was using some Peavey speakers. You do need a large one for the pedal channel, at least a 15" woofer. Since that channel carries only low frequencies and no highs at all, you might consider getting a subwoofer for it. But a consumer-grade subwoofer, such as used in typical home stereo/theatre setups or for computer sound would NOT work. There will be copious amounts of power coming from the pedal amp at frequencies down to 16 Hz, so a serious pro-grade subwoofer is needed.</P>


My friend's setup had a standard Peavey PA speaker on that channel, though, with a 15" woofer and a horn tweeter, and it sounded fine in a home setting.</P>


The other channels can get by with a smaller speaker system with a 10" or 12" woofer and some kind of tweeter. I have in recent years bought some "bargain" brand commercial sound speakers from one of the local music stores. There are several companies that producenice "clones" of the high-end sound system speakers with no name brand on the box or with thestore's own name. I've found some of these to be excellent for organ, in some cases better than the speakers that came with one.</P>


Keep us posted on what you do to it.</P>


John</P>
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[Guest]

Re: Rodgers 925 Speaker Cables and Manuals



Once again John, thank you for answering my questions. Your speaker information was exactly what I was hoping it would be. I am looking so forward to getting this instrument. A contributor on this posting &lt;AV> seems to think that this model has midi capabilities. Can you verify that for me? If not, I can certainly wait a short couple of weeks until the instrument gets here.</p>

Kindly,</p>

Shawn </p>

[jbird604]

Re: Rodgers 925 Speaker Cables and Manuals



Shawn,</P>


The 925 was produced over a long time period, from 1983 to 1990. During that time, MIDI went from being an obscure option to standard equipment, and Rodgers tinkered with various MIDI configurations. Your 925 should have factory-installed MIDI if the serial number is 92698 or greater.</P>


Early MIDI, though, is a far cry from later MIDI. Early versions of Rodgers MIDI were nearly useless for sequencing, for example, because you could not address the individual divisions of the organ through MIDI-in, and you could not change the stops with MIDI.</P>


But by the late 80's Rodgers MIDI implementation was virtually complete, and those organs have almost the same MIDI capabilities as today's digitals. Expression, stop changes, piston presses -- all essential console data is both sent and received.</P>


So, if you're lucky this one will have full-featured MIDI. If not, at least you have a marvelous organ with more color and variety than most new organs built today!</P>


John</P>
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[Guest]

Re: Rodgers 925 Speaker Cables and Manuals



Hi John! I still haven't received the 925 yet. I guess considering the organ is coming from the mountains of Colorado to the sunny beaches of south Florida, there doesn't seem to be that many trails between the two. I do however have a tentative date from North American Van Lines.</p>

My new questions is... does the organ with with any or most standard 8 ohm speaker? If I decided to use the instrument in my home, could I use something like Polk Audio or some type of Bose home audio speakers?</p>

Thanks for always responding so quickly.</p>

Shawn </p>

[jbird604]

Re: Rodgers 925 Speaker Cables and Manuals



Shawn,</P>


You can use any suitable 8 ohm speakers. You'll need 5 of them to be full range for the manual channels, and one needs to be capable of handling the pedals, so a subwoofer or larger full-range speaker would work on that channel.</P>


Be sure not to overdrive the speakers if you use consumer-grade units. The amps in that organ put outup to100 watts per channel, and organ tones consist of steady-state signals, which means a lot of amperage through the voice coils. Cheap speakers or tiny units made for computer use would probably burn up pretty quickly.</P>


Good luck! I know you're eager to have it.</P>


John</P>
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[Jennifer Saks]

John,
We just purchased a Rodgers Scarborough 110, and the seller threw in two speakers and an amplifier...I suspect they are not that great (have never run into the brand of amplifier--Denon--and I don't know about the speakers), but the organ is terrific. I get some crackles once in awhile from the speakers. Do you know what sort of speakers I need for this organ? This is for home use, although the organ came from a church. Do I need more than two? I know nothing about speakers, but I do know we can't spend a lot of money at this point. Any suggestions?