bizarre ribbon mic transformer question

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ubertar

Well-known member
Joined
Apr 18, 2005
Messages
62
Location
queens, ny
Ok, this is going to leave you guys scratching your heads, thinking: "why the f would anyone want to know that?", but here goes:

does anyone know how I could buy a bunch of the ribbon mic transformers they use in the cheap Chinese ribbons? I've emailed Ningbo Alctron and Ningbo Dowell (nb electronics) but have gotten no response.
 
[quote author="rodabod"]You could try asking Fum (Jon). He's a nice guy.[/quote]

Yes, he is. Actually, quite a while ago I asked him about the ones he had left over from doing the mods-- he doesn't get them with the Chinese trannies in there anymore, but did in the beginning, and had a box of them left. He generously gave me a few to experiment with. He gave me a price for the remaining ones, but it was more than I wanted to spend at the time. I have no idea how much the factory in China would want for them.
 
Things change (as always). :grin: How many do you need? (shoot me an email)

ju
 
Actually, it turns out that my app will work better with some changes to the specs of the transformers, so I really need to contact the manufacturer of the transformers, not the mic manufacturer, to see if they'll do custom work. Any info would be appreciated. I've tried alibaba.com but couldn't find anything, and have no idea where else to look.
 
good luck.
you will need to buy 7 million units, and wait 6 months til the next china run.
this is how it works over there, thats how they get the price down to 1/10.
huge factories.
small orders are treated like a spec of dandruff.
just flick it off your shoulder.

also, if your order gets screwed up and you need servicing, good luck.
wait another year, like i do when our "engineers" screw up the blueprint.

find another way to get ribbon xfmr's.
and watch the DCR!
 
funny coincident, i was just about replacing the transformer in a thomann ribbon with a homegrown one...
let me know your specs, maybe i could help you.

thomann_ribbon.jpg
 
http://www.edcorusa.com/products/transformers/rmx/rmx1.html
It is difficult to find lower prices for ribbon transformers, especially for Q80 nickel cores.
They will also custom wind for a tiny $20 setup fee.
 
true, thats incredible reliable.
did you try this ribbon transformer? i wonder whats the secondary´s dc resistance, and if the primary is sandwiched.
did they put the same treatment (laquer) to the lams? the chinese core is put together with soft wax.
 
I'll definitely look into Edcor... I've noticed them before. One Chinese company has given me a decent price on the stock ones, and said they could make them with my specs (just heard from them on that this morning). I don't need 10 zillion, but probably 100 to start, and if I can get distribution/demand, than hopefully thousands. This is for a non-mic application, and ideally the same company will not only provide the transformers but manufacture and package the whole product. I haven't committed to anything yet, so I'm very open to ideas, and keeping it in the US would be great, but probably cost-prohibitive... but I'll see what Edcor's bulk prices are like, and if they can do the other stuff. Thanks, everybody, for your help.
 
watch the wire tinning.
i think they are using an alcohol lamp to strip off the enamel, instead of a solder pot.
our xfmr wires are breaking like crazy.
they have the labor, but the production process.....sheesh!
 
ubertar,

Would it be possible to get to know the name/contact-details of said company? I've tried hard the last three months to get in touch with any Chinese company able to wind audio transformers, but without luck..

Jakob E.
 
[quote author="ioaudio"]funny coincident, i was just about replacing the transformer in a thomann ribbon with a homegrown one...
let me know your specs, maybe i could help you.
[/quote]

Nice work! Did you read my two part article on modding the RB-500 in Sound & Recording? The second part (in the past issue) included a tutorial on re-winding the stock transformer for active ribbon operation with an impedance converter.
 
[quote author="CJ"]watch the wire tinning.
i think they are using an alcohol lamp to strip off the enamel, instead of a solder pot.
our xfmr wires are breaking like crazy.
they have the labor, but the production process.....sheesh![/quote]

What company are you using? For what mics? I don't come here all that often, so I can't match everyone's business to their name yet, of those who have a business. This is definitely one of the most helpful forums on the internet... a lot of knowledge in this place.
 
[quote author="ioaudio"]funny coincident, i was just about replacing the transformer in a thomann ribbon with a homegrown one...
let me know your specs, maybe i could help you.

thomann_ribbon.jpg
[/quote]

That green one looks exactly like one of the samples the Chinese company sent me. Jon sent me one that looks the same too, but there are fewer windings on the ones he sent-- I think they changed their specs over time; these were older than what I just got from China. It seems there's just one company making all the transformers for all the Chinese ribbons, and there are just two types of the transformers.
 
sowter and lundahl also have two types for most common source impedance classes like 0 - 0.5 ohm an 1 - 3 ohm, depending on the ribbon design.
in addition the lundahl has 4 identical primary coils for matching the impedance (connecting series/parallel)
 
I just replaced the Chinese transformer in my ShinyBox 46 with the Cinemag 9888. It's very niiiiiiice. :cool:

I found out that the case for the Chinese ribbon transformer is a nice fit for the Cinemag 2480 that is going into another tube mic. Bonus.
 
[quote author="ubertar"] It seems there's just one company making all the transformers for all the Chinese ribbons, and there are just two types of the transformers.[/quote]

No, there are at least three or four different Chinese ribbon trannys.

There is a double bobbin UI-core transformer as found in most of the big RB-500s, a single bobbin high ratio transformer (approx 1:80) in some other RB-500s, a lower ratio single bobbin transformer in the RM700 and a slightly lower ratio single bobbin transformer in the RB100. I'm referring to the Thomann T.bone line (www.thomann.de) as these are Chinese ribbons I know best.
 

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