What's the score with Edcor trannies?

So I was cruising about and came across the Edcor transformer site, they have some pretty sweet looking PSU's and other transformers... 

but....

why are they so cheap!?? I searched the forum and no-one was saying to bad things about them... but seriously, they are done by order, and for a plate to line output transformer, (what I was looking for).... they are like 10 bucks... compared to over 100 for the cinemag equivalent...

why? the spec's look real good, good frequency response etc... what is wrong with them that they are SO cheap?

Cheap,,. cause Chinese manufactured (AFAIK)  and nice guys at the company....
No, they don't sound as good as a Cinemag at 10x the price...  but they don't sound 10x worse! 
They often sound good enough...
Freq response isn't everything...
They are at least a great deal on many fronts... trying things out... non-critical (sidechain) paths...  certain ones better than others... keeping a project cheap.... 

They are a good deal , and you can talk to them as well , call Brian there
and ask

FWIW, Edcor has "Made in USA" banners all over their website.

Best,

Bri

Yeh I saw that... (Made in USA)... that's what sparked my interest! I dig the look of those blue power trannies too... I think I'm going to give them a call, at that price there really is zero risk...  can make sure the circuit is firing, then upgrade as neccessary!

Check out their Facebook someone. Lots of pics of their factory, just a handful of people working there. Their windings are real simple, no old school tricks.lots of cnc machines.

You are the quality control.  I've had several mis-wired and bad examples.  Test them when you get them. 

I found the basic Edcor 600:600 to perform better than the $25 Cinemag that so many people use.  Much better low frequency response, and really clearer sounding.

They don't make anything terribly complicated, or shielded for the most part.  Be sure to compare apples to apples here. 

About the made in USA, is it possible all their parts and materials are sourced in China, and assembled in the US...?

Doug, good to hear, which version of the 600:600 is that?

The 1/2W is the one I compared. 

Note it's their matching series and to a certain extent, the new "PP tube OTs" that show the biggest price difference.  Their PTs stay pretty close to Hammonds, at least the 200-300 series.  Generally slightly better priced, sometimes equal, sometimes more.  They're certainly more colorful in the nice royal blue.

Just passing along a relevant update from their FB page that doesn't seem to have made it onto the website yet:


"Sorry but the following power transformers have been discontinued due to unavailable parts. XPWR003-120, XPWR016-120, XPWR071-120, XPWR073-120, XPWR098-120, XPWR099-120, XPWR101-120, XPWR120-240, XPWR143-120, XPWR170-120, XPWR171-120, XPWR174-120, XWR175-120, XPWR187-120, XPWR203-115/230, XPWR209-120, AND XPWR210-120.
In addition the distribution transformers WS600’s and the WA600’s.
We thank everyone for their support!"


Hope that doesn't include any of the preamp sized ones.

Edcors are most definitely made in the USA!

I have them in my La2a and all i can say is they sound absolutely awesome in it. And i mean really awesome.

I also have two G9's one with OEP's and one with Edcors and the latter one is way better, but that's partly because using Edcor XSM2,4k/600 is just better suited for the EC82 output tubes. But it sounds really good nonetheless.

I've never had a bad tranny from them.

They have a wsm and xsm series for input xformers. The xsm sound great to me. In an LA2A circuit the xsm sound superb. I can't believe it for their cheap price. In fact I use them over Sowters in that particular circuit.

I' have compared xs series with lundahl and sowter equivalent, my conclusion is that this series is absolutely hi-end

Mik.

The power supply transformers and chokes are also very good quality and very reasonable pricing.
Not to mention the larger tube amp SE and PP output transformers.

I use them alot.

Safe to say many of my projects wouldn't have lifted off without Edcor combo of wide choice and pricing.

The XSM work quite well in  quite a few places.

All of the higher value traffos have been fine quality wise.

A couple of xsm received with a coil portion nfg out of a bunch of 25 or so.

Here's a few in their natural habitat.

Cheers

Edcors are great for their money.  Plus they are willing to do custom ones at low volumes for guys like us...

pucho812 said:

Edcors are great for their money.  Plus they are willing to do custom ones at low volumes for guys like us...

Click to expand...

Agreed.  I had them wind up 120v replacements for LOMO 19A19 power supplies (the 220v originals tend to fail when used with step up transformers).  Besides a ~$40 design fee the transformers themselves are very inexpensive.

I bought Edcor trannies for Mic and Line inputs /output, they work great, Ive measured them with an AP SYS1 and they are not as low distortion as others, but they are very decent, bang for the buck if you ask me. I have my star-spangled EDCOR sticker on the wall.

tommypiper said:

About the made in USA, is it possible all their parts and materials are sourced in China, and assembled in the US...?

Click to expand...

I guess thats possible, maybe not all the parts but some parts at least, like the plastic parts
I'm not sure it's just a possibility

My only thing is I wish they would do a couple more models in their premium large audio lineup.   

For example, the cxpp 8K:600 in 10Wrms handling is very nice,  as the final in a trad tube limiter type of build - as good as anything I've tried in that role despite the relatively low primary impedance,  but on a decently hefty chunk of iron! .

I'd like to see that in an cxpp  '8K+8K with ct  primary' to '600+600 with ct'  and at more like 20Wrms power levels, to really pry open the whole tube hi-def limiter jobs   

And a further thing, to have some decently sized tube amp output transformers, like the secondary with 8ohms for speaker load plus a 'tertiary' winding, maybe 600ohms or so ...  for some really interesting tube amps in a 'studio monitor' context.

....

Anyway - my fleet of Edcors generally are going strong now for the longest time ...  kind of like old  'bluefaces' to me.

I have measured the performance of them reasonably over the years and they generally do better than I expected for high quality audio and power supply

Nowadays I use some *old* local and japan made units for signals, in my tube stuff - but it has taken some fairly decent old traffos to get better or similar.

I most definately have tried stuff that performs a lot worse than Edcor signal units -  the lower ends of the 'mass market' don't measure up as well particularly at the bass end of the audio spectrum -  as even the humblest Edcor do.

Having said that, there's also plenty of other really good choices out there too.