To All The Transformers I've Loved :)

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alexc

Well-known member
Joined
Sep 21, 2004
Messages
2,571
Location
Hobart
Just thought it was appropriate.

I especially love the :

- cinemag 2461nico mic traffo
- CJ eddi SE output traffo

As well as many more. 

 
:)

Just a quiet awe for the art and science of good magnetics  suddenly came upon me!
 
the      'cj  - eddi' is what I call  ..

  a single ended output transformer, good for 10 to 15 mA of standing current with a notional 8K primary and 600 secondary

made by CJ  of course!

It's a generous chunk of iron no doubt and it fits the bill in a good variety of such tasks ...  single-ended line output amps :)

...


What I like is the the reassuring heftiness, and it sounds very nice - quite cost competitive too, I thought at the time I bought - even for a far distant ship such as myself.

Super easy to wire into a very simple,  but seriously classy    ...  DI   

As always , psu build is very important and for best results, I like to remote well away from the business end  of the signal unit.

...


And the cinemag nico is just super duper. I mean really. 

As a 'mic head amp' output traffo, it has a lot of character, whilst retaining serious 'fidelity'.  It fits into a 'u47' build very nicely and as an adjunct, functions beautifully in a DI application too. 

With some good shielding (such as you find inside a tube mic), the small but well weighty cinemag nico growls with fidelity on bass, e-gtr, acoustic  .. no problem at all  :)

...

Nothing beats great magnetics, except thems with  great supporting active circuits  as well, like.  ;D

 
Jensens are fabulous magnetics people, of course.   

I especially like those larger dimensioned, well sheild-canned    4:1    line input units  ...  J something or other  .. 

When I measured them up the exceeded my abilities (and knowledge) to measure their limits.

I think that they sounded to me like the lowest distortion I ever heard on bass, e-gtr and acoustic.

..

In the output traffo end, for tube related gear, the Sowter push-pull (differential) units were the thing in the high end of investment.

And of course,  my 'working-mans fav' ..
      - the usa made  Edcor has found a place in just about half of everything 'tube' I ever built  :) 
 
Then there's the UTC made transformers .... I myself most only have had occasion to use their smaller A series and some other interesting types, plus a bunch of O series mic input units.

Love the form factor of the A series ...  it's art for sure ... in the hands of proper build persons, they can be very satisfying.

The O series are little marvels  ...  on mixer channel strips, one could do worse than plug into these!

For the larger UTC types, the real classics ..  well there's prolly lots of people out there that are 'experienced'.

I like to wallow in some examples of  the 'local related makers'  of these classics .. 

And it's a case of more than I have time to work with. Fine craftsmanship for sure,  at enthusiast entry levels.

Even so, the really nice local ones have well since elevated beyond reach of the marginally funded.
 
And no magnetics fan club would be anything without fine german engineering !

Again, several levels of physics and craftsmanship beyond my understanding  but not without a wow factor even in my short journeys into such.,

I started with Haufe, Pikatron and the occasional Neumann  from old circuit boards ...  they were my real education.

Beyond which it quickly gets into the stratosphere ...  but at times my own results even, were uncanny good.

 
Even,  only briefly mentioning Lundahl ,  is a dis-service  :)   

Theirs is a  great tradition of manufacturing, innovation and quality across the board.

Coolio  :)
 
Of course, no revel-ing in 'audio 'magnetics would be possible without those fine 'power supply' magnetics ..

I have been happy to use power supply transformer    and  inductor-choke  units from ..

..

- Hammond Canada
- Edcor,  Magnetic Components  and  Mercury Magnetics  Usa

and some

- vintage Japan hifi examples

and some modern toroids from those great German manufacturers - these guys are very well made.

Of course, I have a good many toroid builds from China (Proc) and Taiwan  as well as Hong Kong in the near Asia region.

...

All have been very reliable over these years ...  my favs, for PSU  are the Edcor  ...  the blue color just tips the scale or me.
 
As always, a case of more fine magnetics examples than I seem to have time for ...  'I fear I have become a steel magnolia'  ..    or something like that.

A case of spending more time in the orchard than anything else ..  and those crazy many-colored singing birds that just won't leave me alone!

My old merc sl  is 'crying tears' of  bird-poops from every chromed and mirrored  surf-erace  :eek:

Such is the price one pays to provide the 'blue wrens' a suitable  ..  'trysting' place.  And boy do they do so ! 

Lots of brand new baby wrens hopping about the nice paint work this year. Blue headed,  and be-pooping without restraint on my car, next year ...  one hopes  :) Believe it or not, they are the most prone to 'singing along'  when I whistle. 

Fearless little things they are, happy and righteous in their loud word and ever attendant collegues.  :)

..

Anyway ..  my all time fav traffos  ..  are the the local trimax units ...  the 'preamp' signal types beat anything I've tried, and the 'power amp' types (up to 30W or so ..) are similarly very satisfying. 

The only other power amp output  traffo I've been as excited about, [beyond my standard Edcor large frame series ]
..  was the Mercury Magnetics I used  in my 'super reverb' build.  Superb sound. 

I'd like to make a hifi stereo 6L6 build from these  Mercury Magnetics units 
  ..  if I could find a good 'can' or two and some goop to pot with.
 
It's transformer  play-time  again for the  local  2019-2020  season  :)

My hands have started to thaw out from the winter, so naturally it's time to  re-familiarise myself with the sounds of fine audio magnetics-ses  from the library.

First up is  ..  again ..  my perenial re-work of my  'Orange86' platform  - a well-loved mic/line/DI preamp unit  with 'powerdrive' tube line outputs.  :)

-  'ouncer' UTC-09 [ and shield - from an old us console 'audio-something or other' ]  as mic matching traffo role.
- big iron with sand-shield Trimax in each of  the line  input  and output  traffo roles [my emphasis]


Still working on the eq ..  I've been  trying various modules and so on and am ready for my next attempt on that veritable 'matta horn'  ..  My current take is a simple 'bax  treble/bass' module  (again)  like a japanese hifi -

I love the eq in the    'Yamaha A-500 Natural Sound' hifi amp and play around with bringing it to my own-diy  platform based on the brilliant Orange86 .  Typical 'Bass,  Treble, Loudness' knobs along with 'High Pass Filter' and  'EQ Defeat' push switches.

Heaven right ?  Especially in a stereo context, but that's another build again.

 
What part of the world you live? Were entering winter here..i count on my welder iron to keep the lab warm!

 
I live in the last civilised place north of antarctica ...  Tasmania  :) 

Today is the first warm day of the spring  (midway point of the season). 

I think there will be a handful of pleasant days before the dreaded arrival of the 'fire season'. It just switches like ..  well, a switch.

Cold 5mths, nice 1mth, fire season 5mths  and the other month is hibernation.

DIY season starts for me  21st Oct or there abouts when the hands thaw out  !
 
Another 'transformer I love'  is  of  the  'octal' mounting type family, from wayback in the day .. 

Specifically, the Altec Model 15335A  'line isolation' ...

It has a heavy steel can with 'tube octal' solid connector  ..  15K / 15K with a ground connection to the core.

When I tested these up, they were so good I kept all four of them (from mr. Emrr) for testing purposes only!

They advanced my whole 'tube thing' very much so, at a very reasonable price.

So - another 'transformer I love'  :)
 
Latest great combo of transformers ....  some Lundahl mic pre  types at front, some obscure but fantastic  and well hefty UTC  low-impedance output types at back ..

In between, some 'NYD ONe Bottle'  tube preamps  and  some  'JLH SE' discrete line amps  :) 

With  a stereo pair of  'Alps Blue Japan'  potentiometers as well as some  old school  'Triplett VU' meters - simply the finest MCI could buy!

All in a super-simple  4-2    'recording'  mixer     ...  I'm  'boxing  it up' in as I write  :)  My 'Jackie Blue'  build  ;D

- external psu unit with a 2m heavy  'umbilical' to a 1 RU psu - already complete and tested. tick

Done    'tubes and transformers on top'  [the pretty stuff]      with the    'pcb assemblies'  inside    [the functional stuff].

I've been 'hand measuring'  or REW -ing everything    'as I go'   

[re measuring for hum, noise and schmutz] and tested the critical subsystems with the completed PSU. 

All good to go :)  End of summer to finish and get in the dining room with this one  [Dec-Jan-Feb]  unless I have to attend to wild-fires and so on.

That aside, I'm hoping to slide this one thru without too much fuss!

[ some pics to  tee-be-dee still..]
 
When I think of the well loved  'Edcor Blue',  I can't help but think of my local plucky 'blue' bird ..  the Tas 'blue headed fairy wren'.

It's a blue bird that punches above it's weight, by a bug margin.  Kind of like the Edcor Blue frame series after it has journeyed half a world or more,  to get to my local p.o [postal office]. 

Edcor tube transformers  and the blue wren    [fav bird thing].

...

Here's a pic of my psu for the afore-mentioned  tube-discrete  4x2 preamp recording mixer  :) 

I call it 'modular' in the sense that both halves are identical  and so it can power 2x  tube+discrete  signal units. 

Super linear regulated HV (100mA),  filtered dc heaters  (2.5A)  and a filtered +24V rail (1.5A) on each side.
 

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And here's a pic of the basic scheme of what I'm blabbing about    .. 

-  building  this DIY around a super-fine Quad implementation of the 'NYD One Bottle Pre'  ...  by a talented GroupDIY Member who 'nailed' this pcb module most righteously.

Sans signal transformers in this pic  ..  of course - that requires a whole post and pics in and  of themself (s).

Suffice to say ...  Edcor PSU traffos, Lundahl Mic traffos  and my  'mystery dip' UTC  cylindrical traffos which are quite hefty!

This is meant to replace lots of legacy stuff, because I only really have 'quality time' for one system nowadays  ...  I'll be downsizing most of my gear.   

That's a polite way of saying [wrt to my own stuff],  'parting out and returning to the e*by ether'.

Fortunately most of my 'vendor purchased units'  are fully written down [old]  and/or sold off.

I figure to fully downsize so 'in style',  hence these last couple of  'personal choice'  diy builds  8)

...

As you can see, metal work is not my strong suite :)  but in my own defence, I like the 'organic inspirational method' of  diy 

ie.  just do it now, while the motivation is *on*  ..  worry about the 'value detail' later  :)      [the cry of the tinker!]
 

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