[quote author="CJ"]They have 36 CD's with the Feynman Lectures.[/quote]
man i love those discs for roadtrips, my old roommate/goodfriend has them on mp3. awesome lectures.
anyway.... check this out purusha.... if you hook up a transformer output micpre with a true, exact, 600 ohm ouput (source) impedance into the pultec, and your pultec is wired 2k4:2k4, than the pultec will, after that transformer, see 600 ohms (for the most part.)
If you have the same scenario, but with a a real and true 10k ouput impedance source, and put it into the pultec wired 2k4:2k4, the pultec, after the input transformer, will see 10k (more or less).
transformers dont have an actual impedance... the reflect whatever you put into them. HOWEVER... this "inductance" that gets brought up is a measure (in Henries) of the transformers core. If you have too few Henries, you will get bass loss and things like that *if* your output impedance in the stage before is too high.
so the number they put on the transformer is a measure of inductance really, and the idea is that if you stay under (preferably 1/10th, if you don't wanna do any serious math) the rated impedance, you'll be ok and you'll get full voltage transfer and your entire signal will pass correctly.
so consider those numbers maximums. now heres the clincher on passive eqs and the pultec filter section. passive eqs must be designed for a particular impedance for them to work correctly. the pultec filter section is designed for 600 ohms. if you are *over* that, at the point between the first pot of the filter and the secondary of the input transformer, it won't work the way it should, regardless of how the transformer is wired up.
the idea with this pultec stuff is that sometimes you'll be coming out of modern equipment that can't drive a true 600 ohm load. when that happens, the filter won't work correctly if the transformer is wired 1:1. but if you have a 10K impedance output, and you want the pultec to work the right way, you'll need a 10K:600 transformer. It coul also be 2k4:150. The point is that its a 4:1 ratio transformer, which transforms impedance to the square, so 16:1.
The point is insurance that regardless of the equipment that is right before the pultec, it will work correctly. You may have to makeup more gain because of the stepdown, but the usefulness of the eq in the long run with different gear will be way more worth it than compromising for available gain. gain is cheap. strange sonics, if you have clients to please, is not cheap.
i'm not the expert by any means, but i would do one of two things... either wire for max stepdown on the input transformer and get more gain, OR, wire it 2k4:2k4, but be prepared to drive it with gear that can (and does) drive 600 ohms.
a buffer box of some sort could come in handy in the latter scenario. something that steps down impedance and possibly also retores that lost gain. (line amp)
for the times when it sounds wierd and doesnt make any sense.
i tried...... tell me if i have to edit any mistakes up there