REDD 47 In/Out Transformers

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I don't mind people making their own EL84 Amp as long as it's not for commercial reasons; I believe in sharing information.  I used an EL84 in triode mode because it was the biggest tube I had in the box at the time.  That kind of parallel feed coupling is just about the least efficient way of transferring power, so I needed a beefy tube to get a decent output.  This is the original post:-
http://groupdiy.com/index.php?topic=42991.msg535231#msg535231

V1 gain 28, V2 gain 12.7, transformers cancel. Overall gain 51dB

I agree about the Beatles gear, I guess people regard it as some kind of safe benchmark.  I think the point about the REDD47 being an English V72 is a good one, DC and AC feedback, only thing missing is the choke.  EMI probably thought, why not make our own rather than paying for German gear.

Regarding Negative feedback, I believe Harold Stephen Black (of Bell labs) came up with the idea in 1927, but did not publish until 1934.  In the days before the internet, ideas moved slowly, especially revolutionary ones that were tricky to incorporate.  I think the development did not really take-off until after the war, when a lot of forces trained guys were keen to use new ideas.  I think 6-10dB does little harm, but to use it wholesale to correct bad design is a mistake in my opinion.  Its much the same situation with computer programming, to put it into a modern context.  In the days before massive memory and storage, programs were very efficient, now because memory and storage is no longer an issue we have bloated programs,  just look at how big the updates are getting.  Before feedback guys had to work hard to find sweet spots where tubes performed best.

Sowter make a good 7:1 for the REDD47 I believe, I used their 4:1 versions because I did not need a 200 ohm system.  That is another point, all their gear was 200 ohms in and out which must have affected the sound a little too.  This is what I mean about ideas travelling slowly, Bell labs came up with the 600 ohm standard in 1942 but Abbey road was still using 200 ohms 20 years later!

best
DaveP
 
Hi guys,

I've got a pair of Sowter 6389 1:8 mic transformers, The specsheet I have states "200 ohm Primary centre-tapped / Nominal 50k secondary".

Are these likely to be good for the inputs on a pair of Redd47 clones?
 
Has anyone tried out any carnhill transformers on the output of their Redd47?
Most posts seems to refer to either Sowter, Cinemag or Edcor.

The Carnhill VTB2290/VTB2291, VTB2380 & VTB2425 all look like possible contenders, To my untrained eyes.
Would any or all of those be suitable for this purpose?

I'd love to get a pair of Sowters for the outputs of my Redd but at nearly £100 each it's a bit out of reach for me at the moment.
I know Carnhill are highly respected, but don't have any first hand experience with them, However at £25 per transformer (inc. VAT) they're definitely appealing to me.
 
Hi!

My friend might sell me a pair of NOS Philips EL6805/51 input  trafos. They're 1:6, 500-1000ohm.  He has used them in a fantastic Ampex mx-35 clone.  Wondering if it makes sense to even think about using them in REDD 47...?
 

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I know it's been awhile, but this stuff never gets old!  If you are reading this, thank you!  Chime in if you can.

So the input Z of my sowter 9970 input tx is  200/10K  ??    This completely breaks the convention of high Z input for a mic source, no?
200 ohms is definitely not a high Z!  I can only assume that this is somehow part of the mojo of this preamp, but  if defies everything
I've read about feeding a low Z mic signal  into a high Z preamp input.  Am I misunderstanding this?

What is going on here?    I was going to put a continuous impedance 200 ohm attenuator on the front end between the xlr input and the transformer - seemed logical, but then I thought, 200 ohms on the input ??  Seems so crazy low for a mic load. 
 
dbonin, why aren't you out filling sandbags  :eek: ???

200:10k defines the impedance ratio 1:50 (voltage ratio is 1:7).

The grid of a tube has a very high impedance and this is reflected to the input.

If the tube grid had an impedance of 1M, it would reflect back to the primary as 20k.

200 ohms was the impedance adopted at Abbey road studios for their gear at the time.

Stay safe

DaveP
 
I'm in Charlotte, NC  so we are waiting to see where Florence meanders at this point.  Hopefully no sand bags needed here!

Dave, thank you so much!  This was like a light bulb moment for me, but I've still got some homework to do to fully grasp how this works.  Inductance, reactance, parasitic capacitance  - I don't know why I find this all so fascinating. 

I found some great white papers by  Ken DeLoria  from Lundahl that are a good 'soup to nuts' walk through for others wanting to understand more about audio transformers.

Thanks Dave!
Don

https://www.lundahltransformers.com/wp-content/uploads/datasheets/PSW_WhitePaper_Download_Chapter_1.pdf
https://www.lundahltransformers.com/wp-content/uploads/datasheets/PSW_WhitePaper_Download_Chapter_2.pdf
https://www.lundahltransformers.com/wp-content/uploads/datasheets/PSW_WhitePaper_Download_Chapter_3.pdf
https://www.lundahltransformers.com/wp-content/uploads/datasheets/PSW_WhitePaper_Download_Chapter_4.pdf
https://www.lundahltransformers.com/wp-content/uploads/datasheets/PSW_WhitePaper_Download_Chapter_5.pdf
https://www.lundahltransformers.com/wp-content/uploads/datasheets/PSW_WhitePaper_Download_Chapter_6.pdf

And this chapter from Jensen looks promising:
http://jensen-transformers.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Audio-Transformers-Chapter.pdf

DaveP said:
dbonin, why aren't you out filling sandbags  :eek: ???

200:10k defines the impedance ratio 1:50 (voltage ratio is 1:7).

The grid of a tube has a very high impedance and this is reflected to the input.

If the tube grid had an impedance of 1M, it would reflect back to the primary as 20k.

200 ohms was the impedance adopted at Abbey road studios for their gear at the time.

Stay safe

DaveP
 
The Jensen Audio Transformers chapter is the definitive work for basic understanding of audio transformers. Bill has a great way of explaining things that leads you step by step with minimal math.

Cheers

Ian
 
Hi, I dont want to start a new thread because I think all questions should stay together.
I also have nearly finished amyDual Redd 47 with G.A.R. PCB's. 
I have ordered Carnhills with Inputs 200/9K8 1:7 and Outputs with 9K8/200 Ohms.
Now my question is how to connect them correctly.

For correct recommandations I should use for Input 1:7 - should that means to connect  the two primary 2*400ohms parallel and two secondary windings 2x4k9Ohm serial to get the 200/9k8 Ohm for the correct Input Impedance with ratio 1:7.

And for the Output Transformers I should use the two 4K9 Ohm windings in serial usage to get the 9K8 Ohm and connect the two output windings secondary in parallel to get 200 Ohm with ratio also 7:1. Is that a problem to connect the two output secondary windings in serial to get 800 Ohm, that means a ratio of 1 : 3,5. The output signal should be louder or am I wrong?

Thanks for responds


 
Old post but I'm on the start of a REDD 47 build, so I found it as I'm actually sourcing parts and searching for good canditate trafos, I found that Carnhill is offering an input and output transofrmer which represent IMO a good and cheaper alternative to Sowter or Jensen. Check the VTB2381/2380 series... 1:5 and 5:1 ratios, 15K:600R, 600R:15K
 
oh what i'd give to have an RS stateside...
I've generally stopped using RS altogether, their stock range seems to have been getting "narrower" for a while now, and their prices can be very high for some things. Both of those problems could be easily overlooked in the past because of their "Free next day delivery with no minimum order" policy (that was almost as convenient as having a local store I could walk into), but they scrapped that policy at the start of the pandemic and it doesn't seem to be coming back.

I find that CPC has the best prices for a lot of items (CPC as in the division of Farnell, rather than the Communist Party of China....although I haven't tried asking the latter), by quite a significant margin in some cases, and their minimum order for free delivery is only £17.50+VAT (significantly lower than most of the larger companies), but I think they're exclusive to the UK (so your/shabtek's point still stands for folks in the US) and their stock range is a bit limited compared to Farnell, Mouser and Digikey.
 
Hello Friends!

Starting my build of this on GAR PCBs.
Most recommendations are many years old, what are the current good offerings recomendations for transformers?

GAR recommendations are:
Input mic : primaire 150, 200 or 600 ohm / secondaire 15k or 20k or 50k 1:10 ratio
SOWTER TYPE 9970
Jensen JT-115K-E

Output ligne : primaire 10k / secondaire 600 ohm or ratio 10:1 ratio
SOWTER TYPE 9980
Jensen JT-10K61-1M

Sowters are very expensive and have a very long wait period at the moment and Jensen is also pretty expensive and hard to get to the EU.
 
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