Ha, not frustrated with
@soapfoot @Murdock or others that are attempting to help me learn more about the devices in question and explore what, if any, role they play in what I'm hearing. Little point in going meta and talking about the utility, logic, or potential motivations of other responses. Much respect especially to you,
@soapfoot, for hanging in there and not tacitly dismissing the topic.
Funny you should mention
@Marik. Note on his page on transformers, he speaks to essentially what
@abbey road d enfer mentioned in the reasons to use toroidals. But Dr. Fouxman also probably loses
@abbey road d enfer (and others) for stating on that page "we chose the toroidal transformers because of their unparalleled sonics, low distortions, and 3D sound qualities."
At the risk of belaboring the point (and I really don't intend to make OP feel unwelcome), I'm afraid there's kind of an inherent potential for conflating correlation/causation here.
If someone is using toroidal transformers in their ribbon mics, they're probably not just copying historic designs with inexpensive off-the-shelf parts. Maybe this means they're also more likely to optimize (or even just be careful with) other aspects of design and manufacture, like ribbon tensioning?
Excellent point!
I've made a similar point with vinyl pressings in years past. I.e., to my understanding, there's no good technical reason that a 180gram record should sound better than one of say 120-140, but I suspect the claimed higher fidelity is in part the result that, with the higher costs charged by the plant, such pressings
may be given a greater level of attention to detail in the actual pressing or in QC. Maybe
@Brian Roth can offer thoughts as to this theory of vinyl weight and quality, lest he thinks this thread is still mired in some theistic nonsense.
Back to what you mentioned earlier Brad, I can likely build two pairs of 847 mics with tx as the only difference. I don't have the manufacturing chops, equipment, or capital to do the same with ribbon designs. Still, hopefully it will offer some insight. The budget for this hobby (and the intrinsic nature of 'hobby') means this won't happen for many months, but these builds are now on my list. This month my desk (and CC balance) is full of SCA pres!