Vintage Asylum

Classic gear from yesteryear; vintage audio standing the test of time.

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RE: Just curious

Posted by Russ57 on June 3, 2017 at 19:17:48:
Mark, are you of the opinion that the better vintage transformers are superior to today's offerings? No judgement in my question, just curious.

Sadly, IMHO, I would say the engineers who understood audio circuits knew little about transformer design and the engineers who made transformers knew little about audio circuits. This typically lead to a transformer being built as cheaply as possible to meet a given "spec". Had things been different I suspect we would have seen more C-core's instead of E-I's....and maybe more split bobbins.

Sorry but I don't know which audio brands used which transformer brands. So I'll just name some transformer brands below. There are many other quality ones as I'm just going by memory. In many cases a given company will make transformers of vastly differing quality.

Western Electric, Partridge, Triad, Chicago, UTC, Peerless, Thordarson, Acrosound, Stancor, Freed, Sowter,......probably wouldn't look down my nose at Telefunken, Phillips, or Siemens....no idea who made the Sansui OPT's...maybe Tango??? but they were good.

So no shortage of names. IMHO the key is understanding the "spec" they were built to, the trade offs in transformer design, and ways to spot a better product. For example, I'd say one with UL taps and more connections for different ohm speakers is a better unit (because it is more likely to have more primary and secondary windings).