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Single Ended Triodes (SETs), the ultimate tube lovers dream.

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RE: Ignore the doubters!

Posted by dave slagle on September 21, 2015 at 07:26:02:
I am a big fan of raw data collection and feel anecdotes (like the pierre sprey wire direction test) are very important to remember. The thing I don't like (and most people take issue with) is the assigning of merit (good or bad) to a particular data set.

It typically goes like this. I listen to some vintage WE transformers and am amazed by the wonderful sound. Some of the claims mad as to why are:

-Age annealed laminations
-Age annealed wire

To me (assuming the transformers really contain magic) those just focus on the obvious... old wire old core but discussion rarely goes beyond that into something that seems a bit more plausible. As the laminations go it is reported that WE used "power supply" iron in many of their coveted designs. The key factor for me in this is WE (allegedly) used EI laminations and PS lams are a non-oriented material. The supporters of C-cores claim their superiority because the grain is always in line with the core material in a wound tape core but in a Stamped lamination the uptight of the "E" is always cross grain. The thing to note here is if you use a non-oriented material (like PS iron) the claim of superiority of C-cores by optimized grain direction goes away. (the one thing C-cores allow you to do is very thin laminations but that is for another day)

As for the wire. With the increasing popularity of recycling of copper the thing I wonder is if older wire is simply of better "quality" It seems entirely possible that wire that was mined and refined 50 years ago has a consistent nature whereas the recycled copper of today comes from a questionable pedigree. Sure recycled copper can be refined to the utmost of purity but at what cost and is it ever done in todays money driven economy?

Anyways.... got a bot off topic there.... As for your silver experiment, I say give it a try and send it around as a blind test to see what happens. In other words collect the data then have a statistics guy crunch the numbers. I think raw data and statistics can be both powerful and honest and I was shocked how increasing the sample size cahnges things. 6 out of 10 pretty much makes it a coin toss, 58 out of 100 is similar but by the time you get to 550 out of 1000 it starts to become meaningful even thought the difference in percentage has gotten smaller.

dave