The empirical audiophile

The empirical audiophile: today I talk about output transformers and how they are the heart of the entire amplifier.

[@CarlVanDoren61]

Thx for sharing, build quality matters Doug Dale w Coda excellent builds 😊 Keen Ocean toroidals, Motorola BJT

[@airgead5391]

Awesome! Just a few hours after I decided to dismantle my own designed power amp using EICO ST 70 transformers. I thought they were very good, but after comparing it with my own designed power amp with Dynaco MK III transformers I knew why I couldn't get the result I wanted. Much respect for the Dynaco Iron. I had a power transformer made for 500 Euro by a Dutch company to get more power out of the Dynaco output transformers: It sounded awful, even when I specified to us M6X Iron.That transformer is now a doorstop. Be sure that choke are equally critical for the sound. Oh, and yes, own designed is really own designed: I use my own designed tube stabilization for the screen grid and discrete BJT stabilization for the negative bias.

[@NickP333]

100%. An amp needs a quality PSU. Parts quality means very little without a well designed overall circuit. Transformers made with quality materials, both power and OPT’s, are hugely important in the sound of a nice amp. Like Audio Research, the guitar amp co. Marshall also started using cheap Chinese transformers, and people figured it out immediately. They just didn’t sound right and apparently performed poorly. Not even close to the original quality. Skunky is brilliant. Love her approach and designs. She truly understands how to get it right and takes the time to do so. Definitely one of my favorite channels.

[@frankgeeraerts6243]

Real truth.........shared and experienced by experienced audiophiles. Skunky design does a very nice job .......there's a lot of interest by many musiclovers who can not exceed a pricepoint and afford those huge budgets on the market today. Chinese copper by the way is often recycled copper , we had lot's of problems with power transformers , .......they look nice but aren't good ( junk.) British Partridge were top .........Chretien in France........Tribute in the Netherlands..... Tamura and other Japanese transformers ( Tango , Sansui ) Best transformers I ever heard were Super Permalloy from Tamura....Partridge and Tribute. There are other good OPT ..........but all at a price . Good transformers seem to age like good wine......the windings destress over time.... Luxman also made /makes excellent transformers. So does Manley and the brands you told about. Thank you for sharing.

[@PlaybackMansion]

can confirm. Sansui, Tamura, Lundahl transformers are excellent

[@Ross1966]

The Dynaco transformers were excellent, save for that hum laden power transformer of the ST70 amp.

[@robertpeterson8640]

Very few consumer grade amps have input transformers. Pretty much only the ones offering balanced mode of connection. Do you mean power transformers?