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Thorsten wrote:

I wonder, which specific line level interstage transformers have you tried, it would have to be ALL of them in order for your statement "there are non" to hold... ....But, what specifically do you object to in these transformers?

Applications: To make a properly sounding and really LF frequency capable interstage transformers it would require making it huge with very large inductance that makes it very susceptive to pick all type of problems in a chasses.

Applications: although a transformer independently might measure quite nicely but being placed between the stages it is a perfect second order high pass filter. A interstage transformer is a filter; an output transformer is the filter…. How many filters should be connected in series within one single amplifier? What happen when the slops of the different filters within an amsp come together and begin roll of with very high order at stop band?

Prejudicial disbelieve: transformers are complicated and there are very many variables that would impact their sound. The core material, the winding techniques, the wires, the laminations and so on and so on…. It becomes even more complex when a transformer was placed in a circuit and begin to operate in the real world, when huge amount inductances, capacitances and other sometimes none-linear forces become influential and begin to talk with the rest of the circuitry.  How methodologically correct to assess all of it? How to assess if the transformer is as good as it could be in the given application of the given circuit? A capacitor, quite in contrary, is a self-contained encapsulated element, relatively simple with juts two parameters: material of conductor and material of dielectric. It is very easy to select a correctly sounding capacitor and dance around it’s capacity (no pan intended). Also, a capacitor is mush more “passive” element then transformer. It might affect sounds but it has much less impact to musicality and complex dynamic form of sound reproduction.

Practicality: T. I kind of do not what to sound that I religiously disbelieve in transformer coupling. A properly made transformer should be very interesting but what practical way people like me for instance have to approach those “properly performing transformers”?  I spent quite a lot of tine until I found the phonocorrector step-up transformer that I could lived with and it was a pure accident that most likely will not happen again. Also, I know some serious engineers who constantly bitch that if they come up with a very demanding transformer specification then there is no place when those transformers might be made. And I’m talking about the old generation of engineers with deep international connections who have been doing Sound for 40years! The point is that in the world of transformers we get semi-accidental “as is” result and then juts deal with what we’ve inadvertently got.

My personal experience with transformer coupling was during to my excrements with making “absolutely transparent buffer” when I used Lundahl amorphous transformers. The results that I was getting were constantly less interesting then with best capacitors I had. However, what turned me off very aggressively that the worsening that I experienced with transformer was in a very specific direction. You see, I do not think that I have any reasons or justifications to express my technical opinions on the subject. I  (mostly) do not dive into the minute behavior of circuits (letting the people who more qualified then me to do it) but rather I observe the final result of a topological solution. Interestingly that any single installation that I have hear when the transformer-coupling was advocated had that specific indispensable signature, something that I might characterize as “cold throat sound” or “breathing in a dusty room”. The epicenter of it was my visit the Japanese Sacuma-san when I was listening of his amplifiers with 342 transformers. I can tell you that I was able tofeel that “dry sandy suffocation” in sound each time (to more or less degree) when I heard the transformer-coupled designs. Not to mention that each time when I see a transformer-coupled amplifier I for whatever “mysterious” reasons observed in their listening rooms acoustic systems with LF capacity of the bookshelf loudspeakers. I personally think that problems that I experience with transformer are the ultra low frequency related, as the ULF in transformers do not modulate the necessary “modulation” in the rest of Sound.

Still, if I have a change to have in my disposal unlimited knowledgeable-enough engineering recourses, the unlimited assess to all necessary materials and assembling techniques, unlimited amount of money and time I would wiling to contribute to the projects and if I have people who make transformers did it not juts for money but rather as a LABOR OF LOVE than, knowing what I know about sound, we might come up with a properly sounding transformer – a transformer that would do not only a proper RENDERING OF SOUNDS but the proper transformation of MUSICAL REALTY. I have no such resources and I have not seen any properly performing transformers juts because I did not see any objectives that I might respect among the transformers manufacturers. It is not only because the people who manufacture the transformers have no capacity to perform the musical assessment of their own “reality transforming machines”. The transformers that are being made are juts the devises that are comfortable for people to manufacture and nothing else.

Tell me T, if someone would approach those guys form S&B, agree to pay much more and would demand something very specific and something that is way beyond what S&B put dally to the dealer’s inventory shelves then what S&B would do? Most likely they would send those “someone” to hell of juts take money and do whatever they feel should be done instead what is necessary to do. How good driver would you be if a rack and pinion of your car has own brain and own idea in which direction the wheels of your car should be turned while you are driving?

Anyhow, I am not disbeliever; I’m just a pragmatic realist or a person who was not convinced yet. I would love someone prove me be wrong, I am wiling to pay for it. But so far a really good cap is a way to go for me.

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