Both Van der Veen https://mennovanderveen.nl/index.php/nl/producten/other and Thermionic Labs https://www.thermioniclab.com/en/headphone-transformers/ make dedicated headphone transformers. Van der Veen has a sterling reputation, not sure about Thermionic Labs. TL also says they can do custom builds as well.
Compared to what? They seem reasonably priced to me for the quality. You can't compare their HiFi offerings to made in China, or someone's line of guitar replacement transformers.
270 euros for a pair of bitty headphone output transformers is pricey. Transcendar was less expensive, but they're not winding transformers any more....
Thank God for Ecor and Hammond: affordable, measure well and sound great for low $$, Edcore being especially affordable. Lots of people on the forum despise them and at the same time do not have the data to support their opinion. Strange.
A pair of Electra-print PVA-2n line-level transformers cost $240 back in 2021. One of Jack's stated reasons for closing shop some time after was too high raw materials costs.
Well, everyone else just put their prices up to cover the increase in cost, so there must have been another reason. Maybe he just didn't want to do it anymore?
jeff
The cheap Edcor open frame XSE models do not measure well. They really are guitar use only and roll off big time at 100hz. The GXSE, especially the 15W version do perform well. I just tested these in a video, the cheap model is junk for HiFi use.
Likely because he got tired of people complained about the cost of decent output transformers, comparing his to guitar amp, useless for HiFi transformers and just threw in the towel. I can't blame him, so many folks are looking for stuff that performs like $$$$ but are only willing to pay $.
I only bought a few little items from Jack but he was friendly, helpful and had a good sense of humor
That's not what I see. Expecting them to pass 15 watts at 20 Hz will result in some serious saturation which sounds quite nasty. Run them in the 5 watt and under range and they do quite well. I spent several hours last night cranking an UNSET based SE amp running 6AV5 TV sweep tubes through a very old pair of XSE15's into my Yamaha NS-10M Studio monitors which are in the 12 to 20 ohm range below 100Hz. These things ROCK! The results were reported in post #583 here:
https://www.diyaudio.com/community/threads/unset-beta-board-build.376124/page-30#post-7741108
Since the setup was still on the bench, I measured the 3db roll off points at 2.5 watts of output. They are 18Hz and 56 KHz.
Attachments
I have a couple of Edcor XSE 5k transformers left over from my initial take on the "Shrine" amplifier. It may prove interesting to pair them up with my 6BM8 amp, as I'm expecting less than 5W out of that little peeper.
I’ve gotten some really nice SET outputs from Hayboer. The ones that I get have no UL tap but I’m sure they will make those too. I run my KT150 SET amps with them and am very pleased. Ive used them in four amps so far and everyone that I sold them to is very pleased. They will do them to your spec for primary with dual outputs for four and eight ohms. No affiliation, just happy!
I plugged one into a Musical paradise MP301 (after doing some circuit mods) and this is the results I saw, over 10db down at 20hz with a XSE15 compared to 1db down at 20hz for a GXSE15. Maybe the older versions were different? This was a current production model.