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    Building, troubleshooting and testing of these amplifiers should only be
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    the safety precautions around high voltages.

Best 300B SE OPT?

These are custom ITs made for me by Monolith Magnetics and cost about 3x what the LL1635:20mA cost to be completely fair. They are also much larger physically speaking, probably twice the size, and bi-filar wound with twice the primary inductance (60H).
If nothing else I feel pretty confident in recommending Monolith products, beyond pleased.

cause of you , i have S9 summit MonolthMagnetics on the way :)
in a couple of week , i will see how they will compete with the lundhals..

( ps: my pair of LL1664AM are on the swap meet)
 
cause of you , i have S9 summit MonolthMagnetics on the way :)
in a couple of week , i will see how they will compete with the lundhals..

( ps: my pair of LL1664AM are on the swap meet)

I'm tempted by your OPTs! But I need good bass, since I have 6" Alpair 10 full-range units in my speakers and they are rather minimal on bass anyway.

Looking forward very much to hearing your views on the S-9. You are doing good work for all of us reviewing these OPTs.

I'm tempted by the ETU-1, simply because it's cheaper. Were you not also tempted by that one? Same core, but Mylar rather than PTFE dialectric.

http://www.monolithmagnetics.com/im...gle ended output transformer prelim rev01.pdf
 
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I was not talking about bobbins, windings or core materials. I was talking about *number* of core pieces. As far as I'm aware, all reputable output transformer manufacturers who employ C cores use *four* C cores per one transformer. Lundahl uses *two* C cores per one transformer. He must have his own reasons for doing so. But then, let's compare apples to apples. Or let's compare apples to oranges and say that two C cores match or even outperform four C cores. Logical?

Number of "C" pieces alone doesn't say much, what really matters are several interconnected factors - core cross-section, number of primary turns, max flux density (Bmax) and minimum inductance (in H) at Fmin (e.g. 20 Hz).
+ parasitic parameters - leakage inductance, stray capacitance and resonant frequency as a factor of primary turns and winding geometry.

Most manufacturers use 4 "C" pieces and single coil design (~easier to assemble larger core cross-section).
Lundahl - 2 "C" pieces and twin coil symmetric configuration (~easier to get lower parasitic parameters).

None is better or worse, its just 2 different configurations aimed for the same purpose. Finished item performance depends upon particular implementation, engineering skills and build quality.

Hope this helps.
 
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cause of you , i have S9 summit MonolthMagnetics on the way :)
in a couple of week , i will see how they will compete with the lundhals..

( ps: my pair of LL1664AM are on the swap meet)


I hope you like them, I'm very pleased with the MM ITs I am currently running, and am using some other transformers they made for me in other projects. The MM ITs are 4 core.
 
Interesting - I didn't know they had 4 cores. The Monoliths have 2. I just checked. Doesn't seem to do them much harm, but they are big transformers, weighing around 5 kilos.

"The heart of any Monolith transformer is a high grade SiFe or Metlas amorphous dual C-core made to our specifications"

When it says c-core transformer it's meant to have two core pieces. Dual c-core means four core pieces.
 
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I'm not convinced. Windings in two C core design will always be immersed in *less* magnetic flux when compared to windings in four C core design. And that is that.

Please explain what is the difference between these 2 designs in terms of "immersion in magnetic flux":

1) 4x"C", 4cm x 4cm = 16 cm2 cross-section (4cm ribbon width x 2cm thickness each piece), flux density 1.4T@20Hz/50W;

2) 2x"C", 5cm x 3.2 cm = 16 cm2 cross-section (5cm ribbon width x 3.2cm thickness each piece), flux density 1.4T@20Hz/50W;

Primary turns same for both.


And if that is not that, then why Tango, Tamura, Hashimoto etc. go into 'trouble' of giving us four C cores per transformer?

And why there are cars or whatever commodity of different shapes and colors?
 
I'm not convinced. Windings in two C core design will always be immersed in *less* magnetic flux when compared to windings in four C core design. And that is that. And if that is not that, then why Tango, Tamura, Hashimoto etc. go into 'trouble' of giving us four C cores per transformer?

AFAIK japanese are EI.
Pi winding on sigle bobbing is very good, but due complexity $$$ nobody does it
 
Please explain what is the difference between these 2 designs in terms of "immersion in magnetic flux":

1) 4x"C", 4cm x 4cm = 16 cm2 cross-section (4cm ribbon width x 2cm thickness each piece), flux density 1.4T@20Hz/50W;

2) 2x"C", 5cm x 3.2 cm = 16 cm2 cross-section (5cm ribbon width x 3.2cm thickness each piece), flux density 1.4T@20Hz/50W;

Primary turns same for both.

Your example is both misleading and irrelevant. You can input any combination of anything, it's still:
four cores

core-- windings--core--core--windings--core

vs.

two cores

windings--core--windings--core


And why there are cars or whatever commodity of different shapes and colors?
Or could it be the bean-counting logic that is at work here?
 
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Your example is both misleading and irrelevant. You can input any combination of anything, it's still:
four cores
core-- windings--core--core--windings--core
vs.
two cores
windings--core--windings--core
Or could it be the bean-counting logic that is at work here?

Its your assumption is misleading and irrelevant, in real engineering only real terms and numbers counts, like effective cross-section area, mean magnetic path length, coil length, etc., not some "immersion in magnetic flux".

4 x "C" single bobbin and 2 x "C" (with larger C pieces) twin bobbin variants can be made with almost equal characteristics if effective cross-section area is equal.

BTW, have you ever disassembled Japaneese output transformer?
I did, and as hpeter said, they were EI.
 
AFAIK japanese are EI.

There is a reason for that - EI allows you to assemble stack of virtually any thickness straight out of raw EI pieces, and once effective cross-section area is increased, primary number of turns (as well as number of interleaved sections) are decreased, and therefore, amount of labor.

An example of extremely thick EI stack - output transformers made by Bob Carver for his parallel 300W push-pull amplifiers.

C cores usually sold in default dimensions (e.g. DIN 41309), their size is optimized for average 50/400 Hz usage, often cores with suitable cross-section area have too small window size to accommodate very large amount of winding typical for audio output transformers. Sometimes it leads to awkward solutions like AudioNote tripple C core models.
 
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Sometimes it leads to awkward solutions like AudioNote tripple C core models.

:eek: can explain better ?
kit1-C-Core-panel-left.jpg
 
:eek: can explain better ?
kit1-C-Core-panel-left.jpg

They nearly doubled core cross-section area by means of attaching 2 x C pieces (with double ribbon width and thickness that fits into tube) on the side.

Same could be achieved with 4 loops (8 x C pieces), or custom-built C pieces, but AN probably couldn't source suitable plastic bobbin or overpay for non-standard cores.

This is striking example how boutique, top priced manufacturers save on production cost, and opt for unbelievable awkwardness to extort few pennies of profit.