• WARNING: Tube/Valve amplifiers use potentially LETHAL HIGH VOLTAGES.
    Building, troubleshooting and testing of these amplifiers should only be
    performed by someone who is thoroughly familiar with
    the safety precautions around high voltages.

New Budget Output Transformer

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A while back, I was looking for a pair of output transformers for a spud amp build. I came across a new line of hi-fi OT's from Musical Power Supplies. I did a search for them here and did not find anything. I had built a bunch of guitar amps with Matt's OT's in the past, and had been very pleased with them. I ordered a pair a little less than a month ago and got them yesterday.

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They are the same size as the Edcor GXSE10's, though vertical instead of horizontal, and the laminations are thicker at 1 1/4" vs 1" for the Edcors. There's no ultralinear tap, though there are 4 and 8 ohm output options.

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The end bells are off and painted.
 
I bought some transformers from Musical Power Supplies back when they were in Florida. At that time some of their transformers were made in house (Florida). The lower priced transformers were made in one of the Caribbean Islands. I have not purchased any since they packed up and moved.

They seem to use the same business model, some transformers are made in Mexico (previously made in Asia), while others are US made.

I looked at these recently for low buck guitar amps, but they are in the same price range as Edcor for similar transformers of a similar weight. I still may try them if I decide to proceed in that direction.
 
Those prices are so low, im skeptical how they actually make a profit. It would be interesting to do some A B C comparison testing using the same amp, by swapping out with equivalent Hammond and Edcor and Antek units and printing off the same tests for each, and recording some MP3 files of each model through a dummy load to hear anything different.
 
I dunno - using a conductive house clamp around the coil doesn't look like a good idea...
Correction - they're using the hose clamp to hold the cores together, and that's OK.

I've been wanting to try some transformers from MPS for a while. I have one of their power transformers, and I may pony up for a pair of the 5k HiFi SE transformers
 
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The link says Amorphous.
Then it says:
"The use of imported second-hand amorphous alloy sheet winding"

I never knew that a sheet of material was 'amorphous'.
Perhaps something lost in the translation from Chinese to English.

I am not a materials expert.
But I never desired to purchase any amorphous core.
I missed that boat of opportunity.
 
Got the spud amp built, 3.5W output. The -3dB points are at 30 Hz and 30 kHz, though there is a bit of distortion under 40 Hz. The tubes are 6T9 so it's semi-comparable to my 6SL7/6V6 SE amp with Edcor GXSE-10 OTs. At similar volume, I can't tell any significant differences.
 
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