Reply To: Analog transformers, only in expensive audio gear?

[Ted Fletcher]

By definition, good transformers are expensive; the magnetic cores are made up of a combination of materials, the winding process is far from easy and fine audio transformers have to be enclosed in a magnetic shield to minimise interference.

As with all my designs, I try to achieve best possible performance with hardware that doesn’t cost the earth….. My ‘current mode’ circuitry achieves superior performance from physically smaller and less expensive transformers, far superior to conventional ‘voltage’ circuitry; it eliminates both core saturation and hysteresis distortions, but at the same time retains the ‘sound’ of a transformer and also the superior isolation that you get with transformers.

So the answer to your question is that without using a different approach to circuit design, the use of transformers will actually degrade the performance of less expensive equipment…. unless they spend a lot of money on fine transformers from renowned manufacturers like Lundahl and others like him.

Because I can achieve professional performance with my transformers, I use them universally in all input stages….. and there’s no reason why others shouldn’t do the same; but I have found that there is a strange technical inertia in audio electronics; anything that is slightly unusual or counter-intuitive is avoided! 😯