Sowther Transformers

[topround]

Rich,
Thanks for fixing my mistake.
The sowter dac transformers(I/V) have not yet arrived, they have a 6 week lead time, so maybe in two weeks they should be here. I am new to this new way of thinking and using transformers, being mostly led by a new found friend who is a quite able DIY guy. He has been converting me.

Let me get one thing clear. I want to know what these things do...sonically. I enjoy reading others comments, but unless my ears hear it, it really does not matter, at least to me.

I am approaching this thing cautiously and with a very honest mind. I did a couple of mods to my cd player, the clock, diodes and rca's. It made a nice difference, more in terms of refinement. The dac transformers are supposed to be a large improvement sonically, from what I have read and what others have told me.
I will be honest in what I hear.  I picked the sowters because I had read about them somewhere and they made these transformers that were meant to be used with my dac chip. I also ordered 2 interstage transformers(1:1), 100% MuMetal, for transformer coupling a tube to my input board for my amp. That is a whole nuther project that is being worked on in tandem with the cd player.
In addition I ordered two Tango trans, and two Tamura trans for a 26 tube based preamp project that will probably include slagelformers as volume controls as well as some other unique tweaks. I would also like to order some hashimoto trans for comparison amongst the three.
As you can see I have been a very busy(and crazed) audiophile, I have also spend a bit of money.
I am in search of something, a bit of truth, the glossy marketing hype no longer appeals to me or interests me any more, high price tags bore me. Reading about the "dark arts" of transformers and chokes and DHT and copper chassis, these things intrigue me because I have seen and heard some magic that is not in the mainstream,meaning the possibilities are amazing at what can be achieved.
Also, my gear is not very "high value" so modding it to me is fun, I enjoy experimenting and learning.
I read alot about caps, so I bought alot of caps, installed them, and came to my own conclusions. And of course some prefer one thing over another for a myriad of good reasons, so when someone says this cap is the "best" , it may be , but it may not be as well, as I am sure you understand.

So to get back to your original question. I only have sowters coming, but I would love to try other brands as well, different core materials will yield different results, just like cap materials, so you may need to find the one that is right for you, or maybe not.... a lot to learn....but I am enjoying the shit out of it right now! It also helps to have friends who can help you,  and I am rich in friends, thank God.

I will keep everyone posted as to how things develop.


Mike

[richidoo]

Thanks Mike. I'm doing a lot of reading too. My friend Sol is helping me communicate with engineer from Jenson who makes a mic transformer that would work. There does seem to be a huge difference between core materials, winding techniques, conductor metal, etc. Different like tubes. Then I got off course reading about discreet active buffers,,, oh well...

I'm with you on the "gotta hear it to believe it," but it is fun to scheme and execute a new philosophy, and hopefully pull out a win. Thanks for the update!
Rich

[topround]

Sowters are in the house!

My 8347 transformers are being used in my Lector cdplayer MK1 which uses the pcm63 dac chip. The 8347 was made for this dac and and a few others, they cost about $100 each with shipping and have a 6 week lead time. Sowter makes many I/V transformers for different dac chips, so getting the right one for you should be easy.

These transformers can really transform! The Lector always had a pretty analogue sound(that is its forte)
It is a very musical player but in no way is it perfect! God forbid!

The transformers have revealed a tremendous amount of detail, the reason being is the lack of noise, you will hear details and reverberations around instruments and voices that you never heard before. It was always there, just obscurred by clouds. 
Along with these new details are microdynamic details the such that fill in spaces in a trill of a voice that give the voices(and instruments) body in terms of harmonics.
A note is not made up of a single sound but of thousands of sounds making up that note. Live music can portray all those details and harmonics naturally but recorded and reproduced music has a hard time. Really great systems try to recapture these details, because hidden in those details are all the emotions.

Tone monster!  Tremendous tone and refinement, it is so clean so many less digital artifacts that it sounds so much more...analogue. Is it a turntable? NO. But it is a damn better digital source.
It takes alittle getting used to, I am so used to hearing all the digital whizz bang, that now it is gone and I feel like I am missing something, but in honesty there is so much more being shown to me. I have read that these transformers act as digital filters of a sort, and they really do clean up the digital image alot.

Maybe 30 minutes on them right now.
Only thing that bothers me is a little lack of air and openess that I am used to. I will let it play for a week and see if they open up. First minute I did not like it and thought of taking them out, but now I realize that I would miss what I had in terms of tone and refinement.

Very exciting stuff. Unfortunately my tech had to guess as to the value of the resistor to put in, so I have less gain, the transformer has less gain than the tube amp stage in the player so I have to fidget with values and maybe adjust the gain on my pre? Not quite sure as most of this stuff is over my head, but I complain and my tech fixes, unfortunatley he can't read my mind! It is not so plug and play as I am used to.

Will keep you informed as to how they develop over time.

Mike

[topround]

Ok I have to get to bed...but I don't want to.

You will hear shit come from the back and sides that you never knew was there!

Brass is deliscious, drums become musical instruments where you can hear the notes inside the skin, not just the whack. Cymbals have decay filled with reverberant color. and not aluminum!

You will turn your head around looking for other people in the room when you hear noises on the recording you never heard before...
all presented with such glorious refinement

Why don't they put these things in every cdplayer, at least in the more expensive ones?
It is a cheap way to bring your player to world class levels

I am going to put a pair of these and the clock in my sons player just for kicks, lets see how well a $20 cd player can sound with these simple mods??

[richidoo]

Sounds like you're having fun Mike.  I will write to Sowter with DAC specs, see what they have to say.

Is the tone thickening up now with burn in, or did you swap PCs, or are you just getting used to more transparent sound without the richness of the tubes?

[topround]

Rich,
 tubes are still in there, the Lector uses 2 tubes one 12at7 as a buffer and the other 12at7 as a tube amplifier for gain. I am just using the buffer. My tech says the original tube has a gain of 40 and the trans has a gain of 18, so the gain has to be made up elsewhere. So now my pre is almost all the way up, with his pre there is no problem with gain, but I would like to solve the gain issue in the cd player as we like to bring these things around for others to hear. That is a rave characteristic.
Lector always had a great tone and still does, it just has more of it now, the signal remains the same it is just much, much cleaner and WAY more musical.

Would love to get my hand on a pair of Jensens as well as the Audio Note I/V trans, but I know Audio Note does not sell them to the public diy crowd. They could all have their own sound.
I believe this is a no brainer of a mod, but finding the trans that has the flavor you want or need would be very beneficial. That body of information could prove very useful to diyers, like knowing what caps sound like.
There have been so many cap changes in the world of audio that it is considered conventional wisdom these days what they sound like.

Mike

[topround]

OK...the nervosa continues...

Next in are the Vishay nude TX2575 resistors.

Going to determine the proper value I need and buy a pair of these resistors and see(hear)what happens.

My audio goals are in sight. This may be crazy but I am thinking of pulling the trans from  my Quicksilver amp and replacing them with Tango Hirata or Tamura.!! Oh My!!

Mike

Mike

[richidoo]

OK, now I understand, buffer tube, but no gain tube. Have you tried JJ AT7? It is an awesome tube, only drawback is JJ quality is hit or miss. I liked it because it was very transparent, very natural treble, no fatness (yuk).

Hey Mike, I know an easy way to solve your low gain problems:


My DAC has 8 DACs in one chip, 4 running together per channel, plenty of current. The Jensen 112LPC is only 1:2 gain but it should still make 2V. Even the low gain Sowter DAC tranny would make 5V with my DAC, so I would have the opposite problem as you! I agree with what you said earlier that the Sowter trannies appear to be designed with specific lower current DACs in mind. The correct Jensen tranny for mine is only $42    I'm gonna try it after I get the new SS output stage I just bought running. I have two buffalos, whichever one sounds better will play 200Hz and up, the other gets the bass.... hehehe  From reading about your experience, I would guess the trannies go on top and the transistors on the bottom. You never know until you try right? IMO treble and transistors rarely mix well.

TX2572 resistors supposedly a step up from vaunted S102. Looks good. If it doesn't sound good you can always melt it down into bullion.  
http://db.audioasylum.com/cgi/m.mpl?forum=tweaks&n=155766

Iron makes the tube amp, no question. But technically, I am NOT encouraging you.    

[Face]

Vishay TX2575's have a nice (lack of) sound to them, I'm a fan. 

[Lizard_king]

Mike,

I think that is a good idea to replace your current IV setup (resistors) with Sowter 8347 Trannies. My Audio note Dac used IV transformers to convert current to voltage and people believe that Audio note may have Sowter build their trannies.

I am beginning my journey for a new preamp, one that will be custom built around the 26 tube.
The entire preamp will be transformer coupled with Tango iron. I had been trying to decide on what volume control to use, leaning to the custom made stepped attenautor with resistors.

But I was thinking of using these Sowter attenuator transformers with OCC wire , it would be like a passive TVC with a full blown gain stage of 26 tubes and tube rectified power supply.

Is anyone out there building an active pre with these types of trannies as volume controls?
Getting more resistors out of the way can only be a good thing I believe.


Mike

[BobM]

The nude Vishay's are truly transparent, yes, but at about $16 each you need to be selective in where you use them. I've got a pair in my Hagerman Piccolo step up in one of the 2 direct signal path locations. However I also put a pair of Riken Ohm's in the second direct signal path location. Riken Ohm's have a warmer, more euphonic sound, but using too many of them can cause things to get syrupy, hence the Vishay's.

Enjoy,
Bob

[topround]

Thanks Bob,
I only need 2 , one in front and one behind the transformer so I was thinking of buying a few kinds of resistors to see what I like best in that position.

Currently there are  old Allen Bradley's in there , I was thinking of AN Tantalums, and maybe Tacmans.
I need only 2 1/2 watt 47K's so it would be pretty cheap to order up a few sets for comparison.

The gain on the transformer is a little lower than the tube. The Lector was using one tube as a tube buffer and the other as a tube amplifier stage. Currently I am using just the buffer tube, we had to adjustthe value of the resistors a bit to getthe gain I needed. Sowter recommends a certain range of values that should be used with that Dac transformer. Interestingly enough,  passing that range did result in a negative effect on the sound....Interesting.

Did I mention I love what these transformers do to digital!

If it is OK with Jim I will bring it to his rave for all to hear. I believe Sowter will become busy(they are already) as this mod is a no brainer, as far as I am concerned.

Mike

[rollo]

  Mike the Lector Mk 1 outputs 3.3 V . What are you getting now ? In essence the trannies are replacing the output coupling caps ? Or are the trannies just replacing the gain stage ?
   Pictures . Looking forward to hearing it at Jims rave.

charles

[topround]

Nervosa continues.....

Just ordered  6 black gates, 2 Nichicon Gold Tune and 1 Jensen cap for the Lector.
Also ordered some Audio Note tantalum resistors and Amtrans carbon film resistors to compare.
And one teflon tube socket to replace the original.

Lots of cheap caps in the Lector, hopefully replacing the cheap caps with netter caps will result in better sound, not always the case, but since the Lector has been brutally raped with mods already I figured lets go all the way and see what happens.

Its funny when you open up your gear and gets pastthe way the chassis looks, you tend to look pastthe chassis and just see the blood and guts of the thing and you lose the reverence for the thing, it just becomes a thing. Now you work on it to try to make it do what you want.  Hopefully.
Most of this high end stuff is filled with cheap parts. Sometimes parts swapping works, sometimes no.
The caps that were in there were like 10 cents electrlytics, these new better caps should be a positive difference...but one never knows in this crazy hobby.

Parts cost for this mod was $135, not cheaps for caps and resistors but not a  ton of money especially if you can do it yourself or have a friend handy with an iron. The black gates are expensive because of their rarity.

Let's see what happens.......

Mike

[richidoo]

Sounds cool. If the electros were in the signal path as coupling caps, you should hear an improvement going to the nicer parts. They can be pretty bad. But you hope that lector would have chosen cheap parts that sounded good, not just for low price. 

I know what you mean about peeling off the patina of love from a commercial component. I loved my Altmann DAC based on hearing it with $30k worth of other people's gear mixed in too. When Sol pointed out that it uses 3 stages of 2134 opamp output, and then he explained what the 2134 "sound" is like, then suddenly I heard it in everything. I wanted to rip them out and replace, but it would kill the value of the patina to others who are under the spell of the magic website. Better in that case where everything is SMD to leave it alone and pass the magic wand to someone who can appreciate. It had same DAC as yours, so Sowters would have worked with minimal change to the circuit...

Once you give up the mystique then it's just a box of parts full of technical and cost compromises. If you want best of the best kinda sound without paying $20k+, you have to diy, so pick a box that has potential and tear it up!   rollo auditioned my Altmann against his lector said it was night and day difference, compared to his stock lector! Same DAC chip as Lector. You're on the right track Mike. There is value to having fun modding too. It is a hobby afterall. Listen to it or cut it open, whatever floats you   

I'm just as excited about going to get 2 sheets of plywood today to make new speakers.  Ignore the tools, time, drivers, wire, amps and crossovers. I'm only thinking about the $60 of wood. What a diy bargain....