On Tuesday, February 5, 2019 at 6:24:40 AM UTC-8, Ty Ford wrote:
That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard! ::joke filter:: Sorry, Nick, you set yourself up for that one. Long time. Good to read you. 
Yo Ty, it's been a long time!
People a lot smarter than me have written a lot more than me about the effect that transformers have on sound.
Okay, but did they write "spurious artifacts?"
If not, they're not really smarter than you.
I have an STT-1 (and feel lucky that I do). Yes, the transformer changes the sound. I think a more interesting question is, why would you want to do that?
It works well on... well, to be specific I run my Yamaha VL1 through it sometimes just for the color. It's an amazing synth, but brighter than thick - like many Japanese instruments from the early digital era. That was their taste, apparently, i.e. I mean it purely as a comment rather than a dis.
You can ask the same question you ask about the tube paths (I have Telefunkens in there) - why would you want anything other than the straight wire sound? The first thing that surprised me, going back a lot of years, was that the solid-state path can often sound more like what you'd think the tubes would sound.
And there's a lot more to it. Check him out he
https://www.samaraudiodesign.com/cat...nsformers.html
Great, thanks.
In doing it the way he's doing it, one has to ask if the old comparatively more funky designs are part of what people expect when they THINK they want the sound of a transformer. But, you kind of really WANT to hear the effects of all the cleaning up he's done. Is it a brand new sound???? Hmmmm. THE CURIOSITY AWAKENS!!
The STT-1 I have doesn't suffer from any of these. I think it may have been another way to fancy up the input with options. You want it? There it is.. Ask John LaGrou.
And that's what happened, no doubt. I know that's what happened when he started offering NOS tubes - there wasn't a fly poop of difference between the stock tubes and the op-amps, and he responded to the feedback.