What I understand from various threads is that audio transformers (we're
talking about output ones) are mostly there to balance the signal... I also
undestand that using Xformers is sonically worse than not using them...
My questions a
1) are there other ways for balancing an unbalanced signal?
2) so manufacturers use Xformers to colour the sound?
3) What coloured sound means? Distorsion?
4) do Xformers make the sound bigger but innatural?

What about interstage transformers?

These may be stupid questions but I'm getting kind of confused on this
topic...
Thanks for the replies.
F.

Federico wrote:
What I understand from various threads is that audio transformers (we're
talking about output ones) are mostly there to balance the signal... I also
undestand that using Xformers is sonically worse than not using them...

Transformers in audio are used mainly for impeadence matching and
isolation

My questions a
1) are there other ways for balancing an unbalanced signal?

Yes.

2) so manufacturers use Xformers to colour the sound?

Sometimes. It depends on the design and construction of the
transformer.

3) What coloured sound means? Distorsion?

"coloured sound" mainly refers to the frequency response of the
design. Transformers can generate distortion that will also
affect the sound. This is most properly used in musical instrument
amps.

4) do Xformers make the sound bigger but innatural?

They can but again it depends on how they are used.

What about interstage transformers?

Mainly used for impedance matching, isolation and voltage gain.

It is possible to use transformers in a way that is allmost
totally transparent but they are an expensive option. It makes sense to
use
them in tube designs but not solid state.

These may be stupid questions but I'm getting kind of confused on this
topic...
Thanks for the replies.
F.

Steve

Federico wrote:

What I understand from various threads is that audio transformers (we're
talking about output ones) are mostly there to balance the signal... I also
undestand that using Xformers is sonically worse than not using them...

Transformers are also used to isolate devices so
that they can be at different ground potentials
and thereby avoid ground loops.

My questions a
1) are there other ways for balancing an unbalanced signal?

Yes, but none as simple as the transformer that
are both passive and able to isolate circuits.
Active output stages (bipolar or chip) can have
positive and negative-going output terminals
and feed a balanced line.
There's also the pseudo-balanced (resistive)
feed that's used in most modern circuitry.

2) so manufacturers use Xformers to colour the sound?

In some cases yes. Good quality well designed and
properly implemented transformers can be very clean
and tranparent. They are also expensive as compared
to a couple resistors.

3) What coloured sound means? Distorsion?

Small tranformers (relative to the signal level
and load) will have a low frequency rolloff
that will be audible. Saturation and ringing
are other types of transformer 'color'.
The effect on a signal of an overdriven or
overloaded transformer or one operated out of it's
frequency range is clearly visible on a scope
so yes it's distortion.

4) do Xformers make the sound bigger but innatural?

Now you're getting into subjective terms.
Yes ... maybe ?

What about interstage transformers?

Almost completely a thing of the past with the
exception of some boutique guitar amps.
We are talking strictly about audio here, right ?
(air core radio frequency stuff is a whole
different subject area)

These may be stupid questions but I'm getting kind of confused on this
topic...

DISCLAIMER: I happen to like tranformers when
used within reason (and sparingly when not)

rd

In article writes:

What I understand from various threads is that audio transformers (we're
talking about output ones) are mostly there to balance the signal... I also
undestand that using Xformers is sonically worse than not using them...

Well, sometimes, sometimes not. Depends on the output and the input.
Everything depends.

1) are there other ways for balancing an unbalanced signal?

Yes, many.

2) so manufacturers use Xformers to colour the sound?

Sometimes, yes, intentionally. Other times because it's the best of
the choices for the given applicaiton. Still other times, it's the
cheapest solution that will work (with little concern for sound
quality).

3) What coloured sound means? Distorsion?

Yes.

4) do Xformers make the sound bigger but innatural?

Some people attach the descriptor of "bigger sound" to something with
a transformer. But that may or may not be because of the transformer.
More low frequency distortion is often perceived as "bigger" because
harmonics that are in a range that you can hear and that aren't
shrieky and piercing are added to the original signal. That could be
construed at "big."

What about interstage transformers?

Almost nobody uses them in audio any more, but they were a good
solution when going between stages when design was based around tubes.


--
I'm really Mike Rivers )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me he double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

Hello, Federico.

1) Yes, there are other ways to balance an unbalanced signal. In
principle all that is needed is to offer a second signal line which is
referenced to the same audio ground, and which has the same output
impedance as the first line. It isn't even necessary to place any
signal on the second line. That may seem strange if your concept of
"balanced" is that a signal will appear symmetrically on the two signal
leads, but balance and symmetry are technically not the same thing.

If both balance and symmetry are wanted, an active device can be used
to invert the unbalanced signal--again presenting it on a second signal
line which is refererenced to the same audio ground and which has the
same output impedance as the first line.

2) Manufacturers generally hope to offer products for which there is a
market. Since some buyers eagerly seek equipment with certain
distinctive sound colorations built in, some manufacturers (not
surprisingly) offer such equipment, or claim to do so. Transformers can
be part of their strategy, but that does not mean that transformers
have a distinctive sound of their own as such; again, the topic is more
complex. Even the whole question of whether there is such a thing as
sonically uncolored equipment is not necessarily simple.

So far as the market is concerned, some people buy (for example)
numerous mike preamps for their alleged color. (I say "alleged" because
coloration sometimes results from interfacing issues which are not
actually a coloration inherent in the preamp as such--but my sense is
that many people are not so concerned with that distinction.) These
people say that they want a range or "palette" of different sounding
preamps for different microphones and situations; for them it is a
natural-seeming counterpart to the idea of having a range or "palette"
of microphones. Since those people have cash at the ready, there are
manufacturers and products available to please them.

There are also manufacturers who try to offer as neutral and uncolored
a sound quality as possible, who use transformers primarily for
engineering reasons and not (initially, at least) as selling points.
For a variety of reasons that approach is far less common today than it
was in past decades, but it is not altogether gone.

Marketing in general is far more intensive today than it was in past
decades, and nowadays every aspect of a product is turned into a
selling point whether there is good reason to do so or not. You can see
evidence of this (sometimes amusingly so, when it is not all too
depressing) in the statements of "philosophy" which so often accompany
all kinds of products today; even the loaves of bread in your
supermarket have them printed on the labels.

In the past this sort of thing was less often true--the designers of
electronic equipment were simply expected to make good electronic
equipment, an approach which I find to be an entirely adequate
"philosophy." (With apologies to real philosophers, who generally write
something other than marketing statements ...)

3) "Colored" sound is distortion, yes. This may sometimes mean
frequency response that emphasizes or reduces some region of
frequencies. But in equipment other than microphones and loudspeakers,
such "fixed EQ" has to be restrained, or it will limit the use of the
equipment to only the applications where that type of response is
specifically needed. More often what people call "coloration" is some
kind of non-linear distortion, such as low-order harmonic distortion.

4) In all seriousness, I don't know what it might mean for a sound to
be "big," other than when it includes low and/or mid-low frequencies,
and is loud enough to be impressive. But I have always had difficulty
understanding many of the words that many people use for tone color; I
even suspect that two or more people who use these same words may not
always mean the same things. Maybe someone else can help you with this
question.

--best regards

Federico wrote:
What I understand from various threads is that audio transformers (we're
talking about output ones) are mostly there to balance the signal... I also
undestand that using Xformers is sonically worse than not using them...
My questions a
1) are there other ways for balancing an unbalanced signal?

Yes, but they aren't as good. The rejection is poorer, and they cannot
handle high voltage ground trash.

2) so manufacturers use Xformers to colour the sound?

Some do, yes.

3) What coloured sound means? Distorsion?

Colored means that what goes in isn't the same thing as what comes out.

4) do Xformers make the sound bigger but innatural?

Sometimes. It depends on the transformer.

What about interstage transformers?

You hardly ever see them any more. It's probably been forty years since
anyone has made a console with transformers between the strips and the
summing networks. Used to be lots of folks designed equipment with constant
power balanced lines internally for better noise rejection, but that has
long gone out of style. It's far too expensive.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

"Federico" wrote in message


What I understand from various threads is that audio
transformers (we're talking about output ones) are mostly
there to balance the signal...

Also isolate grounds, and filter out noise and RF.

I also undestand that using Xformers is sonically worse
than not using them...

That would be in the ear of the beholder.

I think the one thing that is sure is that really good
transformers cost a fair piece of change, but again not as
much as really exotic approaches.

My questions a

1) are there other ways for balancing an unbalanced
signal?

Zillions of them. The more exotic means for balancing and
isolating convert the signal to say digital signals on RF or
optical links, which can isolate just about anything from
anything.

2) so manufacturers use Xformers to colour the
sound?

Absolutely. But other manufacturers brag about how little
their transformers color sound when used right. Both sides
can be right.

3) What coloured sound means? Distorsion?

It generally means frequency response variations, but it can
also mean nonlinear distortion. Transformers can easily
provide both or do a really pretty good job of avoiding
both.

4) do Xformers make the sound bigger but innatural?

That would be in the ear of the beholder.

What about interstage transformers?

Mostly, artifacts of the long distant past. The main
advantage of interstage transfomers is signal handling
efficiency. When tubes and transistors had very low gain,
transformers were more widely used.

On 8/24/05 5:18 AM, in article ,
"Federico" wrote:

What I understand from various threads is that audio transformers (we're
talking about output ones) are mostly there to balance the signal... I also
undestand that using Xformers is sonically worse than not using them...
My questions a
1) are there other ways for balancing an unbalanced signal?
2) so manufacturers use Xformers to colour the sound?
3) What coloured sound means? Distorsion?
4) do Xformers make the sound bigger but innatural?

What about interstage transformers?

These may be stupid questions but I'm getting kind of confused on this
topic...
Thanks for the replies.
F.



Stained glass windows are HORRID as optics, but they do WONDERFUL THINGS to
the light coming into a room... If indeed that's what you WANT in that room.
The character, severe or subtle, that a transformer can impart, by design or
abuse, is a choice... and one that can only be made after you;ve worked with
them, experimented with them, played with them enough to know what the heck
it is they do.
Like brushes and paint mixing, TALKING about spectral lines and stroke-line
analyses tells an artist NOTHING about why he wants THAT color for THIS part
of THIS painting.