Trouble reading frames? See Below:
Musical Instrument Tube
Amp Building, Maintaining and Modifying FAQ
Much of this material applies
to building or re-building hi-fi equipment, as well but it was originally intended
for musical instrument crazies.
Authored, assembled and edited by R.G. Keen,
keen@eden.com Most recent revision level is Version 2.00, appx. 1/15/99
Index
- Basics of Tube Amps
for First Timers
- Why use a tube amp?
- Are Tube Amps louder than solid state
amps of the same power?
- What is "Standby" for?
- How should I turn it on and off?
- How long do tubes last? When should
I replace my tubes?
- What things will damage my tube amp,
what's safe and what's not?
- *** SAFETY WARNING
***READ THIS FIRST!!!!!
- Where can I learn about
building tube amps?
- Where can I find parts
to build/repair amplifiers?
- How can I modify
my amp to be more powerful?
- How can I extend my
tube life?
- How do I get...
- Where can I find
plans for a Belchfire/Maximo/etc. speaker cabinet?
- Transformer questions:
- Do output transformers really sound
different from one another? If so, why?
- Are the impedance tolerances the reason
one OT may sound better than another?
- Are paper bobbins really better than
plastic bobbins in output transformers? How about power transformers?
- Are differences in transformer sound
in the pattern of the windings? Or something else?
- To copy a great sounding output transformer
do you copy impedance or winding pattern?
- Is hand winding superior to machine
winding for output transformers?
- What are "gaps" in output transformers,
and why are they good?
- Can I use a push-pull OT in my single
ended amp? How about if I re-stack it to have a gap?
- What is an "ultralinear" output transformer?
- Can I convert an amplifier with an ultralinear
connected OT to normal use?
- Can I substitute two single ended transformers
for a single plate-to-plate transformer?
- How do reverse biased diodes act as
"transient spike preventers"?
- Can I use an ordinary pushpull output
transformer as a single ended ultralinear output transformer?
- What does the "impedance" of my output
transformer mean?
- Why do I have to match speakers to the
output impedance of the amp?
- Will it hurt my amp/output transformer/tubes
to use a mismatched speaker load?
- Can I use two single ended output transformers
in a push-pull circuit and then parallel the outputs?
- What are the things about output transformer
that cause the differences in tone?
- How can I tell if my output transformer
is live or dead?
- Where can I get a good replacement output
transformer?
- I want to make my own power and output
transformers. How do I do this?/ Where can I find information about this?
- Should I replace my stock transformer
with a new/old/vintage/purple one for better clean/grunge/grit/etc. sound?
- Are potted / impregnated transformers
better? Is potting / impregnation necessary?
Power Transformers
- What is the
easiest way to get tube sound at a good price?
- How can I modify my tube
amp to ... ? (also see recommended mods, below)
- get lower hum?
- have higher gain/more distortion?
- have a smoother, less buzzy distortion?
- When should I bias my
amp and how do I do this?
- What is "bias"?
- When should I bias my amp?
- How do I bias my amp?
- Matched output tubes - do you need them?
- Amplifier Modifications
- OK/Recommended amp modifications
- NOT Recommended amp modifications
- Tube Characteristics
and Substitutions
- Maintenance Issues
- Appendix A. Tube
Stuff Suppliers
- Appendix B. Tube
Makers Producing Today (Eric Barbour news posting)
Basics of Tube Amps for First Timers
- Why use a tube amp?
Tube amps have always been the amplifier
of choice for the working musician. Musical myth has ascribed almost magical
tone to them. While the results may not be entirely magic, tubes do have a
sound that is different from solid state amplifiers, and one that happens
to make amplified music sound better to the human ears and brain. There are
lots of technical and psuedo-technical explanations for why this should be
true, but there is enough solid evidence that it is a real effect to trust
it. The real reason to use tube amps is simply that they sound better. For
that advantage, we put up with the poor supply of parts, high prices, fragility
and excess heat that they produce.
- Are Tube Amps louder than solid state
amps of the same power?
No. However they do SOUND louder. Let me explain.
Some excellent scientific work on tube
preamplifiers and their distortion products has turned up the mechanism
for this. When tubes are driven outside their linear region, for the first
12db or so of overdrive the harmonics that they produce trick the human
ear into thinking that the sounds are getting louder, when in fact the sound
is getting progressively more distorted.
It is this acoustic trick that can make
tube amps sound up to 12db louder than they actually are compared to a perfect,
undistorted amplifier. A solid state amplifier of the same power as a tube
amp may distort at the same signal level as the tube amp, but the distortions
are not subtle, and we hear them as distortion, not as a slightly louder
sound. A solid state amplifier of much greater power would remain undistorted
at higher levels, and the tube amp would sound comparably loud to the larger
solid state amp.
They sound larger than they are.
- What is "Standby" for?
Standby is used to make sure the amplifier is quiet and lower the power dissipation
inside the amplifier during times when you will not need it for some period
of time. Breaks in song sets are the ideal illustration. If you'll be coming
back to the amp within a short period of time (under an hour, say), flip it
to standby.
Standby also serves as a softer power up
switch. To get the most possible life from a set of tubes, the tube heaters
should really be hot before the main power supply is applied to the tubes.
When tube rectifiers are used, the rectifiers do this almost automatically.
However, when solid state rectifiers are used in an amp, the main power supply
comes up almost instantly, and this can shorten tube life by the somewhat-esoteric
means of cathode stripping. The standby switch can be used to prevent this.
- How should I turn it on and off?
If it has a standby switch, flip this to standby, and then turn the power
switch on if it is separate, or if the power switch is simply ON-OFF-Standby,
turn it to standby. Leave it this way for 15-30 seconds, then turn it to normal
operation. This gets the heaters hot before the main power supply comes up.
To turn it off, simply flip the power
switch to "off", don't use standby. This lets the still-conducting tubes
bring down the high voltages in the power supply.
- How long do tubes last? When should I
replace my tubes?
It depends heavily on use. In a closet, the tubes will last forever, of course.
For practice in a bedroom a couple of times a week at modest volumes, you'll
probably get five to ten years out of them. If you practice twice a week for
a couple of hours at full volume and play two gigs a weekend, count on one
to two years out of a set of output tubes. Note that this assumes that you
got good ones to begin with and that you had them properly biased when they
were put in.
Tubes wear out by sheer hours of being
turned on, by how hard they're worked, how hot they get from just the heat
in the box, by the number of times they're turned on and off (thermal shock).
Notice that being played at maximum warp into a dummy load (or power brake,
or attenuator, etc.) counts as being played hard, and that because you can't
hear all the sound, you may not think that you're working them hard.
Your ears tell you when to replace them.
When they no longer sound quite as punch and sweet as they used to, start
thinking about changing them.
I have a somewhat more extreme approach,
myself. The best time to get new tubes is when you DON'T need them. You
get the chance to find the best tubes at the best price without time pressure.
I prefer to keep a whole spare set ready. That way, a sudden burn out will
not cripple the amp, and I can readily tell when one of them is just not
sounding right by subbing in a replacement that I already have. Be prepared!
- Can I replace my own tubes?
Preamp tubes - sure! They're in sockets,
any replacement tube of the same type will at least not damage the amp.
Even preamp tubes that are not exactly
the same type can often be substituted as long as they have the same pin
connections. For the commonest type, 12AX7, there are many types that have
the same pinout and can be put in the same socket for different gains and
tone. For instance, you might be able to use 12AU7, 12AT7, 12AY7, ECC82,
ECC83, 7025, 5751, 6201, 6072A, 5814A, 12BH7 and others. See the section
on tube substitutions for more info.
Output tubes are more problematical.
You really should have a tech check and if necessary adjust the bias on
your output tubes whenever they are replaced. This keeps them from getting
too hot. Power tubes are much more finicky than preamp tubes in this way,
as preamp tubes do not in general need bias adjustment.
You will undoubtedly have heard that
you can substitute in other types of output tubes for better tone as well.
This is getting into really tricky areas if you don't have the capability
to open up the amp and rebias. You can imagine that if you have to rebias
when replacing output tubes of the same type, you certainly have to with
different tube types. That being said, there are a number of output tubes
that have the same pinout. You should consult a competent tech befor doing
this, as some of the "compatible" tubes may need minor rewiring or may use
more heater current than your amp can supply. It's not a good idea to just
swap in different types of output tubes unless you understand the different
requirements they have.
- What things will damage my tube amp, what's
safe and what's not?
We'll assume that you don't need guidance about the obvious: don't drop it
in a lake, or from a helicopter, don't pour it full of soda or beer, and so
on.
A few more pointed do not's:
- Never, never, never run the amp with
no speaker plugged in. This can cause major damage.
- Do not flip the power switch off,
then back on rapidly. This can cause power supply damage.
- Never replace a burned out fuse with
a bigger-amperage one. Remember - there was a reason the first one burned
out, usually protecting something more expensive. Putting a bigger fuse
in will just rachet up the power level until something really vital burns
out. If the second equal-rating fuse pops, turn it off and get a tech
to look at it.
- Never ignore signs of high heat inside
- a wisp of smoke or a burning smell is NOT normal.
- Your amp produces lots of heat, and
will continue to do so even if you block the fresh air vents. Blocking
the vents will just allow the amp to heat to the point that you get to
buy some very expensive repairs.
- Never ignore a red glow other than
the small orange ends of the filaments. A red glow over a large part of
the internal plates of the output tubes means they're about to melt (yes,
really melt - heat is our enemy). If you notice this, shut it down and
get a tech to help you find out what it wrong.
Correspondingly, you can do the following
without too much worry:
- Add another speaker into the "external
speaker" jack; a mismatched speaker load won't kill it, while an open
circuit (disconnected speakers) may do so.
- Overdrive the stuffings out of it.
Tubes are very forgiving of massive overdrives, unlike solid state stuff.
As long as they tubes don't overheat or stay overdriven for long periods,
it's not fatal.
*** SAFETY WARNING *** READ THIS
FIRST!!!!!
Working inside a tube amplifier can be
dangerous if you don't know the basic safety practices for this kind of
work. If you aren't prepared to take the time to learn and apply the right
precautions to keep yourself safe, don't work on your own amp. You can seriously
injure yourself or get yourself killed. This section is not intended to
be a complete guide to safety in tube equipment, just to hit the high points
as refresher for those of you who have some experience. The best way to
learn the requirements and practices for safety in tube equipment is to
find someone who will teach you one on one.
BASIC REQUIREMENTS
- UNPLUG IT FIRST Pretty self
explanatory. Do not, ever, ever, leave the equipment plugged in and
start work on it unless you specifically intend to make some live-voltage
measurement. Leaving it plugged in guarantees that you will have hazardous
voltages inside the chassis where you are about to work. This is like
setting a trap for yourself.
- LET IT DRAIN If the amp has
been turned on recently, the caps will still have some high voltage
left in them after the switch is turned off. Let it sit for five minutes
after you turn it off.
- SUCK IT DRY When you open
up an amp, you need to find a way to drain off any residual high voltage.
A handy way to do this is to connect a shorting jumper between the plate
of a preamp tube and ground. This jumper will drain any high voltage
to ground through the 50k to 100K plate resistor on the tube. To do
this successfully, you will need to know which pins are the plate pins.
Look it up for the amp you're going to be working on. You'll need to
know this for the work anyway. Leave the jumper in place while you do
your work ( high voltage electrolytics caps can "regrow" voltage like
a battery sometimes. Really. ) Remember to remove it when you finish
your work.
- TEST IT Take your multimeter
and ground the (-) lead. Probe the high voltage caps and be sure the
voltage across them is down, preferably to less than 10V.
- BUTTON IT BACK UP FIRST Take
the shorting jumper out. Put the chassis back in the cabinet, making
sure all of your tools, stray bits of solder, wire, etc. are out of
it. You don't have to actually put all the screws and so forth back
in if you believe more work might be needed, but make sure that the
chassis is sitting stably in the cabinet and won't fall out. At the
end of a listening test, either continue buttoning up if you're done,
or go back to UNPLUG IT FIRST.
Basics of Tube Amps
for Beginning Users
Where can I learn about building
tube amps?
Get one or more of the following references
(note that these books are mostly old, and highly sought after, and so may
be expensive and hard to find):
- "The Ultimate Tone" by Kevin O'Connor.
This the best book on guitar amps I've found. It assumes you know some
electronics to start with, so is not a beginner's book. Published by
Power Press, which now has a web page at http://www.wwdc.com/~power/
.
- "The Tube Amp Book" by Aspen Pittman,
now in its fourth edition. This contains the majority of guitar amp
schematics ever made. Don't believe all the "technical information"
as gospel, though.
- "Electric Guitar Amplifier Repair
Handbook" (?) By Jack Darr. Good intro to actually making repairs as
well as many schematics.
- "ARRL Handbook", preferably a late
60's or early 70's edition. Read the sections on construction practice,
safety, and tube info.
- Guitar Player Magazine's article
on tube types and operation from a year or so ago
- Glass Audio magazine, Old Colony
Sound in Peterboro NH
- Mesa/Boogie will send schematics
of their amps, call 1-707-778-6565; note however, that these schematics
are known to be inaccurate.
- "Vacuum Tube Amplifiers" by G.E.
Valley, Jr. Part of the MIT radiation lab series, originally published
by Boston Technical 1964. Reprints are currently available from Antique
Radio Classified (P.O. Box @, Carlisle, MA 01741, 508-371-0512)
- Amplifiers, H. Lewis York. (Evidently
part of the Encyclopedia of High Fidelity). Good basic technical ref.
Simple math, good explanations. Includes a couple of designs (several
use hard to find tubes) and tips on physical construction as well.
- Radiotron Designer's Handbook, Langford-Smith.
Heavy theory, heavy technical. Not coffee table reading, but if you
want to know, it's probably in there. This book is perhaps the most
highly sought after tube related book, and commonly goes for $75-$100
in good shape. You want the 4th edition.
Old Colony Sound just announced a
CD ROM version of this book, apparently indexed, illustrations and all,
for $69.95.
- RCA Receiving Tube Manual. Reprints
available from several sources, including Antique Electronic Supply
& others (Old Colony?) Mostly tube spec sheets & some characteristics
charts. The intro is a pretty good technical primer.
- Electron Tubes, R.G. Kloeffler.
little application, but a good easy to digest explanation of characteristics
of diodes, triodes, beam power & true pentodes, with the math to
go along. Worth reading if you're trying to do modeling.
- The Audio Designer's Tube Register.
Tom Mitchel. 1993, Media Concepts. Volume 1 - Common Low Power Triodes.
144 pages of freshly compiled tube data, some of which was not previously
published. Kinda pricey ($18 from Antique Electronic Supply) unless
you need the data. Included are plate characteristics, transfer characteristics,
constant current curves, mu as a function of grid potential and plate
potential, transconductance as a function of plate current and grid
potential, and dynamic and static plate resistance as a function of
plate potential and plate current.
(Tom mentions a 2nd and 3rd volume
in the distant future - covering low power pentodes & oddball tubes,
and Power & Beam Power pentodes respectively.)
- Learn about the manual and safety
aspects of working on tube amplifier circuits. Read the ARRL handbook,
or better yet, get to know a ham radio operator who will give you some
guidance and teaching. Do not skimp on the safety aspects. Tube circuits
contain deadly voltages. You can - * DIE * - if you mess up or are careless.
It is your personal responsibility to learn how to do this safely.
- Get to know a guitar repair technician,
perhaps do some free apprentice grunt work for them in return for some
teaching.
Where can I find parts to build/repair
amplifiers?
New tube parts and supplies were steadily
getting harder to find, but in the last couple of years this has turned around
radically. There are now many companies offering new parts, especially power
and output transformers. It is still true that used parts are often nominal
cost or free. The hard parts to find in high quality are the transformers.
If you're building, I recommend getting
your transformers first. If you are getting vintage parts, they are likely
to be one-of-a-kind. If you've just ordered new ones, the transformers will
have a massive effect on your chassis's mechanical layout.
The easiest but most expensive source for
parts is at your retail musical instrument store as "repair" parts. Other
sources:
- Musical instrument repair shops will
sometimes order parts or sell you parts out of their stock.
- Amp makers' repair parts departments.
Many manufacturers will sell their parts to "repair shops" to fix their
amps. Some of them are better than others about this, so be polite and
businesslike.
- Antique Electronics Supply, Tempe
AZ. They stock tubes, some transformers, some capacitors, tube sockets,
etc. Antique Electronic Supply recently added several steel and a few
aluminum chassis boxes to their line. I was told this is to be a continuing
trend, and not just a one time buyout of a couple of boxes.
- Mouser and SESCOM (don't have the
address/phone) sell various rack enclosures. Mouser has a couple which
would house a healthy size tube amp project.
- old, broken, or unloved equipment.
This may be free, or units-of-dollars. You get transformers, sockets,
tubes, and chassis in the deal. May require cruising garage sales or diving
in dumpsters. Trash every part except the tubes, transformers, sockets
and chassis. I got a 15 Watt mono amp/preamp intended for mono hi-fi music
for $20 at a local garage sale. Needs only some tweaking to be a Studio
.22 or an AC-15.
Be sure to look at Appendix
A for more sources.
Premium Suppliers
- Fender Musical Instruments - call
800-854-6230 for a list of
- dealers
- Richardson Electronics - 800-348-5580
for dealer list
- RAM Tubes, 805-962-4445
- VTL, 714-627-5944
Here are "more tube supply sources":
- Triode Electronics, 312-871-7459
- Elmiria Electronics 800-847-1695
- Antique Electronic Supply, oriented
to radio collectors, 602-820-5411
- Antique Audio, oriented to radio collectors,
512-467-0304
- New Sensor, mostly imported tubes
(here's the source of Sovtek), call Mike Mathews, 212-980-6748. Min. order
is $50.00.
- ARS Electronics, 800-422-4250
- Department of Defense surplus auction.
DRMO-Tobyhanna Army Depot, Building 16, Tobyhanna, PA 18466 is the gummint
storage facility for communications gear and is said to have good stuff.
Also, get "How to buy...Surplus Personal Property from the Department
of Defense", free from DOD Surplus Sales, PO Box 1370, Battle Creek, Michigan
49016.
- Surplus electronics dealers - see
the Telco yellow pages
- call everybody in the yellow pages
under Electronics, TV-Repair, Communications, and any other promising
category.
- Hamfests
- Angela Instruments, 8600 Foundry St.
Box 2043, Savage, Md. 20763, 301-725-0451.
- Tube Amp Service in San Francisco,run
by Tom Balon; call 415-334-5200 PST. (O'Neill)
How can I modify my Blender Tweety
Bird amp to be as loud as a Marshall Major/AC30/Tweed Bassman/SVT/etc.?
(Alternatively, how can I make my amp twice
as loud/more power/ etc.?)
You can't do this in a low power
amp, at least not electronically. To put out the power the big amps put out,
you need the entire power train to be as beefy as the big amps. This means
bigger power transformer, rectifiers, filter capacitors, output transformer,
more power tubes, bigger chassis, more ventilation to carry off the heat,
lots of things. You can't just add a couple of tubes.
An amplifier is properly thought
of as primarily a big power supply that has some extra junk tacked onto it
to carefully let a little of the power out to the speakers under special,
controlled circumstances.
You might be able to just pull a
couple of tubes OUT of a high power amp to make it quieter, under some conditions.
O'Connor discusses this in "The Ultimate Tone".
How can I extend my tube life?
- Modify the power on switching to heat
the filaments first, let them warm up for 30 seconds, then switch on the
high voltage plate supply.
- Add more ventilation to the amp chassis,
perhaps with a small fan.
- Modify the tube operating conditions
so the maximum cathode current is not exceeded under even maximum warp
drive conditions. Exceeding max cathode current causes cumulative emission
losses and early tube death. This requires a somewhat deep understanding
of the design of tube amps to do, unfortunately.
How do I get...
- Blues
distortion? Made by overdriving preamp and power tubes a little, enough
to just start compressing the peaks of the waveforms, and not very much
high frequency content, by electronically cutting highs or running the
signal into a speaker cab that acoustically cuts highs.
Guitar Player magazine ran a construction
article on this very topic, modifying a Fender Bassman to be the "Ultimate
Blues Machine". The article ran in 1995, authored by John McIntyre.
A recently voiced although intuitively
applied idea in distortion is that tube distortion sounds best when each successive
distortion stage is overdriven by less than about 12db. This has the effect
of keeping the tubes inside the area where the signal is more compression-distorted
than clipped. That is what those resistive divider chains between distortion
stages are for inside those distortion preamp schematics. Mesa's distortion
preamps are another good example.
Overdriving a tube stage too much gives
you harsher clipping, not the singing, sweet distortion we want. To really
get sweet, crunchy distortion, keep each stage that goes into distortion no
more than 6-9db into distortion.
- Marshall/metal/Boogie/etc.
distortion? Made by massively overdriving preamp tubes until the original
waveform is massively compressed and clipped. Usually followed with a
moderate amount of high frequency cut to remove some of the "insect attracting"
overtones generated in the clipping process. There is commonly some output
tube overdrive in this process, too.
- Good
distortion at low(er) volumes? overdrive preamp tubes until you get the
clipping you want, then feed a limited amount of this to a power amp stage
to get the loudness you want. This is how master volume controls work.
Where can I find plans for a Belchfire/Maximo/etc.
speaker cabinet?
- ElectroVoice sells (?) makes available
(?) plans for cabinets for their speakers.
- Copy an existing cab.
- Some cabinet fitting suppliers have
example plans.
- -- (addresses in a future posting)
---
Output transformer questions:
Q: Do output
transformers sound different from one another? If so, why do they sound different?
Can you for instance wind a transformer to get an intentional frequency response?
Like, you think your Marshall has too much midrange, so you put a new OT in
that has like a 6-9dB cut around 800hz to get a natural "scooped" sound?
A: These things cause transformers to sound
different:
- High and low frequency roll-offs caused
by the details of the iron, copper, winding and manufacturing processing.
- Inherent distortion caused by the
magnetic properties of the iron and the driving impedance
- Excess distortion caused by lack of
coupling between sections of the windings - literally where all the windings
are in relationship to one another - in a Class AB or B biased amplifier.
High and Low Frequency Roll-offs: Transformers
all by themselves have a high end rolloff point and a low end rolloff point,
and a broad flat region between the two. The exact frequencies where the highs
and lows roll off are a characteristic of the iron, copper, and how they're
wound and stacked together and treated or mis-treated.
It is possible to get a resonance or two
between the two ends, but most often there is only a self-resonance point
above the high frequency end. Usually any reasonably well-made output transformer
has no oddities within the high and low frequency roll-off points.
Given enough info about the transformer
and the use (power through it, temperature, DC bias current, etc,) you can
use the parasitic parts of the transformer's response, the unavoidable self
capacitances and leakage inductances, with other components outside the transformer
to shape the frequency response inside the relatively flat pass band; this
is more like shaping it externally than designing the response into the transformer,
though. The parasitics are largely what cause the high and low frequency cutoffs,
so it's not easy to move their effects out into the passband with simple circuits.
You can design in a high and/or low frequency
response point, and you may be able to tinker inside the passband a little,
but even an experienced designer can't easily just design in a scoop of arbitrary
depth at a given frequency with only the transformer windings to work with.
Inherent (or Iron) Distortion: It's not
widely understood, but transformers have their own distortion generating mechanism.
The iron in a transformer has to be driven to a certain magnetic flux level
to couple signals to the secondaries. The output tubes must supply this magnetizing
power as well as the power to the secondaries. A well designed transformer
can make this power very small. However, the nature of the iron itself is
that the magnetizing power is non-linear. It takes proportionately more or
less magnetizing power at different magnetization levels, so the iron siphons
off more or less of the signal.
This depends on the core material linearity
and magnetic softness, and how close the transformer is driven to saturation.
The amount of distortion depends, among other things, on the source impedance
driving it, as the distortion comes from the nonlinear shunting effect of
the transformer's primary inductance. A voltage source driving a transformer
will be able to be distortion free on the secondary. A high impedance drive
source (like a pentode plate, unfortunately) will not be able to provide all
the current the core needs to keep the voltage linear, and so some distortion
will show up on the secondary as a result. This distoriton is relatively small,
probably 2-5% below the beginning of saturation, and is primarily third harmonic.
Excess Distortion: Only in push-pull Class
AB or B amplifiers (that is, most guitar amps) when the crossover point where
one tube turns off and the other tube carries all of the power load, EVEN
IF THE BIAS FOR THE TUBES PROPERLY ELIMINATED TUBE CROSSOVER DISTORTION the
sudden change from two half-primary windings conducting all of the power to
the the secondaries to only one tube supplying the secondaries, if the magnetic
coupling from both half-primaries to the entire secondary is not excellent,
there will be a glitch in the output waveform caused by the change in current
in the leakage inductance in both the half-primary that is turning off and
the one turning on. This crossover distortion can not be biased away. Cheap,
non-interleaved output transformers often have this kind of distortion and
sound "harsh".
Q: Obviously,
output transformers have tolerances. Are the impedance tolerances the reason
one OT may sound better than another?
A: The impedance ratio(s) of a transformer
are fixed by the number of turns on each winding, and it's unusual for modern
winding machines to forget or miss a turn. Can happen, but it's rare; so the
impedance ratios are not what are the biggest contributors to tone differences.
Q: Are paper
bobbins really superior to plastic bobbins in output transformers? How about
power transformers?
A: No. Both paper and plastic are non-magnetic
and non-conductive. The only way they can affect a magnetic field is by taking
up space and therefore excluding either a conductor or a magnetic material
from that space. As long as the winding window is reasonably filled with turns
of copper wire, the effect of one bobbin material versus another is essentially
impossible to find even with sensitive lab instruments designed for work on
such things. The business about paper bobbins being thinner and letting the
copper wires be nearer the core is nonsense. The entire iron core "conducts"
the magnetic flux. Moving a turn of copper a tiny fraction of an inch closer
to the center leg moves it that same fraction further from the outer leg.
As long as the dimensions for paper and plastic bobbins are not grossly different
(and the differences between old paper -actually glued-up cardboard- bobbins
and plastic bobbins are tiny) then there is no reason that the magnetics should
be affected at all.
There is some reason for this myth being
started, though. The output transformers from the "golden age" were pretty
much all hi-fi output trannys. This meant they were, among other things, carefully
interleaved and wound. The earliest plastic bobbins were wound not to get
good sound, but because the MBA's that had infiltrated the guitar companies
were trying to save a buck. A quick and dirty, lowest-bidder transformer wound
without interleaving on a plastic bobbin and laminated with cheap, thick iron
costs less than a good on from an old-line hifi maker, so that's what they
started making. The plastic was not the problem, but it was all that the uneducated
user could see, so plastic got an undeserved bad rep.
Let me be clear - IT'S NOT THE BOBBIN,
IT'S THE DESIGN AND ASSEMBLY.
Q:Are differences
in transformer sound in the pattern of the windings? Or something else?
A:Having pooh-poohed the idea of paper
bobbins being better with the "a turn's a turn" argument, I hesitate to get
into this, but I guess I should. The thing that makes for an OT tone is the
sum total of the contributions of all those parasitic elements in the transformer
- the series wire resistance, the leakage inductance in the magnetic path,
the turn-to-turn capacitance, the layering and distribution of layers in the
window, the depth of the core stack, the thickness of the iron in the laminations
the -*magnetic softness*- of the iron in the laminations and how carefully
they have been interleaved and butted together, and how free the laminations
are from electrical contacts.
Paper bobbins are one of the few things
that DON'T affect a transformer's tone, all other things being equal.
It is really a no-brainer to copy a transformer,
but you have to know about and be able to copy all of the details about how
it's made. Once you do that, you get fairly repeatable results, with the exception
of the handling of the iron. Transformer iron is annealed to be physically
and magnetically soft (which go together), and an oxide layer is grown on
it to prevent the layers from electrical contact, which affects how much core
loss happens. If the iron is roughly handled, it gets hardened and has more
core losses and higher distortion, as well as having the oxide scraped and
or punctured, which increases eddy current losses. These will have an effect.
You can detect the changes in magnetic characteristics of transformer iron
by testing the iron into a test coil, then striking it sharply EVEN ONCE.
I've performed this test myself on occasion.
Care in stacking the iron and jogging it
together also has an audible effect. If the laminations are carefully jogged
together so the joints are as tightly fitted as possible, it runs the primary
inductance up and the low frequency rolloff down, making for a better bass
response.
All this sounds obscure, but is really
much easier than learning to play guitar on an intellectual scale. It's just
another special language to learn. Most people just don't go there, so it
gets shrouded in myth.
Q: I remember reading
Matchless's (or others...) ad stating they copied the OT of an incredible
sounding amp and that was the key ingredient of their sound. What was it they
copied, impedance or winding pattern?
A: They had to do both to get a good copy
- as well as having to duplicate or approximate iron composition, thickness,
and stacking.
Q: Is hand winding
superior to machine winding for output transformers? When a known "good sounding"
vintage or modern transformer is duplicated, will modern equipment should
be able to consistently reproduce them without varying results? Is hand winding
being superior to machine winding is a myth?
A: The devil is in the details. Machines
can produce goods with a consistency that a human hand/eye/brain simply can't,
so where pure replication is required, bet on the machine. Whenever the materials/situation/adjustments,
etc. require judgement and on-the-spot compensation, bet on the human - IF
the human is an expert at whatever the situation is.
I would say that historically, the real
situation is that cheaply produced and poorly designed (for instance, non-interleaved)
machine wound transformers were accurately reproduced, and sure enough, the
sound was reliably bad. A good hand winder repro-ing a carefully stacked interleaved
OT could, in spite of the inevitable slight variations and flaws produce a
much better sounding transformers - at a much higher price - in low quantities.
A myth gets started - "I used so-and-so's hand wound OT, and it ran rings
around the machine-wound replacements," which is demonstrably true, but then
the leap to myth is made "therefore only hand wound transformers are good."
This train of reasoning is so seductive in the "vintage-is-god" environment
that it almost instantly becomes common wisdom, putting the merit on hand
winding when in fact the differences were in different designs.
For duplicating windings, a well made,
well adjusted and well maintained machine will produce more consistently identical
windings than a human. Note that I put a number of caveats on that statement.
An expert human with little or no equipment
will produce better, more consistent goods than a bored, ill-trained, poorly
paid operator coping with the wrong wire size on a poorly adjusted forty year
old machine, which is how some (especially the cheaper) transformers get made.
So - is the notion that handwound transformers
are ALWAYS superior BECAUSE they're hand-wound a myth? Yes.
Are hand-wound transformers SOMETIMES superior
to machine wound? Yes, especially where the hand-winder is producing a different
design from the machine.
I'd call the quality pretty much the same
for hand-wound and machine wound transformers where the hand-wound ones are
produced in low quantity by experts (a caveat that excludes fatigue and skills
flaws) and the machine wound ones are made on modern equipment with skilled
operators in large quantity (which allows adjusting the machines for consistency).
Q: I've read references
to modifying PP OTs, adding a mysterious "gap" (mysterious to me at least)
for SE use. What does that mean?
A:Probably this: process of adding a gap
means carefully unstacking an interleaved PP transformer, restacking the E's
and I's into non-interleaved chunks and reinserting the bobbin with a spacer.
This gets you a transformer that has a lower primary inductance, but that
won't saturate as easily. It's probably not what you would originally have
designed for any given SE circuit, as the primary inductance is now lower,
but it might work. And it REALLY appeals to the home-handyman tube hacker
crafstman instinct.
Q: What are "gaps" in output transformers,
and why are they good?
A: The "gap" in single ended transformers
is just that - a space where there is no iron. The way this is done with E-I
cores is to stack all the e's together and insert them into the bobbin in
one chunk, then put a paper or fiber spacer across the end of the "E"'s, and
then the I's are laid on in a chunk. The point of this is that there is now
a gap where there is no iron bridging it that makes the magnetic field jump
across. This linearizes the magnetic properties of the structure as a whole,
as the properties of the gap are so different from iron that they dominate,
and the gap cannot saturate like the iron can.
The overall primary inductance is much
lower now than if you had interleaved the laminations, alternating the direction
of the E's in the center of the transformer, though, so you must use much
more iron and copper to get as much primary inductance and low frequency response
as you would have had if you'd interleaved the laminations, so the transformer
gets big expensive, and can support much less output power for its size than
it might otherwise. Ten watt gapped single ended OT's for instance may be
four to six times as heavy as Class AB transformers designed for fifty watts
out.
Q: Can I use a push-pull
OT in my single ended amp? How about if I re-stackit to have a gap?
A: The use of PP OPTs for SE is cautionary.
The problem is that you must run the bias current through the primary as DC,
and this offsets the core magnetically. A transformer which uses interleaved
laminations (almost all PP OPT's) has a much higher primary inductance, but
is easy to offset and make the iron saturate. Introducing a gap makes the
primary inductance lower, but makes the transformer much more resistant to
saturation, good for SE OPT's. Using an interleaved PP OPT in SE use necessarily
limits the amount of DC bias that can be used without saturation and the corresponding
distortion. It works if you keep the DC bias current low enough to not saturate
the core, but that limits the amount of power you can use. So in general it
probably works if you use a BIG PP OPT for a much smaller SE amp. As a tube
hacker, I can understand the urge to just hook up whatever you have that might
be a good output, but as a former transformer designer, there are going to
be cases where it will not work or won't work well. Experiment if you like,
but be prepared to toss the transformer and/or output tubes if they fry, or
tear it all down if it just doesn't sound good.
Q: What is an "ultralinear"
output transformer?
A: It's a transformer with a tap at about halfway between the B+ connection
and the plate connection to which you can attach the output tube's screen
grid. This connection provides some feedback to the screen grid as well as
a bias voltage and has been found to act like a connection halfway between
pure pentode modes and pure triode mode, with lower distortion than either.
It's almost a requirement for tube hifi ampliers. Bass amplifiers use it to
get large amounts of clean power. It usually sounds too "sterile" or clean
for guitar players' tastes.
Q: Can I convert an
amplifier with an ultralinear connected OT to normal use?
A: Yes. Just disconnect the ultralinear
taps and make sure they don't short to something, then connect the screen
grids to a screen voltage supply. This is a common mod to UL connected amplifiers
for guitar use.
Q: Can I substitute
two single ended transformers for a single plate-to-plate transformer?
A: If you have two single ended transformers,
these are running effectively in parallel. It makes no difference whether
you are driving them from a phase inverter or not, because the phase on the
two (independent) output windings can be changed either way by reversing the
leads. This is not going to give you the same operation of either the transformers
or the tubes as a true plate to plate transformer. The real plate to plate
transformer actually combines the tube power in the flux in the iron, which
can never happen in two separate transformers.
Hooking two transformers together to combine
the output power is always tricky, series or parallel, because if you combine
them wrong, there can be large circulating currents, which can kill the transformers.
How did you determine the proper phasing on the outputs when you connected
them up? It is coneptually possible to series two outputs and have everything
work, but in practice, it's hard to do this well.
For a series connection, you MUST get the
secondary voltages to add. If you get the secondary voltages offsetting each
other, the series connection is effectively open circuited, no matter what
load is on the series combination no current flows because the secondary voltages
cancel out. In this connectio, you probably kill the primaries by arcing over
the internal insulation, possibly followed by burning the winding open when
a turn or two shorted from the puncture in the insulation and the B+ caps
dumped through that short.
The safe way to find out the phasing is
to use two resistor-loads, one per secondary, and then to connect one end
of each secondary together; drive the amp with a signal generator and measure
the AC voltage across the free ends. If the voltage is 2X the voltage on either
secondary, you're phased correctly, and you can leave the center connection
where it is, remove the resistor loads, and put one speaker across the free
ends.
If the voltage across the free ends is
smaller than the voltage across either secondary, they're phased wrong, and
you need to swap the ends of one secondary. Combining the powers of two SE
transformers is best done acoustically. Drive a second speaker.
Q: I've seen circuits
that use reverse biased diodes connected from ground to the plates of output
tubes as "transient spike preventers". How does this work?
A:The 1N4007's serve mainly as an amulets
against the voltage gods in this case. An inductive flyback pulse will go
to literally ANY voltage until it finds a discharge path. Ideally, transients
that would cause very high positive voltages on one push-pull plate would
cause high negative voltages on the other plate, and the diodes on the negative
going plate would clamp the voltages on the positive going plate through the
output transformer. This does indeed happen for small, extremely-tightly coupled
transformers. However, any leakage inductance between the two primaries prevents
the tight coupling that would let the negative going diodes protect, and worse
yet, it's the leakage inductances that cause the spikes on transients anyways.
What really happens is that the first few
flyback pulses that occur will break over the 1N4007's rather than than arcing
the plates on the positive side, so there really is some protection, it's
not just where it looks like it is. If you're lucky, the 1N4007's break over
before the transformer insulation punches through, and all is well until the
1N4007's go leaky or short. Probably better than nothing, but not a whole
lot of additional protection, either. Heck, amulets are not harmful, I guess.
Q: Can I use an
ordinary pushpull output transformer as a single ended ultralinear output
transformer?
A: Maybe. It's cheaper than getting one
originally designed for that use, but you do have to consider it as experimental
- it may or may not return good results, and you may have irretrievably damaged
a working OPT, which may or may not be a tragedy, depending which transformer
it was and whether you paid real dollars for it and how many. You can try
it, but consider the transformer expendable.
Q: What does the
"impedance" of my output transformer mean?
A: Transformers don't have impedances,
they have impedance RATIOs. This is an important distinction.
Transformers transform impedances as a
pure ratio. That is, a 4400 PP to 8 ohm transformer makes any load on its
secondary look like it's 550 times bigger to a tube at the primary. An 8 ohm
secondary load then looks like a 4400 ohm load at the primary. It also makes
a 16 ohm load look like an 8800 ohm load if you hook 16 to it, 2200 if you
hook a 4 ohm load to it, and similarly for all values in between. Power tubes
have a power output that depends on matching - that is, they have sweet spot
load that they do best on, most power out, and other loads will get less power
because the tube itself limits how much power it will transfer out. [Actually
there are two sweet spots, one for highest power, one for lowest distortion;
the two spots are not the same for any known tube. From zero ohms loading
up to some ill-defined number of ohms higher than the optimum power load,
power tubes do not destroy themselves, they merely change how much they transfer
to the load. So - if you have a tube amp with a tap for 8 ohms, you will get
the nominal power of the amp only with a "matched" 8 ohm load. If you hook
16 ohms there, the power tubes "see" a proportionately higher ohmage on their
plates, and can only put out about half the nominal power. If you hook up
a 4 ohm load to the 8 ohm tap, the power tubes "see" a load about half of
the matched one, and again will put out only about half of the nominal power.
This "half the nominal" power is not fixed because of the 2:1 change in load,
but varies from amp to amp and tube to tube, and may not be exactly 2:1. In
addition, speakers are NOT single impedance loads. It is convenient to think
of "8-ohm" speakers, but the plain fact is that the speaker's impedance varies
with frequency and also with the acoustic loading (cabinet and other things)
that the speaker sees. That impedance meter is not going to be a huge help,
because you have to specify the frequency being tested as well as the impedance
to have something meaningful.
Q: Why do I have
to match speakers to the output impedance of the amp?
A: You'll get the most power out of the amp if the load is matched.
Q:Will it hurt my
amp/output transformer/tubes to use a mismatched speaker load?
Simple A: Within reason, no.
Say for example you have two eight ohm speakers, and you want to hook them
up to an amp with 4, 8, and 16 ohm taps. How do you hook them up?
For most power out, put them in series
and tie them to the 16 ohm tap, or parallel them and tie the pair to the 4
ohm load.
For tone? Try it several different ways
and see which you like best. "Tone" is not a single valued quantity, either,
and in fact depends hugely on the person listening. That variation in impedance
versus frequency and the variation in output power versus impedance and the
variation in impedance with loading conspire to make the audio response curves
a broad hump with ragged, humped ends, and those humps and dips are what makes
for the "tone" you hear and interpret. Will you hurt the transformer if you
parallel them to four ohms and hook them to the 8 ohm tap? Almost certainly
not. If you parallel them and hook them to the 16 ohm tap? Extremely unlikely.
In fact, you probably won't hurt the transformer if you short the outputs.
If you series them and hook them to the 8 ohm or 4 ohm tap? Unlikely - however...
the thing you CAN do to hurt a tube output transformer is to put too high
an ohmage load on it. If you open the outputs, the energy that gets stored
in the magnetic core has nowhere to go if there is a sudden discontinuity
in the drive, and acts like a discharging inductor. This can generate voltage
spikes that can punch through the insulation inside the transformer and short
the windings. I would not go above double the rated load on any tap. And NEVER
open circuit the output of a tube amp - it can fry the transformer in a couple
of ways.
Extended A: It's almost never low impedance
that kills an OT, it's too high an impedance.
The power tubes simply refuse to put out
all that much more current with a lower-impedance load, so death by overheating
with a too-low load is all but impossible - not totally out of the question
but extremely unlikely. The power tubes simply get into a loading range where
their output power goes down from the mismatched load. At 2:1 lower-than-matched
load is not unreasonable at all.
If you do too high a load, the power tubes
still limit what they put out, but a second order effect becomes important.
There is magnetic leakage from primary
to secondary and between both half-primaries to each other. When the current
in the primary is driven to be discontinuous, you get inductive kickback from
the leakage inductances in the form of a voltage spike.
This voltage spike can punch through insulation
or flash over sockets, and the spike is sitting on top of B+, so it's got
a head start for a flashover to ground. If the punchthrough was one time,
it wouldn't be a problem, but the burning residues inside the transformer
make punchthrough easier at the same point on the next cycle, and eventually
erode the insulation to make a conductive path between layers. The sound goes
south, and with an intermittent short you can get a permanent short, or the
wire can burn though to give you an open there, and now you have a dead transformer.
So how much loading is too high? For a
well designed (equals interleaved, tightly coupled, low leakage inductances,
like a fine, high quality hifi) OT, you can easily withstand a 2:1 mismatch
high.
For a poorly designed (high leakage, poor
coupling, not well insulated or potted) transformer, 2:1 may well be marginal.
Worse, if you have an intermittent contact in the path to the speaker, you
will introduce transients that are sharper and hence cause higher voltages.
In that light, the speaker impedance selector switch could kill OT's if two
ways - if it's a break befor make, the transients cause punch through; if
it's a make before break, the OT is intermittently shorted and the higher
currents cause burns on the switch that eventually make it into a break before
make. Turning the speaker impedance selector with an amp running is something
I would not chance, not once.
For why Marshalls are extra sensitive,
could be the transformer design, could be that selector switch. I personally
would not worry too much about a 2:1 mismatch too low, but I might not do
a mismatch high on Marshalls with the observed data that they are not all
that sturdy under that load. In that light, pulling two tubes and leaving
the impedance switch alone might not be too bad, as the remaining tubes are
running into a too-low rather than too-high load.
Q: Can I use two single
ended output transformers in a push-pull circuit and then parallel the outputs?
A: What you're making really IS two class
A output stages run in parallel. With no magnetic coupling between the two
half-primaries, there is no interaction on the secondaries, either. You have
to run them Class A to keep from having distortion because they really are
separate amplifiers. It's not clear what happens if/when you try to use feedback
from the secondary into the (presumably)common driver stage.
On the secondaries, you have two 8 ohm
outputs that you can connect in series to drive either two 8 ohm loads separately
or one 16 ohm by placing the secondaries in series; the resulting power capability,
given that you get the rest of the circuit right, is the sum from each transformer,
or about 2X the power of each Class A amp by itself. Note that this is far
less than you'd get by using a proper push-pull OT and driving it in Class
AB, probably ¼ the power.
If you try to parallel the two, you can
get some interesting and possibly disturbing results. If the transformers
really are IDENTICAL, then for equal primary drive, you get equal secondary
voltages, and you could parallel them OK to drive a single load. If there
is a difference between primaries, secondaries or drive voltages, then the
secondaries try to make different voltages, and fight it out. The differences
are reflected into the primaries as a kind of push-back voltage on the output
tube plates. Tubes being the forgiving things they are, this will probably
not kill anything, but it will at least act like a different loading than
you're expecting on a per-tube basis. I'm not certain exactly what effect
this will have on linearity or life. If you were driving the primaries from
a low impedance source, something would burn.
Q: What are the
things about output transformer that cause the differences in tone? How do
differences in output transformer construction combine with tubes to give
differences in tone? How do I design/modify an OT for a tone I like? How do
I duplicate the tone of a OT I already like?
A: What you have asked, translated into
transformer-geek language, is "How do I completely describe the equivalent
circuit of a transformer and the circuit it resides in?"
To be truthful, there isn't all that much
mystery about transformers, but it's not like the rest of your everyday electronic
parts. Transformers are susceptible to electronic modelling, and once you
get the model correct, you can twiddle the values until you get the "tone"
you want, including nonlinear effects. The later versions of SPICE include
nonlinear transformer models for exactly this use.
You won't like the answers, primarily because
of size. To understand a transformer's effect on tone, you have to be able
to model the whole power amp/tube/OPT/speaker chain and account for the effect
of changes in the OPT model, then synthesize back to real hardware once you
get the response you like. You've asked for a couple of semesters equivalent
worth of information on transformer modelling and design linked to a course
on the design of the output stage of a tube audio amp.
I suggest that if you really want to know
this stuff, you find a copy of Nathan R. Grossner's "Transformers for Electronic
Circuits", which is out of print, but available at many technical libraries.
I put this reference in the Tube Amp FAQ to answer this kind of question.
You can model any transformer as a shunt
primary capacitance across the primary winding, a series leakage inductance
to the primary winding, a series resistor equal to the winding resistance,
a nonlinear inductance representing the primary inductance, with a nonlinear
resistor in parallel with the primary inductance to represent core losses,
primarily from eddy currents. Then an ideal "perfect transformer" to convert
the voltages and currents correctly, a series secondary winding resistance,
a series secondary leakage inductance, and a shunt capacitance across the
secondary. A shunt capacitor from primary to secondary completes the model.
Get those component values correct, and
you can accurately model everything about any transformer. There are no mysteries
hiding in there. The component values are all measurable, and to a certain
extent predictable from the start. Any transformer can be copied, Fischer
and his ilk to the contrary.
So - tone effect of a OPT? first - what
does the base transformation ratio do to the reflected loading on the tubes
as a function of frequency, including speaker loading. This is fairly independent
of the transformer model, depending only on that "ideal transformer" in the
middle, but has a big effect on how the tubes put out power.
Next - What are the values of the model
components? That is, how much leakage inductance, shunt capacitance, and core
loss is there? At what points in the excitation does the core start going
into saturation, and from the composition of the iron, what is the irreducable
energy loss per cycle to magnetizing losses, which shows up as pure third
harmonic distortion. Core saturation sounds like any soft limit on a signal;
its effect on tone also depends on the symmetry of the limiting. You get primarily
third, but smaller amounts of fifth and seventh harmonics on pure tones. Combine
with the tone of the tubes? I have a problem with that, and I'm not just being
difficult. First, define "tone" unambiguously...
The power response of the tubes will be
affected a lot by the degree to which the reflected loading on the plates
matches the "power transfer sweet spot" for the tube, and this is a function
of frequency, depending obviously on the speaker impedance curve and the other
parasitics in the model.
The size of the core and the number of
turns have a direct effect on the low frequency response, but they affect
it by changing how much the primary inductance loads the tubes at the lowest
frequency of interest. Good designs make this NOT be a consideration in most
cases. Poor designs make it a critical factor, and you hear the poor design
as either core distortion or low frequency restriction. The winding inductances
are entirely subsumed into primary and secondary inductances and have no effect
on tone whatsoever - except to the extent that the physical location and sectionalization
of the windings contribute to the leakage inductance and shunt capacitances.
The effect of the loading on the plates IS a major contributor. Each tube
type has a power response curve, power out at a given impedance. There is
also a curve of distortion versus loading. In general, the sweet spot of max
power is not the sweet spot for lowest distortion, so changes in loading cause
the amount of power out to change as the amount of distortion changes, too.
Changes in plate loading will cause big changes in tone - and speakers all
by themselves have impedance versus frequency curves that vary by four or
more to one. To get a good grip, first get some good background. There is
not enough room in this FAQ to type in what you've asked. Get a book, preferably
Grossner, but any other that describes the basics of transformer modelling;
then I can point you to some books on transformer making that will give you
an idea on how to change the things you do in making one that can change those
parasitics. A final thought. If the totality of what a transformer does to
tone can be modelled by the ideal transformer and some non-ideal components,
could you take a transformer with very small parasitics, close to ideal, and
add in external "parasitic" components and make it look like any one of a
number of less ideal transformers? Yep. You can add inductors and caps to
OPTs to make them look more like some transformer you like better, as long
as you're not haveing to add negative inductance and/or capacitance. The iron
alloy also has an effect, and it's tied up in that business about the BH curve
and nonlinearities. If you drive a transformer from a voltage source, 0 ohms
impedance, then there is no distortion of the secondary voltage as a result
of the BH nonlinearities, as the source can provide any current to keep the
voltage correct. If however you use a source with a real impedance, like the
plate impedance of a pentode, then the nonlinearities demand current, and
the plate impedance then limits the current available, so the voltage waveform
is distorted on both primary and secondary. Unfortunately, we need the transfomer
BECAUSE the tube has internal impedance, so we can't just wish that away.
As a sidelight, this is one of the classical arguments for triode output tubes
over pentodes or beam power tubes during the golden age hifi years - triodes
have a much lower internal impedance and hence lower the distortion of the
transformer.
What you CAN do is to do some fairly simple
tests to map the BH curves of the iron you have,
[sidelight: if you find a "magic" transformer,
much more "tone" (whatever that means to you) than any other, you can do the
work to measure the BH curve nondistructively on the core properties that
it has, and then go duplicate them.] and then either get different iron or
introduce air gaps to change the effective BH curve of the iron to make a
core nonlinearity that matches whatever sounded good. You may not be able
to match the iron perfectly, but it's the core properites, not just the iron,
that you're looking for, and there are things you can do there.
There are a number of grades of transformer
iron, but I doubt that there are larger laminations made especially for audio
these days, as there is effectively no money to be made; the money is all
in laminations for power transformers. There are several grades of good, linear,
high permeability silicon iron made for power transformers, and I suspect
that these are what ALL new manufacture OPT's come from.
Note that this may (and probably will)
result in a core that is bigger than the one you're copying, you may have
to rework the windings to get the necessary primary inductance, shunt capacitancs,
leakage, etc, etc. to duplicate the response of an iron core you can't get.
Also - there are other ways to introduce
the specific nonlinearities that make for a good sound if you can ever define
what "good" is well enough.
A:There are some simple tests you can run
to quickly determine if a transformer is grossly bad. This is much simpler
than determining if it will work well and sound "good" for you. The tests
of relative "goodness" are also possible, but require a lot of equipment and
experience to do correctly. For the quick and dirty tests described here,
you'll need a means of measuring AC voltage and current simultaneously, such
as a pair of VOMs or DMMs, and a 110/120 to 6.3VCT filament transformer, and
either a variac (variable transformer) or a light bulb socket in series with
the primary of the filament transformer to limit the power you put into the
transformer under test.
-
CAUTION CAUTION CAUTION
Both the filament transformer and the
transformer under test will have at least AC line voltage on them, an may
well have much higher voltage, several hundred volts on one or more windings.
You are therefore in danger of being KILLED if you are not both knowledgeable
and careful about how you do these tests.
DO NOT TRY THIS IF YOU DO NOT
HAVE THE KNOW-HOW AND EXPERIENCE TO WORK SAFELY WITH THESE VOLTAGES. IF
YOU HAVE ANY QUESTION IN YOUR MIND WHETHER YOU CAN DO THIS WORK SAFELY,
YOU CAN'T.
Seek experienced help if you have
any question in your own mind.
The tests run like this.
Identify which wires are which by color code, circuit connection, or by
using an ohmmeter to find which connects to which. Label the wires. From
the same ohmmeter test, write down the resistances you measured on the windings.
Generally, windings with resistances over a few ohms are high voltage windings,
either a power transformer primary or high voltage output, or an output
transformer primary. Note that it is common for primary windings on power
transformers to have from two to six wires, with the wires over two being
taps to adjust for various line voltages from 110-117-120-125-208-220-240.
Secondary windings on power transformers and primaries on output transformers
will have either two or three leads, and secondaries on output transformers
will have to to four leads.
Also note if any winding is shorted
to the transformer core. Sometimes an internal shield will be deliberately
connected to the core, but if a multi-lead winding is connected to the core,
this is usually an internal short, and a dead transformer.
Once you have identified the windings,
hook up one and only one winding to either 1/2 of the 6.3VCT or to the variac.
Try to select a low voltage winding, one that has low resistance from the
ohmmeter test. Make sure that no other leads are connected (or shorted together,
or touching your screwdriver on your bench or... well, you get the idea).
A turn of plastic tape on each wire end you're not using at the moment is
a good idea. Set your voltmeter on this winding, and the current meter to
measure the current through it, and bring the circuit up. The voltmeter
should measure 3 volts AC, the light bulb (if used) should NOT be lit brightly,
and nothing should be humming or smoking ;-). There should be little current
going through the winding. If the voltage is lower than 3 volts, or you
are pulling amps of current, then there is a load on the transformer, internally
since you have disconnected all the leads, meaning that there is an internal
short. You should try to select a winding for this test that is normally
a low voltage winding, either a filament winding in a power transformer,
or a secondary in an output transformer.
If all is well, measure the voltage
that now appears on the other windings. The voltages will be equal to the
ratios of the voltages that will appear on these windings in normal operations.
Dixie Sound Works, Gunthersville, Alabama
has a great reputation for (re)winding quality vintage re-makes. The company
that made the amp may have service parts. The quality is variable from company
to company and time to time, though.
There are a number of companies that
have entered the transformer market in the last year, so expect that there
will be new places to get quality rewinds and replacement transformers
C. I want to make my
own power and output transformers. How do I do this?/ Where can I find
information about this?
Designing and hand winding transformers
is not terribly difficult, but it does require information and skills that
are relatively hard to find. You are unlikely to save a whole lot of money
unless used or broken parts are cheaply available to you. You may want to
do this if you feel that you were selected by some deity to take this on
as a life work. First, take a transformer apart. A burned out tube-type
power transformer will do. Do this carefully and slowly, imagining how you
would have put it together in the first place to get it the way it was.
This is an excellent introduction to the manual skills and materials needed
to successfully produce one on your own. Learn about how transformers are
designed from one or more of the following, in this order:
- "Transformers for Electronic Circuits",
Grossner (check your library)
- "Radiotron Designer's Handbook,
fourth edition
- "Audio Transformer Design Manual",
Wolpert, $36, privately published, available from: Robert G.Wolpert
5200 Irvine Blvd. #107 Irvine CA 92720
- "The Williamson Amplifier" D.T.N
Williamson, reprint available from Old Colony Sound Labs
- Handbook of Transformer Design
and Applications by William Flanagan (second ed.)
- "rewinding transformers with CAD"
by Hugh Wells W6WTU Ham Radio Dec '86 p.83
- "Fast Optimization of Transformer
Design" EDN Nov '62 by Davis, J. H.
These sources will help. They are NOT
a complete cookbook. Note that it is very possible to make a transformer
that will operate relatively well, but may break down unexpectedly and KILL
you if it is not constructed with safety in mind.
Unless you REALLY know what you're doing
and have heard the transformer you'll be swapping in and like it, no.
There are a huge number of variables
in the "sound" of a transformer, and you should exhaust other means first.
You might not get that magic sound after all that work unless your ears -
and amp tech - are really good.
Necessary for function? No.
Necessary for long term reliability? Yes.
If transformers are not potted or impregnated
in some way, they will eventually have problems with slight repeated movements
of the wire wearing the insulation and interleaving material, and with moisture
infiltration. In some climates, moisture infiltration will let molds and mildew
get started inside the transformer if it's not used almost daily. "Potting"
is not the same as "impregnating"."Impregnation" means getting some kind of
insulating gook soaked all through out the windings and spaces inside, while
potting means putting the whole assembly in a can and filling the can (and
transformer, as in impregnation) with goop. To be reliable for years of use,
a transformer must at least be impregnated with varnish or epoxy. Almost all
commercial transformers of any size are treated this way.
A do-it-yourself way to do this is to dunk
the whole transformer in a bucket of varnish and pull a vacuum on it to expand
the air out of the windings. A few vacuum cycles will get varnish well infiltrated
into the windings. Then bake it at low temperatures (under 140 to 200F) for
a long time, until the varnish is truly hardened.
What is the easiest way to get tube sound
at a good price?
- Obtain an old piece of tube gear,
perhaps intended for another purpose, like mono hifi, at no or low cost.
Modify this to duplicate to a certain extent the circuit of an existing
amplifier. Tinker to your heart's content.
There is a document on exactly
this at http://www.wwu.edu/~n9343176/docs/old2new.html
The document goes into excellent detail on the in's and out's of
building from old tube gear and the possible and useful variations of
which stages with how much gain go where in the amp.
- Build a tube preamp from scratch,
and use this to drive another larger amplifier which does not necessarily
have to be tube based. I have designed things like this, so have others.
Good tube sound, and inexpensive. Really convincing tube distortion, especially
if you add some lowpass filtering to simulate the high frequency cutoff
of guitar speakers.
This is what the Hughes and Kettner
Blues Master and Cream Machine tube preamps did (they've been discontinued).
These were entire tube amplifiers with maybe 2 or 3 watts output, a
simulated load, and a line level output in addition to the speaker output.
They did a VERY respectable job.
How can I modify my tube amp to ... ?
(also see recommended mods, below)
Get lower hum?
- Replace the defective humming tube
- Replace or improve the power supply
filter capacitors
- Fix the defective internal ground
wiring, as on a reverb tank, or previous "improvements" and modifications
- Run the preamp filaments on regulated
DC, not AC, starting with the input tubes
- Rewire the grounding so the amp is
star grounded, and does not use the chassis as a ground bus
- Move the signal wires around, nearer/farther
from the chassis or 60 Hz AC carrying wires
- Use coax cable in the signal path,
at least in the early sections where noise counts the most. Tie one end
of the shield to ground and terminate the other end with some shrink tube
so it cannot touch anything. This way the coax shield acts as an antenna
and conducts the RF to ground (as well as Faraday shielding hum out).
If you tie both ends to ground you set up some capacitance (and the possibility
of ground loops) you're better off without. The shield should be tied
to the star ground point individually, and bypassed to the chassis locally
with a good RF cap of about 0.001 to 0.01.
George notes "You may already use this
in your own amps but I thought we might share it with the rest of the tinkerers
- it's especially useful for people that are trying to add extra gain stages.
I even use it between the input jacks and the first stage since in most Fender
amps it has to traverse the width of the board. (Kaschner)
Have higher gain/more distortion?
- Install an extra gain stage by
- Using an unused tube section if
one exists
- Adding another tube to the chassis
- Using the reverb tubes as additional
gain stages
- Using a power MOSFET as a cathode
follower to drive tone control and volume controls for lower loss
- Using a power MOSFET to replace
an existing cathode follower, freeing up that tube section for more
gain
- Remove the feedback on the power
amp stage; newer Fenders and other amps use feedback on the power amp
to reduce distortion. Removing this increases gain and and distortion,
and makes the distortion start at lower volumes. On Fenders, it's generally
a white wire from the 'ext speaker' jack to a 2.2k resistor. Cut this
wire, or lift it at one end. To be really slick, put in a toggle switch.
(Edelman)
- Use the alternate channel for more
gain, perhaps jumpering two channels together
have a smoother, less buzzy distortion?
- Use a lowpass filter somewhere inside
the amp in the signal path to cut higher harmonics; perhaps a capacitor
to ground from the final preamp tube grid or plate -or-
- Use series grid resistors to cut the
high frequencies in and after distortion stages
- Use a lowpass filter after the amplifier
and before the speakers to cut out some of the higher overtones.
When should I bias my amp and how do
I do this?
A. What is "bias"?
"Bias" in this context refers to the amount
of voltage held on the grids of the output power tubes. This controls the
amount of current the output tube(s) conduct exclusive of the signal current,
or, looking at it another way, the amount of overlap where both tubes are
conducting simultaneously.
I will talk about the output tube current
since the terms "underbiased" and "overbiased" are confusing with tube amps.
A technician who works with only tube amps will usually refer to the voltage
which sets the operating current in the tubes. In these amps, the bias is
a negative voltage, so "overbiased" to such a technician would mean that the
tubes are held in a condition of too little current, just backwards from the
solid state terms most of us are familiar with. "Underbiased" would mean that
the tubes have too little negative voltage on their grids and are conducting
too much current simultaneously.
The idle current in the output tube and
the degree to which the output tubes overlap in conduction is what you're
trying to adjust, not how many volts go on the grids; you just have to use
the grid volts to change the current and conduction angle.
The whole topic of bias is tied up with
the "Operating Class" the power amp is designed for. There are only three
classes useful to us in tube amps, Classes A, AB1, and AB2. Class A means
that the output tubes are biased so that both tubes are always conducting.
Even on maximum signal peaks, the tube driven most "off" will still be conducting
some current. In both class AB's, the bias is set so that on a signal peak,
one of the tubes can be driven completely off for some part of a signal cycle.
In class AB1, no grid current flows into the grid of the tube, and in class
AB2 some grid current is driven into the grid of the tubes. There is a class
B, where both tubes never conduct current at the same time, only alternately.
The point of all this is this: The Class
of the amplifier is determined by how much bias current is present. If there
is a lot of bias voltage, the grids are held 'way negative, then only the
tube which is driven by the positive going half wave of the signal at any
moment is conducting. This is class B. It sounds ugly because the point where
the signal crosses over from positive to negative and begins to drive the
other tube is not reproduced cleanly, and creates [surprise!] crossover distortion.
You can look at the output signal with an oscilloscope and see crossover clearly
as you make the bias voltage too negative for both tubes to conduct at the
same time. As the bias voltage is made less negative and allows both tubes
to conduct a little, the crossover notch diminishes swiftly, and you are in
class AB2; a little less negative, and they both conduct more, and you have
class AB1. If you go further, you get to the point where both tubes always
conduct, making the amp work in class A, which has the least crossover distortion
of any of these operating conditions.
Too little simultaneous conduction in the
output devices puts them in the most nonlinear region of their transfer characteristic,
so crossover distortion is high; but as you increase the amount of simultaneous
conduction, the power used and dissipated by the outputs goes up, perhaps
to a disastrous degree. You are trading standby current and power dissipation
in the output devices off against distortion. If both outputs are biased almost
totally off at idle, crossover distortion is very bad. As the simultaneous
conduction is increased, crossover goes down rapidly, until it gets smaller
than the residual THD of the amp itself, and becomes much less audible. There
is a fairly broad sweet spot where the crossover distortion is comparable
to the THD and the idle current and idle power dissipation are reasonably
low. This is the region you're looking for.
Lots of bias, both tubes conduct all the
time - and eat a lot of power, get hot, other Class A kinds of things. Little
bias, both tubes overlap less, get less hot, put out more total power - and
produce crossover distortion, which sounds especially unpleasant.
Power tubes individually have slightly
different DC gains, so the same bias voltage on two different tubes produces
two different current levels. "Matched pairs" are two tubes selected to be
close together. Groove Tubes grades tubes from 1 to 10 so that any two "3"'s
for instance are close enough to sub for any other "3", so you don't need
to rebias if you keep buying the same number from them.
Note that you may not want matched pairs,
depending you your taste. See section D. below.
You should re-bias the amp whenever you
change power tubes or modify the power amp circuits.
Each power tube needs a certain bias current
to keep it operating at the point where the amount and type of distortion
under normal conditions is well controlled. Individual tubes vary widely in
the grid bias that sets the correct idle bias current. If you change tubes
or tinker with the circuit, you need to make sure the tubes are set back into
operation in a way that sounds good and does not cook the tubes.
Amps typically provide only one adjustment
point for bias, assuming that you will have bought matched sets of power tubes.
It is possible to modify your amp to "match"
unmatched tubes by setting the bias voltage and AC drive level of each tube
individually. This may require some serious soldering, though. See section
D. below for a discussion on matching, and the mods section for what you have
to change.
CAUTION CAUTION CAUTION
Keep in mind that tube amps use high voltages,
and they can *kill* you if you don't know what you're doing. So, if in doubt,
leave the job to a qualified technician.
How do you correctly bias an amp? There
a few different approaches but first hook up a speaker or a passive load to
the output and remove any input signals; tube amps need to have a load or
they can sometimes become unstable. Check and make sure the proper size fuse
is installed.
Output Transformer Shunt Method
The most common and simplest procedure
is to hook a current meter from the plate (anode) across half of the primary
of the output transformer; this is called the "output transformer shunt method."
The idea here is that milliammeters commonly have a very low series impedance
so that when placed in parallel to half of the primary, almost all of the
current flows through the ammeter. When you hook things up this way, your
meter is floating at the voltage level of the plate, which is typically hundreds
of volts -- be very careful! You could open the wire from each plate to the
output transformer and hook in a meter in series with the plate temporarily,
but that is a terrible amount of work for the small gain in accuracy.
Adjust the bias pot so that the current
reading is the appropriate value for the type of tube (see the table below).
Let the amp warm up and note if the bias changes significantly. If so, select
a compromise bias point.
Keep in mind that if your circuit uses
more than one tube per side, the bias current you're reading is multiplied
by the number of tubes (e.g., if you're reading 60 milliamps and there are
two power tubes per side, if the tubes are matched each of the two are getting
nominally 30 milliamps). Check the other side of the circuit to confirm that
the two sides are close (within 5 milliamps) to each other.
If your ammeter has too high a series impedance,
the shunt method won't work because the bias current gets significantly split
between the meter and the transformer; the meter has no idea how much current
is going through the transformer. You'll know it's not working because the
current values you'll be reading will be much too low no matter how far you
adjust the bias pot, the tubes will be glowing hot, and when you note that
you'll reach quickly for the power switch! If you don't reach it quickly enough,
you might blow a fuse. Don't despair: you can use another method called the
"cathode resistor method."
Cathode Resistor Method
If the circuit already has a resistor in-line
between the cathode and ground, use it. If the circuit has the cathode hooked
up directly to ground, insert a low value resistor (say 1 Ohm/1 Watt) [even
10 ohms will work well, as the currents in a tube circuit will cause only
a volt or so max across a 10 ohm resistor, not enough to change the circuit
operation a lot.] in between the cathode and ground. This doesn't have to
be a permanent change to the circuit; you can make a little adapter that fits
between the tube and its socket that runs all the signals straight through
except for the cathode lead -- that path gets the low value resistor in-line.
If you make the adapter, you don't even have to drop the chassis from the
amp to set the bias. Just pull a tube, install the adapter, and adjust.
Hook up a voltmeter across the resistor
and measure the voltage. For a 1 Ohm resistor, if you read 30 millivolts Ohm's
Law says that you have 30 milliamps running through it. If you have some other
value resistor, make the appropriate calculation. Easy! But since the current
at the cathode is the sum of the bias current and some other leakage currents,
you need to compensate the reading a bit, typically 5 to 10 milliamps.
What's nice about the cathode resistor
method is that you're not dealing with high voltages. The cathode sits very
close to ground so the chance of a dangerous mistake is lessened. You're also
reading each tube's bias current individually.
Other Methods
Some of the manufacturers say to set the
bias voltage to some specified voltage, without any other measurements. Presumably
some designer somewhere decided how much was good for you and wrote down "Set
the bias to xx volts" as a good compromise for all the tubes s/he expected.
This method ignores the variability of transconductance in output tubes, and
only gives good results for matched sets that happen to be exactly like the
"typical" ones the designer thought they'd get. Note that Gr@@ve Tubes tries
to help by providing matched tubes with a bias number from 1 to 10. If you
have GT's with a "4" bias number, and you replace with a GT "4" set, they
will have selected only tubes that are properly biased at that level, and
no rebiasing will be necessary. Of course, GT expects to be repaid a fair
profit for this service to you...
Another way to set bias is to use a test
signal, typically a sine wave. Monitor the output waveform on an oscilloscope
and adjust the bias for minimum crossover distortion. The obvious problem
is when has it "just disappeared"? Most folks do just a bit more than "just
disappeared" and get their outputs too hot causing shortened tube life and
overheating. Not very accurate or repeatable.
You can also use a special purpose instrument
that nulls the input signal out of the output signal so that you can monitor
just the distortion products. You then adjust the bias to get the distortion
to a realistic minimum without making it dramatically less than the residual
THD. This is the premium method, but requires a distortion analyzer - big
bucks.
These methods can be more accurate than
the first two methods but they require expertise and tools that most folks
don't have.
If you are a circuit hacker, and live on
solder fumes and cold coffee, you can modify the amp with solid state servo
bias adjusters that twiddle the bias to each output tube on the fly on a continuous,
real time basis to keep each tube -* exactly *- where it ought to be. Only
recommended for real wiring fanatics...
GENERAL BIAS GUIDELINES (from Tremolux@aol.com)
Currents Per Tube - Class AB1 Operation
(most musical instrument amps are designed to run in class AB1)
- 6L6 - 30 to 35 ma
- 6V6 - 22 to 27 ma
- EL-34/6CA7 - 35 to 40 ma., sometimes
even higher!
- 6550 - 40 to 50 ma
- EL-84/6BQ5 - 22 to 27 ma
Class A currents will be higher. Example
is 50 ma for a 6L6. Don't try to run an amp designed for AB1 in pure class
A, it will overheat and probably blow. To handle the higher idle currents,
Class A amps usually run at lower plate voltages.
Do I always have to buy matched pairs of
output tubes? The issue of "matching" output tubes, either by buying carefully
matched pairs or by tweaking the bias levels and drive signals per output
tube is not a settled one. It used to be common wisdom to simply buy matched
tubes. A few people noticed, however, that they had a favorite pair of output
tubes, which made their amp sound much better than others. The common assumption
was that these tubes were better matched somehow. When these tubes get measured,
though, it usually turns out that they are NOT matched, at least not matched
for AC gain characteristics.
The concept of matched output tubes comes
to us musical amp types from the hifi community, where they are trying to
get the lowest possible distortion. This was true from the start, when Fender
was trying to build low distortion amps and copied hifi circuits. The concept
has simply clung to us, largely through inertia. It is relatively well accepted
even in the hifi circles now that even-order distortion is euphonic, sounds
good to our ears. It is very likely that the even-order distortion produced
when mismatched output tubes are used sounds better than perfectly matched
tubes.
If you have modified your amp so you can
independently set the DC bias and the AC drive signal, you can tune almost
any pair of tubes into AC and DC matching. You can also tune in a selective
amount of AC drive mismatch to experiment with the selective mismatching sound.
There are technical reasons for
matching. Getting enough turns of wire on the primary of an output transformer
to get the right primary inductance and still using as little iron and copper
as possible to do the job properly is an engineering problem that almost always
results in Class AB output transformers being smaller for proportional power
outptu than a Class A output transformer would be. The (relatively) smaller
transformer and wire size makes a class AB (most guitar amps) output transformer
susceptible to burning out if one of the half-primaries carries too much current.
If one side of the transformer carries
significantly more current (like double) than it would otherwise in "normal"
operation, it is possible it will overheat or open, effectively killing the
transformer. Tubes that are so mismatched that to get the right total current
for a pair means that one is carrying more than 50% over the nominal DC current
for a matched pair is getting into the region where you ought to worry about
output transformer damage.
If you mismatch, try to get the DC current
the same in both sides of the output transformer, and an imbalance in the
AC gain of the tubes. The logical limit of this AC mismatching is to remove
all the AC drive from one output tube, which is a technique used by at least
one commercial amp maker. This effectively keeps the output transformer happy
with respect to DC, and gives you a single ended output stage; this also costs
you a large amount of your available output power, but, hey, we're after tone,
right?
Note that the commercial tube suppliers
have good reason for wanting to sell us matched sets at a premium. I would
expect their opinion to be that matched sets are absolutely crucial. As in
all musical matters, let your own personal ears be your guide.
If you have a set of tubes you know are
not matched, or if you have modified your amp to be able to set the bias and
drive levels on each output tube separately so you can either match or not
match the tubes at will, you might want to try un-matching them and see how
it sounds to you.
Q: I have found that if the bias for push-pull
with cathode bias design, is set with the bias at 50 mA for EL-34 tubes when
idling(i.e. no sound input), over time the cathode bias resistor will blow.
Why is this?
A: This is true if the amp is cathode biased
into Class AB; in this class, the average current in the outputs rises with
signal. On Class A biased amps the current is already at max for that bias
point, and should not drift up except if the tubes drift from thermal effects.
Note that cathode bias of an amp into class AB IS possible. Cathode bias is
not equal to Class A.
Setting the bias point for a little less
standing current (which is an unambiguous description for bias) is an OK solution
if your cathode resistors are undersized as long as you can live with the
increase in crossover distortion at lower sound levels. The "sweet spot" is
wide, so that may be fine. If you were previously in Class A and dropped the
current a little, this can move you slightly into AB for large signals.
Q: Does amplifier stability have anything
to do with the temperature of the output tubes? Can tubes go into thermal
runaway?
A: Yes. Emission in tubes |
