Tube amplifiers and interstage transformers

I found a website that produces ITs that has a documents explaining the advantages of this approach.

http://www.sacthailand.com/Transformer_InterstageInfo.html

I agree with Charles1dad and Larryi, most of the best tube amplifiers I have heard have interstage transformers. And like I said before, some of the highly regarded ones also have interstage transformers.

It looks like if you want your interstage transformer not to reduce the bandwidth or affect negatively the sound you need to buy a really good one.

Still, a lot of amplifier designers and people with high knowledge of audio will go for no interstage transformer approach.

The issue is that besides the impedance matching Interstage transformers bring a kind of naturalness to the sound, question would be how?

I have a 45 SET amp built by Bob Danielak and it sounds amazing. It does not have interstage transformers at all.

Some of the Audio Note kits have interstage transformers and people really talk great things about them.

Regardless of the technical hows, that is the bottom line: it depends on the implementation.

Maybe I could ask Bob Danielak to build a SET IT amplifier for me so I can compare for myself at home. Maybe one with the darling 1626, which by all accounts looks like a "magical" tube in the presence and soundstage area.

Thanks for jumping in Dave with a real technical explanation. Could you help us here giving us an idea why interstage transformers when properly implemented add a kind of natural and openness to the sound?

Alan

Dave, thats a bigger truth, system energy affects everything and is the ultimate sound shaper.

And yes, it would be nice to know what exactly are you looking for, but in reality (at least me) I know mostly what I do not like and what I could like. For sure, while I listen to more and more different speakers and different kinds of amplifiers i can narrow my options, but still is not so easy.

Alan

Thanks a Atmasphere for his technical explanation of his experiences with transformers in amplifier design.

And yes Charles1dad, I will have to listen for myself and compare.

I have listened to some amplifiers that have ITs and I liked their sound. Mostly, I listened to them not in a proper listening session but in a demo room.

Best way to get out of doubt will be to get me one and live with it for sometime.

The thread has become really interesting!

I also believe that specs are just a way to measure audio, but those measurements do not have a direct relation with how we humans perceive and process sounds.

"So for the last 45 years or so the spec sheet has told us nothing about how an amp sounds"

Great Line!!

The mechanism that works inside our ears is not the same mechanism that works in the machines that produce those amp specs. We are a much complicated machine with lots of nuances to take into account.

As Atmasphere said, most of the companies need something to show or rumble about and most of the time is something related to specs, although some of them play the review game very well...

We just need to listen and that is always a pleasure.

Personally, I regard that the pleasure of listening to music in a good hi end system that is able to conjure the emotions of the musicians to our living room is a kind of spiritual quest that tries to find in sound a connection with the invisible, with something that lies beyond the organized noise, that somehow make us aware of some intuitive knowledge we have lost along the years as a civilization...

How can we measure that?