I ran across a mention of Lightning Boy brand "steel core instrument transformers". From the product description, they're 1:1 transformers that you're supposed to place between pedals "to give your pedals more of a vintage-studio-gear sound. The steel core laminations provide a bit of a retro sonic signature. You'll probably notice a little bit of an upper HF boost and a coloration of the mids. Both of these aspects become more obvious when the 2020S is driven by a boost pedal or when multiple 2020S's are in use in a signal chain."
Website (link broken to prevent backtracing of the link): https://lightningb oyaudio.com/2020s.html
Has anybody heard of anything like this before? I guess that a transformer could have some frequency- or phase-dependent effects, but stuff like "a retro sonic signature" and "coloration of the mids" sounds like pure snake oil.
"instrument transformer for pedalboards"? Real, or just audiophoolery?
To get low frequencies to pass through a transformer, you need lots of windings/high inductance/heavy wire/etc. That all means large size. What he is using is probably those $4 matching 1:1 transformer with a freq response of : ±3dB, 300Hz~3.4KHz. A bass cut sounds the same as a mid/treble boost. No way his are going down to 10hz as even the best $$$$$ home audio transformers don't go that low. $94 rip off. The $4 ones at Mouser are what people use when building isolating buffers and phase switching pedals.
https://www.mouser.com/Xicon/Passive-Co ... ?P=1z0zls8
There is actually a model used in the DIY Octavia pedal builds. Most common are the 600 ohm/600 ohm and the 10k/10k. Transformers will actually saturate with a large enough signal so maybe that's what he is calling vintage sound.
https://www.mouser.com/Xicon/Passive-Co ... ?P=1z0zls8
There is actually a model used in the DIY Octavia pedal builds. Most common are the 600 ohm/600 ohm and the 10k/10k. Transformers will actually saturate with a large enough signal so maybe that's what he is calling vintage sound.
AGF refugee