What's the general opinion on hammond iron for guitar amps?

[dragonbat13]

what I was really getting at was that you can have some fun with some flea marked stuff!!!!!!!!! And the Hammond stuff is still out there!

[pula58]

I love the Hammond 1750M (50W, 2/4/8 ohm taps). It has a great sound.
Lots of Iron I have tried have had an annoying treble response, the Hammond does not. It sounds great, solid, love it! +++

[rdjones]

I'll use whatever i find really...Bogen, Garnet, Traynor.

I'm not proud and i'm a recycler at heart.

I know this is an old thread, but the Traynor iron is Hammond.
OEM, good stuff.

Bogen is quite often Stancor.

rd

[Gaz]

what I was really getting at was that you can have some fun with some flea marked stuff!!!!!!!!! And the Hammond stuff is still out there!

I think no one responded because the discussion is referring to Hammond brand transformers from Canada, not Hammond organs from which many people have harvested reverb amps (among other parts) from for guitar amp use.

[Richie]

I like the old Traynor Hammond stuff.
Few years back i tried some and didn't care for it. I have not tried the newer made transformers, where they make replacements for alot of amps.
I just remember the 18w iron sounding dull.
But some liked that,so to each his own. 18w still has those sound files listed there. You can listen to 9 different OTs,in 2 different test samples.
Picking the hammond 18w OT from those was easy.

[rp]

I think no one responded because the discussion is referring to Hammond brand transformers from Canada

I'll throw in 2 cents on the modern Canada stuff:

I know this is an old thread, but the Traynor iron is Hammond.

RD, the Traynor iron was on paper bobbins, likely the steel and construction might have differed too over 45 years. Not sure I'd compare past and present sonics wise without actually a/b'ing them. Quality wise there's no issue for me, new stuff is as super solid as always. As the Rastas say, "cool running". Nice fit and finish. AND, Hammond have professional engineering paperwork - specs sheets, mechanical layout, wiring etc - unlike wankers like Mercury Magnetics - sorry, just had to get that out.

With the Hammond Classic PT's, you do have to account for the fact they are designed for 115 VAC wall voltage. 125 VAC seems to be the average around the US these days, so you have to expect a higher secondary than what is specified.

The 290 series is wacked in this regard. Hook up to 125V taps and your HT is out of spec - low, they rate the 115V HT. Hook up to 115V and your heaters are at 7.1V!!! WTF Hammond it's 2013 just spec it for this time and place! I only used the 300 series after that discovery, they are spot on, seem nicely regulated, and they solve my transatlantic moving around.

Lastly, diving headfirst into the subjective realm, it seems certain power tubes to my ears work better with hifi iron in general. A quad of el84's into hifi iron (especially Dynaco A470's) sounds fantastic. On the other hand, 6v6 or 6L6 into hifi iron just doesn't do it for me, especially when pushed. It seems to bring out artifacts that were masked by older guitar OT's.

hmmm, very interesting. Ok, so my Rocket will be getting a MC A470s. Was thinking of having Marble Amps in Holland wind me their AC30 type, but too many here love the Dynaclone.

In my limited experience I found the 1600 series OT strange and sterile sounding. I got a buzzy kind of distortion I think is caused by lack of saturation. I also used mf's and fancy caps or 715s at that time so who knows but in 3 amps - tweed clones, 1600s, mf's, polypropylene didn't do it for me. I sold the OTs but I wouldn't disqualify the 1600s for guitar on my very limited trials.

[Richie]

but too many here love the Dynaclone.

Not to get off track, and just posting my opinion. But i am not a fan of those. They are ok and sound fine i guess. But i like the Stancor 3800, or pacific over the Dynaco 470 in those amps. Again, thats just me.
There are other HI-Fi type OTs too that also sound great in those amps.

[rp]

[quote="Richie"]Not to get off track, /quote]
Appreciated detour, actually. First choice was the Pacific, anyone know where to source now that RJ has set aside his business? I want to use the Marble Amps AC30 wind for the Rocket just 'cause no one else has, march to my own drummer and all that.

[Cliff Schecht]

but too many here love the Dynaclone.

Not to get off track, and just posting my opinion. But i am not a fan of those. They are ok and sound fine i guess. But i like the Stancor 3800, or pacific over the Dynaco 470 in those amps. Again, thats just me.
There are other HI-Fi type OTs too that also sound great in those amps.

I use the A3800 in all of my personal Rocket builds. My 6V6 Rocket uses a 40W Fender Blues Deluxe OT with a slightly higher B+ (~350V for the plates, everything else adjusted to be within Rocket spec) and it seems to squeeze a bit more cleans out of 6V6's. Also sound good with 6L6, just too damn loud when cranked!

FWIW Hammond makes some very high quality iron. It's priced at a point in between Magnetics Components (good quality for the price) and Mercury Magnetics (great quality, 2-3x markup from what the parts are actually worth).

I used a Hammond 1650T in the big bass amp I built and I was impressed with the overall fit/finish, the quality of the metals and wires used and the overall stoutness of a 120W transformer pushing 200+ Watts.