Ginger's tranny was swapped when Caspar McCloud still owned it. The Express trannys are the 3801's (Originally). I have them made from the same specs except I order them with either 6.6K (Express) and 5.2K (Liverpool). They are grey because I like the grey bell Stancor 3801 I had and saw on a number of wrecks I was in. Ken used a Stancor 3800 on two of the wrecks (Liverpools) I've seen. FWIW, Caspar plays one of my Liverpools and has for a few years. He likes it much better (His words, not mine). To tell the truth, I never thought Ginger sounded good at all.
Thanks Allyn, it's good to get your help to understand some of this old history.
I have a note from Pat (owner and cofounder) over at Pacific who gave me a story about the relationship they had with Ken Fisher to design and build trannies. His words (not mine) are that they only built one output tranny for him and it was a 6.6K primary.
If we can add the facts and assumptions it would seem that a Pacific output tranny for the Liverpool never existed although they did offer to wind them for me as custom work. I suppose Ken might have had enough old stock A-3800's that he never used anything else... or possibly there is still another story to track down on that?
Would it be appropriate for us to believe that the Heyboer vintage 5.2K primary trannies make the best Liverpool builds, assuming nobody has a stash of A-3800 Stancors around?
Tonesluts dual tap 6.6K and 5.2K trannys sounded great. I have Pacific make me custom Liverpool trannys and have for a year now based on the 3801 (3800) with 5.2K taps. They sound dead on to the original Liverpool trannys I've heard.
I get a delivery of them about every 3 months
Allynmey wrote:Tonesluts dual tap 6.6K and 5.2K trannys sounded great. I have Pacific make me custom Liverpool trannys and have for a year now based on the 3801 (3800) with 5.2K taps. They sound dead on to the original Liverpool trannys I've heard.
I get a delivery of them about every 3 months
+1000K
Those are the 2 best Liverpool type OTs available.
I have started carrying the "Vintage" trannies from Heyboer which use the M19/26 steel. For the Liverpool it's part number HTS-9633 which has a single 5.2K primary winding. Almost everybody who is using them has declared them an improvement over the old dual tap trannies mentioned above. I haven't done the comparison myself so I dunno. Can anybody with the knowledge to do so comment on that?
I had spoke to someone in the past who also claimed the Liverpool used a 6.6K, I should have built a Liverpool up with a 6.6K transformer rather than go on holidays over Xmas.
My 84 Express has grey Stancor, with the same number on it as the 86 Liverpool's (OT's). Ken always said the old ones were Stancor until around 89, and after that all I ever heard him mention was Pacific trannies in both Express and liverpool. My 90 and 92 Liverpools are both black Pacific OT's. I'm just as confused as everyone else, because if Pacific only made a 6.6K OT for the Express and Liverpool, and ken said in lots of conversations that Pacifics were used in both models, how did the 5.2K come into the pic? I thought previously that all the OT's from Pacific were 5.2K, as Ken had mentioned this impedance for the Liverpool several times, hence, I always thought the Express and pool both were 5.2K....????
I suppose we need to build a Liverpool with the 6.6K tranny and see how she sounds. Am I right to believe that the impedance mismatch is about the same for a quad of EL-84's as it is for a pair of EL-34's? So if this works for an Express does that imply it would work for a Liverpool? Any thoughts?
It does sound like 2-tone has given us some evidence that we might see a 6.6K tranny in a Liverpool. Very cool info.
For the Stancor era, but I think as the Stancor's dried up he tried many things I hear of Express' using 5k2 later on? maybe he had 5k2 Stancors and he used them for a while on both models..
Then when he went to Pacific he just simply got a 6k6 made and used it on both, or maybe he just used what ever he had on the bench that week and he liked to feed a lot of false information to prevent cloners from copying his amps.
If you think about it most four EL84 amps like the Liverpool are at 4k primary OT, so Ken was probably doing as he said in his video getting closer to what Hi-Fi guys were doing.
I would think that 5k2 or 4k3 would be better suited for the Liverpool though.
Perhaps some of our experts can again give us a lesson here. This has been talked about in many old posts.
Allynmey wrote:James, a while back, I had an early Liverpool owner measure and visually look at his Liverpool. Stancor 3801. 6.6K. This person had some technical knowledge. I didn't make a big deal online about it then as the person involved didn't want the reprisals from the TW Police! To me, the 3800 will work but, the current handling is a little low compared to the 3801. I made one by request for a TW owner and he loves it. It reminded him of the earlier ones...not as aggressive but, with earlier breakup and wider range of clean to mean.
I personally Like the 6.6K. Nice bluesy sound. When you put the bright switch on the 500pF setting and roll the volume back, you get loud, beautiful cleans...something like a Hiwatt. Very versatile!
Pacific or Heyboer, remember too they are somewhat copies of Stancors,without the 250 and 500ohm taps.
if you are not hung up on on using exact transformers, try others. There are lots of great transformers that would work and sound good. Some are using the Edcors,and like them.
Who knows till you try them. Break out of the box. When someone finds one that they think sounds good,
post it. You might come across one that has even more magic to the sound. Might be a nice project,a test amp with a outlet plug to test different OTs. Could even post clips.
To me, the 3800 will work but, the current handling is a little low compared to the 3801. I made one by request for a TW owner and he loves it. It reminded him of the earlier ones...not as aggressive but, with earlier breakup and wider range of clean to mean.
