Hello!
Through the latter part of last year and through the first months of this year S&B was working on a new tx102 version. It was a stuggle for them and i very much appreciate that he stuck with it (he wound maybe 40 or 50 revs as part of this rev). Most manufacturers would have just told me to get lost.....
Why did we do it at all? I'll review the first 2 revs a bit and then talk about the MK III.
The MK I was the one that started the 102 series. Thorsten had S&B create this thing he wanted and it turned into a product (Thanks Thorsten!). I bought an early pair and liked what I heard so arranged with S&B to sell them. Once I had time to measure them I could see they had a large peak at about 50Khz (sometimes like 15db or so - it vaied with tap and loading as would be expected). While there are those that don't care about measurements at all I likem to see things basically behave themselves and I was also looking ahead to when these things end up in magazines and they measure them. The peak and associated ringing would give all those "anti-trannie" guys ammunition to scare folks away from them. This combined with some well known testers concern with the peak and ringing and also the fact that the times folks did not like them (rather rare actually) they described a sonic character that could be attributed to the ringing lead me to talk to S&B about a rev - which became the MK II.
The MK II was quite a different beast. The internal geometry was such that it measured near perfect - dead flat to 100Khz then a wiggle between 100 Khz and 200 Khz. Huge difference to the MK I. The sound was what might be expected - more laid back. I liked it better myself although not everyone agree'd! I felt that the more vivid sound of the MK I would 'win' in a quick a/b (kinda like the louder speaker syndrome) but the MK II sound was to my ear more enjoyable in the long term. Still there seemed to be a rising confusion about which rev would be best for folks. This combined with the fact the MK II did not allow phase inversion and that the MK II did not do quite as good a job (measurement wise) at some of the conversion modes (although the net response was still better than the MK I typically) led to a MK III rev attempt.
I say attempt because the MK III was a much more difficult task that we first thought. The goal was to use the baasic winding geometry of the MK I (allowing the symetry for conversion modes and phase inversion) and yet do it in a way that would have a decent freq response. There were times when it did not look possible and the things that theory predicted just did not seem to follow results so Jonathan at S&B embarked on a 'winding marathon' - experimenting with things and then learning from each rev. In the end after many revs he had a rev that fit the goals - and it sounded good too! It measures not quite as perfect as a MK II but it is miles ahead of the MK I in that respect.
Sonically I think it is what you might expect.... Somewhere between the other 2 revs and I think it hits the sweet spot nicely. A bit more vivid than the MK II but just a hair more gentle sounding than the MK I. "there is a Gentleness to it compared to MK I" was Jonathan's comment to me before I heard them and when i got my first pair alive here I had to agree.
Keep in mind that these sonic differences are not extreme and i am likely exagerating them in this text. I have NEVER suggested anyone swap trannies to change revs as I don't think the differences are worth the $$$. Still I like MK III best of the revs so I will be selling MK III from here on.
The price will stay the same for a while but will have to go up. First my new order of OCC wire will cost $4K and while I threw in in on the last batch with the lower US$ and the strong UKP margins are such that I'll have to add just a bit to the trannie prices to cover wire costs. The MK III takes longer to make by quite a bit so although S&B will hold current pricing for a while eventually the price will go up a bit to cover his time. I don't plan on offering the stadard versions myself because I think most buyers of tx102's want the bext they can get (like I do!) and I don't expect even the new price to be that much more than the std version - if there is demand for the std versions I'll get them for folks though.
Bit of a long post but overdue as I keep sending the short form of this in private e-mails.
I will have silver MK III here and running in a few weeks and will post a new copper vs. silver comparison once I get some time in a few systems to compare.
Lastly I'll post a bit about how I test revs and different flavors of pre-amps. I built a test unit a few months back and am sure glad I did! It lets me plug 2 pre-amps into the system and swap on the fly via remote from my chair between them - switching inputs and outputs to remove the one not in use from the system. I glad I did this. It makes spotting subtle changes much easier than having to shut down amps and swap cables between tests - which made comparing really hell! The system is blind so I don't know which one is active at any given time.. It is fun to guess and a bit humbling too - I have thought I had which was which nailed a few times and then realized I had guessed wrong. That's really made me aware of how subtle the changes between revs are and also how sometimes on some tunes one might be prefered over the other even in the same system.
Many Thanks!
John Chapman
www.bentaudio.com
