Electrical:
Mechanical:
SST-REV1 Details:
It became apparent very quickly when we began developing our Fender reverb driver transformer that something unique and different was needed in order to cut through the noise of mass produced "clones". The original Schumacher 22921 transformer wasn’t anything special in it's design and the cost saving methods employed in it's construction have been further trimmed and further cost-cut to this day by new manufacturers. Combine that with a major deviation in the construction of modern reverb tanks and you have a recipe for lackluster reverb sounds becoming the new norm.
Most modern reverb tank transformers (little guys inside the tank itself) are being constructed on a core size that is much larger than the Gibbs and Accutronics of yesteryear. This has increased their overall inductance resulting in very cavernous and dark sounding reverb tanks. Utilizing the vintage driver transformer doesn’t account for this increase in inductance, so the splash sounds we’ve all come to love have been unfortunately designed out of current production reverb circuits.
With SST-REV1 we started from the basic design of the 22921 but increased the size of the primary wire in order to reduce potential wire breaks, increase DC current handling, and instill a greater long-term reliability. This also decreased the primary winding resistance allowing for slightly less insertion loss in the driver circuit. From there we added a tapped secondary in order to change the voltage ratio of the transformer. This system acts as a coarse “dwell control” in that less signal is hitting the reverb tank because the internal voltage losses of the transformer ratio have been increased. This worked better than anticipated with the final decay happening sooner with the adjusted voltage ratio.
The last thing to address was the original’s method of core lacing (another cost saving decision). The 22921 was assembled with no shim material in the core gap (a requirement for single-ended transformers with DC current in the primary). Since the primary current in a 12AT7 reverb circuit is relatively low you can get away with no shim because of the inherent gap created by the stacking method, but let’s be honest, this is a cost cutting and inconsistent approach to making an audio transformer. Even if it’s just for reverb it deserves better than that.
With that in mind, our SST-REV1 is a full fledged properly shimmed single-ended output transformer designed for signal level control in Fender type reverb circuits. The end result is a clearer and more detailed reverb than any other on the market while having another voicing option to builders wanting to bring that sound out of their imagination and in to the real world.