. Having an original Drake or Dagnall makes the concern even higher. Outside of the obvious reasons for transformer failure e.g wrong impedence, running without a load, a short (or how some beleive attenuators can stress OT's) what else can cause failure exactly? Do the windings get to hot and shift for whatever reason and then cause a short?I have had a OT recently go in my prized 1960 Kay/Supro style amp for no reason that I could find, and then OT go in a 1950's Ampex tube mic-pre I know these are not Marshall products but OT's nonetheless. I would really hate to loose my Dagnall in my fave 69 100w
.Recently I had a conversation with a friend and designer/builder for high end boutique amps who theroized that heat can be factor in OT's lifespan.
Heat makes for more wear in general. This makes sense to me. I have read that tubes lifespan can be increased by cooling, but not about OT's which obviously do get hot, but not to output tubes heat level.
I use all three of my Marshalls alot and keep the voltage steady with a variac along with a dedicated 20 amp grounded service just for my rig at the studio which is climate controlled. I avoid using boost pedals and stay away from diming the amp, which is easy as it is not my taste anyways.
Along with my other precautions I keep my head box back panel off my amps and have a stand alone fan that blows air accross the tubes and trannies. This does keep the air around the amp alot cooler which I am hoping helps. I have also started powering my amps up and down with my variac, to let them ease in and out of use more slowly. Lastly I stay away from attenuators altogether...
I would like to hear others thoughts on transformer health and saftey.
Cheers,
Eric
