Announcement - Mercury Magnetics Bulk Buy - Has Ended

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particle
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Announcement - Mercury Magnetics Bulk Buy - Has Ended

Post by particle »

<b>Update: August 27th 2009: The bulk buy has ended.</b>

Hi guys,

I'm organizing a bulk buy from Mercury Magnetics over on wattkins.com and all participants will be able to buy at the 25-piece discount prices (plus shipping/tax/etc).

Details here: http://www.wattkins.com/node/15933
Last edited by particle on Thu 08/27/09 2:01 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Post by particle »

Nearly forgot... deadline for orders is Sunday 26th July 2009.
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Post by WaZaK »

Even at the "25 piece" price I'd find it extremely hard to justify the Micky Mouse (whoops, sorry, Mercury Magnetics) prices!
I have never looked back since deciding that, in this instance, there seems to be no correlation between quality and price.
But thanks for the kind offer.
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Post by what_wires »

WaZaK wrote:Even at the "25 piece" price I'd find it extremely hard to justify the Micky Mouse (whoops, sorry, Mercury Magnetics) prices!
I have never looked back since deciding that, in this instance, there seems to be no correlation between quality and price.
But thanks for the kind offer.
I wish I had a little discretionary scratch right now. :cry: :cry: :cry:

I helped a friend build a tweed deluxe and he sprung for a nice MM OT.. That amp sounds AWESOME. I have heard a few other scratch builds with Heyboer iron and yes... they sound spectacular as well but there is something sweeter about the one with the MM iron.

I did a scratch build of a BF Deluxe Reverb to go with my 68 Silverface Deluxe Reverb. I cut a new baffle and am running a pair of blue framed AlNico 10"s from a Bassman. I needed an OT with a 16 Ohm secondary tap and I sprung for the MM iron. It was a bit steep but I am so glad I went with it. The amp is killer. Just for yucks I hooked up the cabinet from my 68 Silverface to the 8 ohm tap of my scratch build. The overall sound of the MM iron was nothing less than heavenly.

I am not saying that MM iron is always better than Heyboer (GDS and others) for the 18 Watt, but I am sure that in many cases it is the best iron out there. As far as price/performance goes, perhaps the correlation would apparent if the underlying build quality was at a level where the nuances of a great transformer could be heard.
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Post by WaZaK »

what_wires wrote:perhaps the correlation would apparent if the underlying build quality was at a level where the nuances of a great transformer could be heard.
I guess that is the key: but I always feel that when comparing any item for purchase, it boils down to percentages: 50% more should mean 50% better.
Yeh, I know that is an oversimplification and OT's are really the "no compromise" component in an amp, but for me, nuances in quality should mean nuances in price.
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Post by CurtissRobin »

WaZaK wrote:I always feel that when comparing any item for purchase, it boils down to percentages: 50% more should mean 50% better.
Yeh, I know that is an oversimplification and OT's are really the "no compromise" component in an amp, but for me, nuances in quality should mean nuances in price.
Clearly you're neither an engineer nor a project manager. The cost of refinement is exponential, not linear.

KennyO
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Post by what_wires »

I am with KennyO....

Many of us here are in situation where splitting hairs means the difference between a great sounding amp and an amp that is SPECTACULAR.

An example would be comparing an amp that uses stock Mallory 150's vs SoZo caps. The amp with the Mallory caps would sound great and blow away a lot of other amps out there. The amp wouldn't have the organic "breath" of an identical amp with the SoZo caps though. True, the SoZo's don't sound twice as good as the Mallory caps, but they cost twice as much and are worth every penny if you are striving for the ultimate tone.
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Post by zaphod_phil »

what_wires wrote:I helped a friend build a tweed deluxe and he sprung for a nice MM OT.. That amp sounds AWESOME. I have heard a few other scratch builds with Heyboer iron and yes... they sound spectacular as well but there is something sweeter about the one with the MM iron.

I did a scratch build of a BF Deluxe Reverb to go with my 68 Silverface Deluxe Reverb. I cut a new baffle and am running a pair of blue framed AlNico 10"s from a Bassman. I needed an OT with a 16 Ohm secondary tap and I sprung for the MM iron. It was a bit steep but I am so glad I went with it. The amp is killer. Just for yucks I hooked up the cabinet from my 68 Silverface to the 8 ohm tap of my scratch build. The overall sound of the MM iron was nothing less than heavenly.

I am not saying that MM iron is always better than Heyboer (GDS and others) for the 18 Watt, but I am sure that in many cases it is the best iron out there. As far as price/performance goes, perhaps the correlation would apparent if the underlying build quality was at a level where the nuances of a great transformer could be heard.
I think you need to take every type of transformer separately, rather than generalise that MM iron is always better or worse, or whatever. In the case of those particular F*nder replacement transformers, the MM option may well have been the better one. I've also come across a few horror stories, where it's been clear that MM's quality was really poor in the case of certain other transformers. With their 18W OTs, I'm skeptical that anyone in a blind A/B test could really tell which was the better between an MM and a GDS, Brownnote or Trinity Heyboer (which are all slightly different from each other). And then there's the GDS Vintage set, which is probably the closest you can get to the original RS transformers, now that Shinrock isn't in production. So I think we just need to try to keep some objectivity about all this and treat every kind of transformer separately.
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Post by what_wires »

Phil, that is why I specifically mentioned the 18W iron because of the fantastic transformers that have been produced for that amp. You would be hard pressed to find anything better than a set from Graydon.

Unfortunately many other amps out there don't have the cult following of the 18W and not a whole lot has been done to find the holy grail of output transformers for them as has been done for the Marshall.

I'm not saying the MM is the defacto gold standard for transformers, just that sometimes they are the best thing going.
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Post by zaphod_phil »

what_wires wrote:Unfortunately many other amps out there don't have the cult following of the 18W and not a whole lot has been done to find the holy grail of output transformers for them as has been done for the Marshall.
Yes, I agree with you. That's very true.
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Post by WaZaK »

what_wires wrote: SoZo's don't sound twice as good as the Mallory caps, but they cost twice as much
I can't argue with that. Point taken!
zaphod_phil wrote:I think you need to take every type of transformer separately, rather than generalise.
Can't argue with that either.
CurtissRobin wrote:Clearly you're neither an engineer nor a project manager
Yes, you are right. Just 40+ years on the road.

I guess it just find it tiresome when I hear Oooh's and Arrrrhs at the very mention of the name MM - from some. It's almost like the Ap*le FanBoys. Lolol.
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Post by particle »

Well, the opportunity is there for those that want to get some MM iron at the best prices. It's not for everyone, but that's OK too. The window closes in a few days... (and this isn't the first MM bulk buy offered here either).
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Post by zaphod_phil »

particle wrote:... (and this isn't the first MM bulk buy offered here either).
Very true :)
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Post by particle »

Last orders please gentlemen (& ladies!)... :D

http://www.wattkins.com/node/15933
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Post by particle »

Woohoo!!! We made the 25 pieces and all the orders are being shipped out today by MM.

The other good news is that I'm extending the bulk buy offer to the end of August. Since we qualified for the big discount, I can take individual orders now. So no waiting for the crowds... more details posted here at the beginning of the thread:

http://www.wattkins.com/node/15933
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Post by particle »

It's all over. Thanks to everyone that participated.
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