mecury powered

[Telecastinater]

I'm sure this has been discussed before but I gotta say hell yeah. I have a stock 4X10 hotrod deville and was intruiged by the mercury transformer ads. I took the plunge and had them put in. I've been playing with them awhile now. Absolutely amazing, better note separation and brighter tones overall. I play gigs and the other musicians instantly ask about the amp. I posted this for anyone considering the mecurys, go for it.....

[Rod Parsons]

Was it like night and day improvement????... I put a mercury mag. output transformer and choke in my '63 brown Vibroverb Reissue. It did seem like an improvement at low volumes but I wasn't able to crank it up for quite a while later, and I wasn't really concentrating on the tone as much as I was concentrating on playing the chords right. In other words, you might know better than me how much better the Mercuries sound. My amp sounds fine now. I think it sounded a little stiff before the change... Night and day?? Was it? Maybe.

[backline]

You HAVE to consider the quality of the OT he replaced and the quality of the OT that your replaced.
If the OT in your 63 was good, I would ditch the Mercury Hypenetics and reinstall the original iron.
Regards the 4x10 DeVille......I would say a new, quality OT from ANY manufacture would have garnered similar improvements.
Best

[celeste]

Originally Posted by backline

You HAVE to consider the quality of the OT he replaced and the quality of the OT that your replaced.
If the OT in your 63 was good, I would ditch the Mercury Hypenetics and reinstall the original iron.
Regards the 4x10 DeVille......I would say a new, quality OT from ANY manufacture would have garnered similar improvements.
Best

Yeah, got to agree with you there. It seems to me Fender is not spec'ing good cores on most if not all of there stuff these days. Back in the day, the OT's were probably the highest quality part in the amp

[Telecastinater]

Agreed......

[Rod Parsons]

Originally Posted by backline

You HAVE to consider the quality of the OT he replaced and the quality of the OT that your replaced.
If the OT in your 63 was good, I would ditch the Mercury Hypenetics and reinstall the original iron.
Regards the 4x10 DeVille......I would say a new, quality OT from ANY manufacture would have garnered similar improvements.
Best

My '63 Vibroverb is a REISSUE...from 1992. Mercury said it would sound better, but they did 'not' try to sell me the replacement power transformer. Only the output trans and the choke. If it were the real deal Vibroverb, I wouldn't mod a thing.... I was told that the transformers were made somewhere other than the USA. Does anyone know if that is correct or not.

[backline]

Originally Posted by Rod Parsons

My '63 Vibroverb is a REISSUE...from 1992. Mercury said it would sound better, but they did 'not' try to sell me the replacement power transformer. Only the output trans and the choke. If it were the real deal Vibroverb, I wouldn't mod a thing.... I was told that the transformers were made somewhere other than the USA. Does anyone know if that is correct or not.

Without sounding like I am putting my foot in my mouth.....
There is no guarantee. An educated guess would be that you would prefer the way your amp plays with a "better" OT, and probably feel there was an improvement in frequency response; especially from the low end going forward.
But what the heck.? NO MATTER where the OT was made or how "cheap and inferior" it is, if you try TWO of something and chose ONE over the other, who's to say you made the "wrong" decision.?
More than the OT, the PT will be much more a matter of meeting the necessary power requirements of the amp/circuit. If you had to gamble, there is better chance that an OT of minimum construction will be surpassed in tone and response by a well made tranny of like specs.
Best
just let me say.....
Country of birth has nothing to do with how well made a product is. NO reason a transformer made outside the USA could not be the equal of ANY transformer from The States. It is just a matter of what The Customer (Fender for example) is asking for and accepting.
The guys that make tranny sets for Nik (Ceriatone) seem to know what end is up.
http://www.promitheusaudio.com/transformers.html
Anyway......your ears and fingers always know the right answer.

[Billm]

Replacing the power transformer with one of the same voltage/current spec is a waste of money. And that's exactly what the PT vendors are offering, unless they're specifically advertising more plate voltage or more heater current so you can run higher-power tubes.

The output transformer can make a difference if the stock unit is under-spec'd/undersize and you don't like the sound of a saturated OT when you're cranked. For some people, though, it's the heart of Fender tone.

I have no beef with Mercury quality, but their prices ... yikes. I have a Blues Junior on the bench right now -- the owner spent a small fortune on mods. And he's deeply dissatisfied with how it sounds after having been through two "big name" California shops.

The previous modders wasted time, effort and money replacing all the resistors in the signal path (and some not in the signal path) with carbon comps. Then they replaced all of the caps with tubulars, mostly of the same value, for no net benefit in tone.

The Mercury PT puts out exactly the same voltage and current as the stock OT. The Mercury OT for the Blues Junior is a monster, a huge, open-frame thing, probably a relabeled Deluxe Reverb OT. It has lower DC resistance than the stock Fender OT, which says that they're doing it with less wire and more core. The result is a light, open, airy sound. Yeah, you could call it note separation, but I call it wimpy.

I guess my point is that an amp is a system, and formulaic application of "mojo" parts and expensive components is not a guarantee of good tone. Or if there is improvement, how much more is being left on the table?

[keithb7]

I just want to mention another alternative to Mercury Magnetics transformers, is Heyboer. They are also made in the USA an considerably less than Mercury. I am in the middle of a 5F2A build and chose Heyboer power and output trannies, as I too thought the Mercury stuff was pretty steep for my project. No idea how they sound yet, still waiting for them to arrive.

[BobbyZ]

My brother put a bored out Mercury 410 into a 56 F-100 dual quads and a four speed man that was a ride.

[Rod Parsons]

Well, I must say.... Mercury sure had a big convincing ad in Vintage Guitar magazine. I thought that my 63 vibroverb reissue was sounding a little flat, even with winged C Svetlana 6L6s. Then I saw their ad with the really sexy girl, who convinced me that the tone was in the transformers... Ah ha! So "THAT" is what it needed... I called them and had them send the output trans and the choke. A friend of mine put them in... And I do believe that it sounded better. Since then I have learned about the other trannies, and how to get cheap ones to saturate, and big iron to get cleaner headroom.. But that was years ago, now..... And I had more money then.

[caferacer]

Originally Posted by BobbyZ

My brother put a bored out Mercury 410 into a 56 F-100 dual quads and a four speed man that was a ride.

YEA! 390 bore with a 428 stroke

[celeste]

Originally Posted by Rod Parsons

Well, I must say.... Mercury sure had a big convincing ad in Vintage Guitar magazine. I thought that my 63 vibroverb reissue was sounding a little flat, even with winged C Svetlana 6L6s. Then I saw their ad with the really sexy girl, who convinced me that the tone was in the transformers... Ah ha! So "THAT" is what it needed... I called them and had them send the output trans and the choke. A friend of mine put them in... And I do believe that it sounded better. Since then I have learned about the other trannies, and how to get cheap ones to saturate, and big iron to get cleaner headroom.. But that was years ago, now..... And I had more money then.

Yeah, MM does have the ad copy thing down, that is what you pay for, All the ads telling your peers that because you have MM iron you sound better. And you very well may sound better, but that is such a subjective thing. Mm builds very nice iron, but as Bill says yikes on the price. Also, if they do not know you, you get an ear full of pompous arrogance if you ask a basic technical question like what is the primary inductance of x transformer. I can not abide by that sort of treatment, I understand that if you have a history of buying multiple pieces they are very good to work with and the volume discount is large. I just can not be bothered given that I know enough to be able to order exactly what I want from Heybour.

MM also pushes expensive chokes and that is a dubious thing. As Bill states, low DCR is the norm with their "upgrades". Low DCR in a power supply choke is not a good thing because you need the resistance to damp the ringing between the inductance and capacitance, otherwise you end up ringing like a bell. You see it all the time with "upgraded" HiFi equipment with foil chokes and silver/gold whatever caps.

[celeste]

Originally Posted by BobbyZ

My brother put a bored out Mercury 410 into a 56 F-100 dual quads and a four speed man that was a ride.

Is your brother still with us? Sounds like it would spin at the tap of the throttle

[motwang]

Originally Posted by BobbyZ

My brother put a bored out Mercury 410 into a 56 F-100 dual quads and a four speed man that was a ride.

My dad had a 410 Mercury Marauder. Cool motor.

[Rod Parsons]

I thought that Mercury Transformers had mercury on the wires to lubricate the electricity so it would go faster. Faster electricity equals better tone. .. right?

[caferacer]

Originally Posted by Rod Parsons

I thought that Mercury Transformers had mercury on the wires to lubricate the electricity so it would go faster. Faster electricity equals better tone. .. right?

your thinking of "quicksilver"

(I think they used to have a messenger service)

[Rod Parsons]

Yes... Quick Silver Messenger Service. Their messages got through faster because they put quicksilver on them and it made them slide through the wires faster... Faster speeds equals better understanding of the meaning of the messages.. Dr. Speckle, master BS. If I owned a Transformer company, I would call it Quicksilver Magnetics Co. to compete with Mercury.....Ha ha!

[Low4]

I thought this was going to be about outboards...

[caferacer]

Originally Posted by Low4

I thought this was going to be about outboards...

I have a 1958 Mercury outboard that was my grandfathers it is around 20-25 H.P. I will try and get some pics