[Doug Houston]

Before you go tearing up all of the audio equipmant you have, you'd best research the value of the complete pieces on hand. RCA theater amplifiers go for big bucks in the auctions. I have several, and you can bet your sox, that they stay intact, and operating. I never sell the stuff; I'm a packrat.

It sounds like you may be cutting down a forest of walnut trees for firewood.

So Western Electric transformers are no different that, possibly some other brand, huh? Assuming they are no different/beter that others, the big issue is; They have that NAME on them. But anything with that name on it is holy grail. I've often said that a pile of dog droppings with the W.E. name on would bring fortunes from the orientals.

You're right about the shyster in Canada, was peddling Victor amplifiers, as Western Electric products, which they were not. I had mentioned this on another board, and got a very indignant reply about how they were Western Electric products. I think that they guy was the scammer who was tearing up Victor radios, and selling them to the Japs for big bucks. Looks like a lot of buyers over there got the green weenie from that dude.

The fact is that W.E. transformers are better than many of even the high end equivalents from other companies. That's why the transformers were changed to Western Electric. I'm inclined to suspect that RCA may have used Stancor or Thordarson transformers originally. You have to remember that theater sound before WW II was limited to about 6500 cycles, because optical sound couldn't produce what magnetic sound could. It was most uncommon for transformers by UTC to be used in original equipmant.