Kondo SFz - mc step up transformer

The SFz ranks amongst the very best in Kondo’s analogue range and is built entirely around the philosophy for which the Japanese brand has become famous: a signal path that is as pure and direct as possible, with 99.99% pure silver playing a key role. At the heart of the SFz are specially developed transformers featuring a balanced, multi-layer winding of pure silver. Kondo combines these with a large core of extremely thin permalloy, just 0.1 mm thick. This minimises losses and distortion whilst maintaining an exceptionally wide frequency response. In terms of construction, too, every aspect is geared towards preserving the extremely weak signal emanating from an MC cartridge. The number of electrical contact points has been deliberately minimised. The primary windings are connected directly to the separate 1.5 and 30 ohm inputs, whilst on the secondary side the signal is passed directly to Kondo’s fixed one-metre Ls-41 pure silver output cable. The SFz offers two different impedance inputs. The 1.5 ohm input is intended for MC cartridges with an internal impedance of 1 to 10 ohms and provides 34 dB of gain. The 30 ohm input is intended for cartridges with an internal impedance of 11 to 40 ohms and provides 20 dB of gain. This allows the SFz to be paired with a wide range of high-quality moving-coil cartridges. Considerable attention has also been paid to shielding and mechanical stability. The transformers are housed in a permalloy casing, surrounded by a second shield made of pure copper. This ensures that magnetic and electrostatic interference are counteracted separately. The transformers themselves are mechanically decoupled using special damping material, and the feet have also been selected for their ability to absorb vibrations. A switch also allows you to choose between balanced and unbalanced operation, depending on the turntable, tonearm cabling and earthing used. Musically, the SFz is quintessentially Kondo: not designed to impose its own character on the sound, but rather to convey the refinement, dynamics and natural timbres of a high-quality analogue source as faithfully as possible. An exceptional MC step-up transformer for a reference-class analogue system and, of course, a particularly fine match for Kondo’s own phono preamplifiers.