Enter the World of Kondo
with the “Silvered Former”

KONDO’s craftsmanship began 50 years ago with the “Silvered Former,” a silver-wound MC step-up transformer. Based on the knowledge and experience gained over five decades, we introduce a brand-new MC step-up transformer.

The SFz-E (Essential) inherits the SFz core technologies. To achieve the best performance with small, delicate analog signals, the number of mechanical contact points has been reduced to a minimum. In addition, we removed the ground selector to make a simpler, smarter design.

Every detail was carefully redesigned to bring out the full sound quality of pure silver wire, including core material, shielding, and structure. This SUT combines delicate musical detail with open, powerful dynamics, bringing new life to your analog playback.

Features

Pure silver, multi-layer winding
Extremely thin permalloy core
Minimized mechanical contacts
Double shield structure
Double float mechanical damping

Pure Silver Multi-layer Winding Transformer

A multi-layer winding structure is used to maintain a flat frequency response up to 100kHz. The peak level is less than 1.5dB when no terminating resistor is connected to the secondary.

Extremely Thin Permalloy Core

A large core is built by laminating custom-made 100 μm permalloy sheets through meticulous hand assembly to minimize eddy current losses and hysteresis losses. This optimized core design enables low-loss, very wide frequency response and ultra-low-frequency reproduction with exceptionally low distortion.

Reduction of Mechanical Contacts

Optimized for SUT handling low-level signals, we reduced the number of mechanical contacts to a minimum. Exclusive High／Low primary terminals are provided, with leads taken directly from the coil and soldered to both primary and secondary terminals.

Double Shield ／ Double Float Design

The transformer itself is mounted in a permalloy case and covered by an inner copper chassis. The permalloy shield works against magnetic fields, and the copper shield protects against electrostatics. The transformer is carefully held with special damping gel. In addition, special rubbers are used on the feet to absorb mechanical vibration.

Specifications


Product	MC step-up transformer

Model	SFz-E

Primary impedance	Low (1Ω-10Ω phono cartridge) High (11Ω-40Ω phono cartridge) 　*Only one pair of input terminals should be connected.

Step-up ratio	34dB (Low), 20dB (High)

Load impedance	47kΩ (Recommended)

Dimension	126mm(W) 96mm(H) 179mm(D) *excluding protrusions

Weight	2.8kg