I have recently been going right through my usual new brand analysis process for Fezz audio. And whilst I was doing so, one element of the story stood out as particularly interesting and worthy of further discussion.
If you look at the back story of Fezz Audio, you will discover that they are a child brand of the long established Polish company called Toroidy. This brand has built up its position as an expert manufacturer of in house designed and built toroidal transformers. We are of course, used to seeing toroidal transformers used in mains power supplies but this format is not common for the construction of valve amplifier audio output transformers.
It seems that a lot of valve gear manufactures design and build their equipment around off-the-shelf output transformers that are usually wound on various shaped 'square' cores, such as EI cores. Or perhaps they pay for expensive 'square' designs from third party suppliers. Now of course, many of those specialist designs will undoubtedly be excellent, but they will come at a price that reflects the needs for the sub-contractor's separate running costs, design costs and profit. Then add in that whilst toroidal transformers are difficult to wind, the format can bring significant performance benefits if correctly designed and implemented, plus if you can do all that in-house with economy of scale with materials and the specialist winding machines, then you have the luxury of a very different cost model around the production of your own valve gear.
So this fundamental really is worth keeping in mind when considering the Fezz products. Certainly their value for money leaps out at you, but understanding the parent company's capability changes the impression of how that value is truly delivered. And then, when you listen to the sound quality of their products, you also get an idea that they are really onto something with these toroidal audio output transformers.
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