Categories: Technical

From the why-didn’t-i-think-of-that-first file – Great EZ hack for Octal can transformers

Via this eBay auction: a UTC A-12 mounted on a plate-retained octal plug, with the pins wired to correspond to the pin-out of an Altec 4722 input transformer.

It had simply never occurred to me that the mounting-diameter of a UTC A-series corresponded to the mounting-diameter of those octal-mount plates. Well done sir. Great idea if you have an Altec 1567, 1566, or ANY piece of old pro audio gear that uses octal transformers – and a great many do. RCA, Newcomb, Ampex, the list goes on….

chris

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Bafflegab says:

06/05/2013 at 1:59 pm

An astonishing variety of stuff was octal pattern sockets and plugs. Even the electroluminescent dash power supply for a Chrysler Turbine Car.

There were also nine, eleven, and 20 pin octal (sic) sockets and plugs. The 20 had two rows like an old French pinfire revolver.

The bigger 14 and 16 pin keyed sockets for CRTs were used that way too. Jones plugs and the D-subminiatures did away with most of that in the seventies.
Richard Horner says:

06/22/2016 at 11:11 am

Any idea where to get a "plate retained octal plug"?I'd like to put a UTC into the mic input trafo octal plug that comes standard with the Ampex 601 mic/line tape input electronics.
Cheers,Richard.