Mike LaFevre and the Peerless/Acrosound IP

[bandtuber]

Several years ago, transformer guru Mike LaFevre passed away. If you didn't know, he was the owner of all of the intellectual property of Dynaco, Acrosound, and Peerless transformers and apparently knew the "secret sauce" on how to wind all of them (including some Western transformers like the 171A and 171C). His company, Magnequest, reproduced remarkable transformers.
It would truly be a shame if all of this IP was suddenly lost. Certainly this could present a lucrative business opportunity should someone buy out the IP from his estate and start winding quality transformers again. Aside from Sowter and some Hammond offerings and some Tango/Hashimoto/Finemet, there is NOTHING on the current market that even touches Acro, Peerless, or WE.

Has anyone heard any updates on this situation? It would be a shame if this info, only held by one man, were lost to the sands of time.

 

[TriodeLuvr]

The only thing I've heard is that the person holding this property is steadfastly refusing to make it available.

Jack

 

[zackthedog]

I want to update something I said here a while back, which is what Jack is picking up on. My info is second-hand, from a friend who spoke with a former client of Mike's. Mike left many, many bins of paperwork to a friend who builds musical instrument amps. The paperwork was very disorganized. Apparently Mike would pull out something he wanted and then put it back in a jumble. There are multiple design revisions in no particular order that have to be sorted through, etc. etc. This gentleman is very busy, but he HAS responded to some requests from Gordon Rankin and others. He just doesn't have time to organize the material. Money is not the issue. So until the new owner decides to pass them along to someone else to catalog, it's rather a mess.

It's also worth noting that Mike never made *exact* copies of Peerless trannies--he used different materials and made adjustments. Some models he started to sell, then abandoned because of the difficulty and time involved. (A friend of mine has a very rare pair of S-271-A's, for instance). That said, his single-ended OPTs were truly magnificent, and can't be beat, if you can still find them.

 

[zackthedog]

We're talking about 36 bins of material here (!), according to my source. So I want to be sure not to minimize the difficulty of the situation, nor to cast blame on any of the parties involved.

 

[PakProtector]

The S271S is available from a CNC winder( Heyboer ). It is a complex wind... it is also not going to be done with a thin bit of 49% Ni lams like the originals. I have a pair, and they work quite well. Same with the S265Q.

Douglas

 

[Gigantic]

Mike LeFevre was a personal friend of mine, one of the first people I met when I moved to Philadelphia, 19 years ago. While we only spoke about his work a few times (we were connected through motorcycling) and I was mostly disinterested, it does sadden me that his life's work is in limbo. At some point, I was friends with his daughter, who was slightly closer in age to me than Mike, but I've lost touch with her, otherwise I'd reach out and see if she knows anything about the remains of his work and if anyone has taken up Mike's torch.

 

[nerdorama]

I have a couple pair of Magnequest PP outputs that Mike put on his forum as one offs sort of. A Peerless S240 with M3 lams and an Acro a250 in M4. They are both 5k primaries.

 

[bandtuber]

We're talking about 36 bins of material here (!), according to my source. So I want to be sure not to minimize the difficulty of the situation, nor to cast blame on any of the parties involved.

I know of two private parties in particular who would be interested in purchasing all of the material. If the friend wants to sell, please send me a PM. They are US Based and very reputable.