[ppppenguin]

Where's Ed Dinning when we need him! As the real transformer expert in the forum I think his opinion woul dbe most valuable.

I feel that Chris Williams has taken a rather hair shirt approach to safety. I'll always argue on the side of safety and I certainly don't like line cord droppers but as Nick, Sean and others have said, you often can't bring vintage sets up to modern safety standards and a certain amount of judgement and common sense are needed.

PJL's and Brased's comments about capacitors provide good evidence that capacitative droppers are safe. These caps are designed to be connected across the mains and are described as such by reputable manufacturers who wouldn't be happy if their products went bang too often.