A cooler electronics related video, than eevblog in my opinion - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: FJV
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: October 23, 2012, 09:21:53 pm
content: Don't turn it on, don't take it apart.........BUILD IT FROM THE GROUND UP!!!!In my opinion seriously cool.PSSorry Dave.

author: Smokey
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 23, 2012, 09:56:18 pm
content: I wonder how many he has to make before he gets a matched pair?

author: free_electron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 23, 2012, 10:11:04 pm
content: pff . a glass dinosaur. wake me when he does a 20 million transsitor 35nm chip in his garage.

author: poptones
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 23, 2012, 10:31:02 pm
content: That's not really a blog, it's more like a short film about a craftsman and his art. It's interesting, but the music gets old and reminds me too much of "Pretty Baby."

author: ablacon64
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 23, 2012, 10:42:42 pm
content: Very interesting video!

author: mikeselectricstuff
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 23, 2012, 10:53:33 pm
content: Quote from: free_electron on October 23, 2012, 10:11:04 pmWell if he wants to make an IC he could always have a go at one of these:http://electricstuff.co.uk/loewe.html

author: amyk
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 24, 2012, 07:13:41 am
content: And now for something a little more modern...

author: poptones
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 24, 2012, 07:50:35 am
content: The difference being Jerie's transistors are kinda crummy and primitive. The tubes that fellow made are works of art and have incredibly linear transfer functions.I dig Jerie's channel too. Sadly, she doesn't make many new videos.

author: Galenbo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 24, 2012, 07:53:25 pm
content: This lamp fabrication video has not much to do with Electronics Engineering.It's more like Vintage replica fabrication, like the guys building model trains or a mode V8 engine.

author: DavidDLC
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 24, 2012, 08:32:27 pm
content: Quote from: free_electron on October 23, 2012, 10:11:04 pmAggh please do not turn this site as Hackaday or Engadget, where haters make negative comments all the time.I'm not saying that free_electron is a hater, just was part of the expression.

author: free_electron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 24, 2012, 09:22:23 pm
content: it's not a matter of hating. What is the point of handmaking an obsolete technology relic like a triode ?it's like people restoring a 1932 car, or 1946 radio ..it's a pile of old junk for crying out loud. made with obsolete materials, full of toxic stuff. useless in todays era.I never understood what drives people to hang on to these old things. They are are obsolete , gone , replaced by something else.If today yo are restoring vacuum tube radio's :- are you going to restore old casette players ten years from now ?- old vcr's twenty years from now ?- dvd players 50 years from now ?- blu ray player 80 years from now ?- plasma tv's 100 years from now ?people get all drooly and dreamy eyed when talking about this old stuff : oh look at this old fake woodgrain bakelite case with the ivory knobs on it. it has such a nice shine to it and was lovingly crafted and hand assembled. Bullshit. there was no love involved. the people that worked in those fctories at the time were just doing this as a job. It was plain series work and mass production by the lowest paid , unschooled people. Technology wise it is a dinosaur : it has a big flappy cone woven speaker , is ful of vacuum tubes , tar and paper or oil and paper capacitors , solid rod carbon composite resistors and the metal is connected to the live of the mains supply so don't touch it.Performance wise it is also a inosaur : it needs 10 minutes to warm up and then if you tune it just right you can receive a signal from halfway around the world , very faint and full of noise.big whoop. my logitech internet radio pull ssignals from the other side of the world in perfect crackling free stereo . it powers up instantly consumes 1 watt and has a nice color display. it is made by a bunch of machines and lowest paid unschooled labor in the far east. but it outperforms that old stuff by far.assembly wise nothing has changed : slave labour in mind numbingly dull assembly plants.i just can't wrap my mind around this tendency to want to restore old obsolete stuff. Or the nostalgic talk about how stuff was better 'in the old days' when people died of famine and all kinds of simple diseases now gone. how they only had onle light bulb , could only afford one bath a week , and had to milk the goat after a hard days work. no thanks. i want nothing to do with 'the good old days' .... as far as i am concerned tomorrow can't come along fast enough becasue even today starts getting a bit old ...

author: mikeselectricstuff
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 24, 2012, 09:39:51 pm
content: QuoteMany consumer products with typically badly written firmware now take longer to start up than old valve gear did..!

author: grumpydoc
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 24, 2012, 09:50:15 pm
content: QuotePlus ça change, plus c'est la même chose

author: G7PSK
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 24, 2012, 09:52:03 pm
content: There are several video's by the same man making his valves he ends up with the in a radio. He is very good and certainly has flair and panache in making the valves.

author: G7PSK
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 24, 2012, 09:56:28 pm
content: Quote from: mikeselectricstuff on October 24, 2012, 09:39:51 pmThis modern age of instant communication, but it takes 3 minuets for the radio to boot up and several seconds for an incoming signal to get processed so things like the radio time signal is always wrong. Some progress!

author: george graves
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 24, 2012, 10:14:08 pm
content: Quote from: free_electron on October 24, 2012, 09:22:23 pmGuess you just have to have an appreciation for that kind of craftsmanship. It's not for everyone. I can see the art in it. Maybe you can't.But, on the other hand, I think the Mona Lisa is a ugly painting. I don't get it. But plenty of people do I guess.

author: Anks
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 24, 2012, 10:29:41 pm
content: Quote from: george graves on October 24, 2012, 10:14:08 pmWe on about Jeri

author: vk6zgo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 25, 2012, 12:39:09 am
content: Quote from: free_electron on October 24, 2012, 09:22:23 pmThe thing is,your "internet radio"isn'ta radio,it's a thing that sits on the end of thousands of miles,& millions of dollars worth of Public Switched Networks,that do all the work."A nice colour display"?------I should swoon?"Very faint & full of noise"?A decent antenna,& an elementary knowledge of propagation allows you to receive strong signals on HF most of the time,whilst on the ordinary MF Broadcast band,signal strengths are so high,that "noise-free" is the general rule.If you want "high tech",there are plenty of modern radios which can offer that,but a good "oldie" is usually very close in performance.Of course,to use DRM,which can give you really high quality signals on the shortwave bands,you usually need a modern receiver,although,youcando it with an "old timer" & a PC.

author: IanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 25, 2012, 01:15:57 am
content: Quote from: free_electron on October 23, 2012, 10:11:04 pmIt's applied physics. It's not as easy to make one of those things that works well as many people might presume. Besides which, I believe they are still the technology of choice for some applications such as high power broadcast transmitters.Valves or vacuum tubes are more interesting than solid state electronics for the same reason that steam locomotives are more interesting than diesel locomotives. As humans, sometimes it it better if we can see how to bend the world to our wishes, rather than have it hidden behind a curtain...

author: DrGeoff
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 25, 2012, 01:37:39 am
content: Fantastic video. Great to see someone with the knowledge and equipment (much of it home-grown) being able to do this.And for those critics who think that electronics is about microcontrollers and fpga's, vacuum tubes are still used in several applications, especially in audio studios.

author: free_electron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 25, 2012, 01:37:54 am
content: Quote from: IanB on October 25, 2012, 01:15:57 amso is making chips.Jean Hoernie and Robert Noyce made their first chips using a glorified frying pan, a converted oven, and hand drafted mask on rubilite film. it can be done.But that's not the point. Sure it's nice to watch how he makes the tube. bravo for his handiwork and skill at bending piece of metal , spot welding them , glass blowing etc... but it still remains a relic with no practical use other than nostalgia. It does not bring anything new or innovate or advance the current state of the technology.if that's your thing. go for it. not my cup of tea. i don't get excited by a 50 year old radio or tv or a 'classic car' or louis 14 cabinet. for all i care versailles could burn to the ground. i wouldn't care. it's a pile of woodworm infested rubbish that costs waay too much money to upkeep. i can perfectly store my coffeecups and dinnerplates in an ikea cupboard as in that louis 14 cupboard. its more practical and a lot cheaper. and i don't have to be afraid of scratching or damaging it.If i see vacuum tubes the only faint reaction i get is 'where's my box of hammers ?'. call me a cultural barabarian if you want but those fake rosewood bakelite monsters of a bygone era should be left buried. And it gets even worse if the audiofools step in and start makeing claims that they 'sound better' because they have tubes in em and are made of non-resonant wood...Where's that massive tree-shredder when you need it. Brzzzzzzppppkkkgggrgrggrgrgrgrrrzinnnggg should be the best sound coming out of those old things as they are sent through that schredder.

author: poptones
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 25, 2012, 02:18:47 am
content: So your tastes are all in your mouth, and you want to brag about it. And you're sick of hearing about Arduinos or anything remotely related to typical hobbyist electronics.Good for you. But.. can I ask why you're even here?For the more rational among us this can represent quite a marvel of DIY. And yes, it DOES have practical use, as I pointed out that transfer function is gloriously linear. Take a gander at your typical fet or bjt transfer function and see if you find anything remotely close. This is how those old low gain tubes manage to sound so good without requiring 100db of negative feedback.So far as state of the art... well, remember the skipper and gilligan? They were stuck on that island because the PROFESSOR - a brainiac with a supposedly unfathomable IQ - didn't have the basic knowledge required to take a WORKING radio - or even a few transistors, a battery and some wire - and construct a transmitter... or even a primitive spark gap generator.Could you?

author: SeanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 25, 2012, 04:42:37 am
content: That a thing designed and built still works a half century after manufacture is good. Modern stuff is designed to fail shortly after warranty expires, the old stuff was built to last.

author: Pentium100
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 25, 2012, 04:47:06 am
content: Everything does not come down to power consumption or the level of technology. First example would be powerful PCs - a UMPC uses a few watts, but a powerful gaming PC can use up to 1kW, this does not mean that the UMPC is best choice for any task. Usually new technology is better at some things and worse at others.Old tube amplifiers sound different. While that difference is mostly due to the distortion (amplifier does not become "audiophile-grade" just because it has a tube in it) and limited bandwidth, I still prefer that sound when I am listening to an old recording. After all, those recordings were made with the old (it was new back then) amplifier in mind.Radio can pull a signal from quite far away (especially the AM bands) and it does not need the ISP to be operational to work, which means I can use it even if I do not have a cable connected to the ISP (and do not want to pay for data on a cell network). And no, a radio does not need a screen, a dial and optional signal strength meter is enough.Listening to music while looking at the spinning reels is so much better than listening to music while looking at the time digits.A CRT monitor can show different resolutions better and has no input lag, but uses more power than an LCD monitor.My old car has thicker steel and it looks better too (since aerodynamics was not the only concern when my car was designed). The rear window is about as big as the front window, compare that to modern cars where the rear window is so narrow (the glass itself is big, but it is mounted at a very shallow angle) that it is much more difficult to reverse because I see only a small part of what I see when driving the old car.Also, old stuff is usually built to last, compared to modern "throw it away as soon as you buy it" mentality. Old equipment is much easier to repair when it breaks too. A 20 year old CRT TV works just fine, will a LCD/Plasma TV built today work in 2032 (capacitors can fail as they are easy to replace, but the panel has to work). My 48 year old radio works fine - even the electrolytic capacitors lasted 45 years (went bad only recently) and the selenium rectifier is still good. If I buy a new car now, how difficult it will be for me to still have it working in 2042?

author: GK
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 25, 2012, 06:23:47 am
content: Quote from: vk6zgo on October 25, 2012, 12:39:09 amI guess it is time to give up HAM radio! It's an obsolete and useless hobby!Any monkey can plug in a computer and "tune in" to an internet radio station. That doesn't require any brains at all. Building your own radio equiptment on the other hand..............

author: poptones
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 25, 2012, 06:40:30 am
content: P100, I'm with you on a lot of that. I do think some things were missed, like the wonderful smell of ozone in the air and the way the room gets hotter as an evening of listening passes. I can remember sitting quite cozy in my 10x12 backyard office with the door wide open those December nights as I enjoyed Nine Inch Nails and Lightnin' Hopkins via my little 15W Harman Karden Ballad. And my "big" stereo in the house - those two matching hh Scott monoblocks with the Tesla EL34s would put on a spectacular violet colored light show!But I'm not with you on cars. A car made at the peak of the first HP wars - about 1973 or so - could last maybe 100,000 miles before you had to rebuild the engine, probably the transmission, and most of them handle like garbage trucks.A new car can be expected to last 300,000 miles with no rebuilds, they handle better, and yes they'll probably still be running 50 years from now. Just as the aftermarket stepped in to fill the need for carburetor rebuild kits for the thousands of models on the road 30 years ago, the aftermarket will make sure there's plenty of replacement fuel injectors, exhaust sensors and engine computers.Of course, I'm sure in comparison to the cars being made 30 years from now, those we're driving now will seem to handle like tanks.

author: Pentium100
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 25, 2012, 08:44:46 am
content: My car (1982 Mercedes W123) has about 500000km, was modified to run on LPG 8 years ago (and did a lot of km on LPG instead of petrol, since it is cheaper). Idt does not need an engine rebuild. The body is a bit rusty (and was patched up), but the engine is still strong (well, obviously I need to do some maintenance, like adjust the valves, replace a torn rubber diaphragm in the carburetor etc, but nothing major). Even the clutch lasted 16 years (or maybe more, we bought the car 16 years ago and the clutch was replaced this year for the first time). Last year I was able to achieve 155km/h on the highway, and this was on LPG (less energy than petrol) and with misadjusted throttle linkage (pedal to the metal did not mean fully open throttle).For really old cars seePobeda- it had steel so thick, that it if were to get in an accident with a 2012 car, it would only suffer some scratches on the paint, while the 1012 car would be destroyed.

author: poorchava
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 25, 2012, 10:43:40 am
content: Exactly the reason why I don't drive a more modern car (I drive '97 Opel Omega sedan)At high school times, my friend bought from his brother a 1986 VW Passat B2, 1.6 diesel. The car had 700k km on the odometer, but the linkage broke even before the friends brother bought it. The most indestructible car ever. We used it to cruise around, and we even poured the used motor oil after oil change in to the fuel tank and it ran perfectly (ya know, high school - permanently outa money). There was also ghetto mod made for it to run on vegetable oil. As far as i know the car still runs (was sold like a year ago)I want to see any car made in 2012 in working condition in year 2037

author: G7PSK
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 25, 2012, 03:30:53 pm
content: 30 years from now we wont know what the car handles like as it will more than likely have no input from the passenger other than be told verbally where to go.

author: free_electron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 25, 2012, 04:19:08 pm
content: Pobeda .. i'm sure in it's time this was a very advanced car. Electric wipers , heaters , radio. but now 60 years later it is outdated.Here's a hypothetical question : This affliction with old vacuum tube radio's has been going on since the 70's... the same for vinyl records ...tell me : do you still hold on to your first generation walkman ? those were all the rage in the 70's and 80's ... what about your first cd player ?so if you don't hold on to those for nostalgia .. why hold on to something that is even older ?as for the skipper and gilligan. that was a tv show. if mr brainiac would have constructed a spark gap transmitter in the first episode it wouldn't have been much of a show wouldn't it ? besides if skipper would have had radar and gps and weather info on that skip of his and had half a brain he would not have set sail in the first place. and as for gilligan : he'd be flipping burgers somewhere

author: robrenz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 25, 2012, 04:56:13 pm
content: free-electron, A non argumentive serious question related to this. Where do the ancient 7A22 and 7A13 diff amp 7000 plugins I bought fall in your obsolete/outdated rating?

author: poptones
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 25, 2012, 05:25:58 pm
content: I'm pretty sure they didn't have gps in 1965, and radar would have been terribly expensive back then not to mention dangerous aboard such a small boat.Some people DO have walkmans from the 80s. And stereo gear. My own amp right now is a Marantz 2220, the bottom of the line Marantz back when it was new in 1974 when it cost 229 bucks. What's that in today's dollars? And it was built like it, too, and it sounds very, very good although it does need a recapping. I'm actually thinking of sacrificing it to the marantz gods: making a new case to house a modern tda amp and using the thumbwheel as a very cool volume control. If you don't understand all this then you've never owned a Marantz. It's like the Benz P100 was talking about - it's just not your typical gear. Most cars from 1981 don't last 500K miles, and most receivers from 1974 didn't last either.When you buy a 500 watt receiver today, do you have any idea how much power it really puts out? IHF created different standards when home theatre became popular and systems are no longer expected to deliver rated output to all channels at once. I once had a 500W JVC 7 channel setup that would power down at levels below what my ancient 20W Marantz could deliver. They have puny transformers for their rated power and they're made to drive puny home theatre speakers and subwoofers with their own amps so they tend to have terrible bass response. To get a decent receiver today you're going to drop a grand or more; you can get a like new Quadraphonic Marantz integrated from 1975 for three bills and the Marantz will blow most new stuff out of the water - and look better doing it.Before this setup I had a system based on two vintage hh Scott mono integrated amps, model 99D. It took me a few years to finally collect three of them (one I needed for spare parts) and I even had the sales receipt for one from when the original owner (I bought it from his widow) bought the receiver, tuner and a single speaker. The amp alone cost 159 bucksin 1963. I was using a stereo pair. How much do you think that would be in today's dollars? They sounded awesome, looked brilliant and I would still have them today had they not been destroyed in a house fire. When I would play nin's The Downward Piral people would swear that at times they could hear Trent Reznor whispering in their ear over their shoulder - and that was usingtwoamps andtwospeakers. You just don't get that kind of performance out of most modern gear.

author: Pentium100
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 25, 2012, 05:55:44 pm
content: I like that Marantz. I have a Denon PMA-1080R amp. It is rated for 2x105W output at 8 ohms at THD<0.005%, continuous and both channels at once. More modern amps are usually rated for single channel or they have a lot of distortion at rated power. The power transformer in my amp is big, the caps are 4x 8200uF/71V (two caps per rail, weird working voltage though), made by Nippon Chemi-con. New amplifiers have features that I don't need (HDMI inputs, more than 2 channels), but those features come at a cost of not having other features (tape loops, high quality, lots of power).As for walkmans - I have two cassette walkmans. A Sony WM-D6C (can record) and WM-EX606 (is about as big as a cassette case). I use them a lot, together with my Hi-MD recorder (MZ-RH1) as I have a lot of cassettes (and I can listen to MP3 files using my MD player, I also have quite a few MDs too).

author: c4757p
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 25, 2012, 06:08:20 pm
content: QuoteThisis why I like tubes/valves. I'm by no means a "tube guy" - I'd never argue that they sound better or anything (compared to modern components and well-designed integrated circuits, they're actually total crap), and I'd never buy a bit of tube equipment someone else made. But I love designing stuff with them myself. Sure, it was obsolete before I was born, but it'sfun. There is something a bit more DIY-feeling about them to me - I may not have built the tube myself like this guy did, but I can at least see the internal structures.

author: poptones
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 25, 2012, 07:00:15 pm
content: Tubes can have linear, high dynamic range transfer functions (within .1%) withzerofeedback.Try that with a transistor. Opamps get their linearity from essentially infinite gain and 80db or more of negative feedback. They also tend to have open loop responses that plummet above something like 10KHz. You may argue that negative feedback makes it all moot since it flattens the frequency response - but all the NFB in the world cannot flattenpower bandwidthas that comes directly from the output stage. This is why it's common to see amps that measure great at 1W but power delivery goes all to hell about 5KHz or often less.A well designed tube stage can deliver flat response to more than 100KHz - again, with zero negative feedback.Which one is crap?

author: free_electron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 25, 2012, 07:45:09 pm
content: Quote from: poptones on October 25, 2012, 05:25:58 pmHave had a marantz. Nothing special. simple pertinax board with dribblings of wax everywhere.As for that mercedes : if that car was so good why did they stop making it and replaced it. I'd assume if you have reached the absolute peak and can do no better you would stop seeking and continue making it at infinitum ...Now, why do you need 500 watts to begin with ? do you have to address a sports stadium ? A decent 5 watt amplifier with a good speaker will create enough sound pressure that you cannot stay in the room. So please do enlighten me why you need 500 watts ? to boil an egg on the amp heatsink ?Back to the 'old stuff is cool' : if this old stuff is so 'eye-watering'. How come nobody makes point contact transistors at home ? plenty of people make intricate fishing lures. Same skill can be used to make point contact diode's or transistors. Any hobby store that sells minerals can sell you a lump of galene or germanium. All you need is two rusty needles and some patience...How come nobody 'lovingly' builds radio circuitry using OC71 transistors or AC127 and AF116's ? That is also stuff from a bygone era. No appeal , but a glass balloon with some scrap metal in it does have 'appeal' ... weird.. must be the warm orange glow emanating from it when turned on...I'm just wondering why tubes attract a massive following while equally old stuff like point contact diodes and transistors do not ...

author: DrGeoff
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 25, 2012, 08:11:01 pm
content: Quote from: free_electron on October 25, 2012, 07:45:09 pmSome equipment that was properly designed and manufactured is still in operation and provides a unique character for audio production. Look up LA-2A, U67, Fairchild 670 as examples from the 60's. Even today there are many microphones and preamps built with tube stages in them. That's not to say that there are not equivalent solid state counterparts (eg UA1176, Neve 1073 etc) that are also legendary. The point is that the tube gear is still highly sought after and in constant use in studios around the world because it works so well at what it was designed for.

author: poptones
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 25, 2012, 08:28:46 pm
content: Again I have to wonder why FE is even here. Apparently he hates absolutely everything about electronics and yet remains glued to these discussions.Peopledomake radios from old radio tubes. They also collect old radios and, thus, need old radio tubes to keep them operational. I once had afoxhole radioI made from bits of wire, a stick of wood, thumb tacks a safety pin and a rusty razor blade. I made it because it was fun - something which, from your posts I've seen thus far, seems to be alien to you.Why do people collect diamonds? To me they're overpriced rocks but so what? Why do people collect wine or old salt dishes or Faberge eggs? In asia, having a serious avocation (aka a hobby) is considered vital to a well rounded personality. There's a lot of merit in that.Certain oldgermanium transistors command a very high price.This is because they were used in old radios that people collect and so need to keep operational. They were also used in old stomp boxes and guitar amps which musicians treasure for their mojo. And if you don't know what mojo is, I'm sorry to say you never had it.

author: c4757p
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 25, 2012, 08:35:30 pm
content: Quote from: poptones on October 25, 2012, 07:00:15 pmOK. Give a decent analog engineer his choice of transistor types and ten minutes to design the biasing and you'll have it. Not everything's a bottom-of-the-barrel 2N3904 set up by an idiot. And I'm not sure why you're so averse to feedback - you're right that it can't solve all problems, but it can certainly solve some!

author: robrenz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 25, 2012, 08:47:27 pm
content: Quote from: poptones on October 25, 2012, 08:28:46 pmBecause he has a lot of valuable knowledge and background and thankfully he is happy to share it. Just because he has no interest in nostalgic restoration like many do, does not make him a bad forum member. I don't agree with a lot of his opinions of a non technical nature. I don't need to convince him to see it my way. but I respect his knowledge and am glad he participates in this forum.

author: c4757p
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 25, 2012, 08:51:57 pm
content: QuoteAgreed. Iloveold electronics. I do not care if someone else doesn't. I suppose we'd have much less progress in the technological world if everyone was like me and happy to use a restored 1960s vacuum tube voltmeter as his primary meter. It's pretty low to tell someone they aren't enjoying something the correct way.

author: poptones
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 25, 2012, 08:54:36 pm
content: I have no interest in buying a second hand scope, or programming with a pickit3, or buying a new Rigol. But guess what? You also won't see me in the middle of those discussions ranting about how stupid these people are for wasting their time on something I don't care about, or how cool I am for not having apathy (for that would mean not caring, which obviously he does) but for having outright disdain for all these lesser beings... or something. He doesn't seem to understand anything at all about collecting, but what I don't understand is why go on about it soif you really don't care?

author: c4757p
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 25, 2012, 08:59:01 pm
content: I see your point there, I guess, and I suppose he was doing exactly what I said you shouldn't do - telling people how to enjoy things. I'd rather someone share their enthusiasm than their lack thereof.

author: poptones
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 25, 2012, 09:05:26 pm
content: Give a decent analog engineer his choice of transistor types and ten minutes to design the biasing and you'll have it.Sure... with some feedback.The assertion was vacuum tubes somehow "distort" so much more than modern devices. Mypointis they don't. Even FETs have transfer characteristics that look more like pentode tubes. In fact, there are few amplification devices made that havelessinherent distortion than a properly designed triode amplifier. Add 20db of negative feedback and now you'rereallygot something. Philbrick amplifiers (that have considerably less gain and, therefore, have to operate with much less nfb than transistor op amps) were used in analog computers that steered missiles and navigated planes. The weakness of tubes is not their nonlinearity, but simply their high impedance. They work exceedingly well, but to interface them to most real world devices one must employ transformers - or those other fantastic impedance matching devices, FETs.

author: free_electron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 25, 2012, 10:14:39 pm
content: Look, i'm not playing down the skill involved in making that tube. i wouldn't have the patience for it.Neither am i downplaying a wine connoiseur ( although for me, wine is just sour fermented grapejuice. i'd rather drink freshly squeezed grape juice, oreat the whole grape while it i sweet and ripe fresh of the branch ).Neither am i downplaying the fact that at one point in time tubes were state of the art. (just like cutting into an arm to let some blood out to quell the 'fire in the blood' was once state of the art medicine... )But given that one of the reasons some of that stuff is highly sought after is the fact hey are not being manufactured. They are scarce as hen's teeth.Some of these things gave a unique distortion to a sound like for a guitar player , and i can understand that being important if you are after exactly that sound. i can also understand that , even given todays DSP horsepower, it just isn't quite the same. no problem.The bit i have trouble understanding is :Why we restore old vacuum tube radio's that only do creaky AM , or build new amplifiers using recycled (NOS or pre-used) old vacuum tubes.I would expect people to restore old germanium transitor radios and build new radio's using recycled (NOS or desoldered) germanium transistor based radio's as well. Yet that doesn't have any traction whatsoever ... the 'tube builders vs the germanium builders are 100000 to 1 ...Everyone goes on about restoring an old 56' monobloc corvette yet an 80's model corvette is deemed 'without value' and not worth restoring. weird ...And it can't be that tubes and 56 corvettes are older than the 80's model or germanium transistors, so more valuable. If older was better we'd all be restoring stoneage wheels as those would be even more valuable than diamonds ...So where is the 'lure' of the vacuum tube. Why do so many people go googly eyed over it. All i remember from vacuum tubes is grandmas 3 tube radio that sounded like someone was talking with a cardboard box over his head. And yes, i've heard vacuum tube amps that were built only a few months ago and are 'top of the line'. If i play the same song through my class-t amplified 200$ onkyo Amplifier i can't hear any difference. Maybe it's my ears ... maybe its between my ears.i just can't wrap my mind around it. so please , enlighten me.Note : it's a philosophical question. not a technical question...can you imagine 50 years from now someone sitting in a cellar restoring an old ipad 1. 'becasue it was the first tablet and it changed the world'. people will roll their eyes and tell grampa : throw that old thing away...

author: Thor-Arne
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: October 25, 2012, 10:45:11 pm
content: Quote from: free_electron on October 25, 2012, 10:14:39 pmProbably the nostalgic value and the esthetic look of the, especially the newer ones like this one:IMO, thislooksvery nice.And there's even prettier ones out there.

author: poptones
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 25, 2012, 10:56:04 pm
content: Well Fe, we've been trying to "enlighten" you. And let me apologize if I inadvertently began a piling on of you, I sure didn't mean that to come out as an attack. I just really don't understand why someone would hang around a discussion where the only thing they can contribute is dismissiveness.I doubt germanium transistors are still being made, but vacuum tubes are. Sovtek's production line was bought my some asian conglomerate, a production line in Serbia was shut down due to the war about two decades back and that really put a crimp on things because the Serbian tubes were very well made, but I believe that production line was also sold after things calmed down and that line remains in production. And, of course, there's China which still produces a variety of highly sought tubes like the EL34, 6922, 12ax7, 45, 6l6, we300 and so forth. Still, vintage tubes do command a premium if they test well - and a great many do, even 50 years or more after manufacture. Why? Because of their craftsmanship and sound quality.One reason to restore "creaky old am radios" is because they're cool. They look cool. And they have mojo. And the fact they now "only" get what is mostly crappy AM talk radio is meaningless when you canalsotune in some great late night stations like WJR and CKLW and WLS. You can enjoy radio from all over the country. Why? Because it's fun tuning in Bowling Green when you live in Mississippi. I once had a frankenstein radio I built from an old Kraco car deck and the tuner out of another old Sanyo car deck. I removed the oscillator from the Sanyo tuner and attached it to the Kraco, thus giving me a radio with a tuner and a front end preselector. I powered it from a toy train transformer and stuck it in the head of my bed with a pair of Minimus 7 speakers. The antenna was magnet wire taped in a triple folded dipole to my ceiling. And my favorite station there, in central MS, was was kabf - a station over 200 miles awayin Little Rock.On FM. Not only was the music great, it was fun watching my friend's jaws drop when I'd show them my contraption and then demonstrate its capabilities.http://youtu.be/TiGmh2owGwEAnd if youreallywant to enjoy some Myles Davis via your vintage gear and you can't fidn the station you need, you can buy anAM transmitter(tube, of course) at a very fair price. Butmostpeople have really only heard AM through crappy car radios and cheap one-chip AM radio ICs that have terrible IF stages and limited bandwidth. The reality is AM can sound incredibly smooth with response well beyond 7KHz if it's properly done - and these old radios can do that. They had to, because then they were the state of the art.Most 80's model corvettes are not sought after because they offer little. Like most 80's vehicles they usually had little power, didn't handle particularly well, and were of cheaply made plastic. Not every 70's stereo is sought after either. Some ask me why I "hate" negative feedback. Well I don't necessarily but I'll make the point here that, similar to the horsepower wars of the 70's there were also "spec wars" among the popular Japanese hifi makers like Onkyo, Pioneer, Sansui, Denon, Technics, JVC, Mitsubishi and so forth. Much of this gear had absolutely astonishing ratings (and measured thusly) like 100db S/N, 500KHz bandwidth and .000067 percent distortion. They used gobs of negative feedback to do this and, in spite of the specs, most of it sounded like shit. Not surprisingly, much of that gear - like most 80's Corvettes - is alsonotsought after today.

author: free_electron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 25, 2012, 11:53:35 pm
content: Quote from: poptones on October 25, 2012, 10:56:04 pmno problem. i didn't perceive it as a 'piling on', i like 'entrenched discussions'.My question is pure philosophical.And you are right my perspective is dismissive. It's old , you can't get it , they stopped making it , why hang on to it.I know about the sovteks ( i know a bit more about tubes than i'm letting on here becasue my question is not technical. )Look at the 'famed' Western Electric 300 tube. Those things cost and arm and a leg if they are the real ones. Even the dudes that bought the old Western Electric equipment and are now building 'new' 300's using the original gear charge an arm and a leg , but the 'old stock' that was built 50 years ago costs two arms and two legs. They sell these tubes wrapped in velours in a mahogany box ( that has absolutely no use at all. you can't even use it as a chassis for your amp. it's just shipping and packaging material... ) Why ? that's like buying a dishwasher and they deliver it in a rose-wood inlaid mosaic enmbossed shipping crate. and you keep the crate , store it in the cellar and go look at it once in a while.. why ?QuoteThey are. Even whole chips re designed in germanium or silicon germanium. harddisk preamplifiers are silicon germanium for example. Not out of nostalgia but purely for technical reasons.QuoteCraftmanship has nothing to do with it. These tubes are fully mass produced by automated machinery. If they were hand built you could call in craftmanship.. Even the we300 was built fully by machine. Any human involved fed wire on a bobbin machine. And that human was invariable an underpaid , unschooled labour element , preferrably a lady because of finer motor skills. She knew nothing about electronics, only how to wind a wire. If 'craftmanship' was a criteria you'd have to go looking for Lee DeForests hand-built Audions ... anything else would be 'machine built' and thus inferior.A stradivarius violin had craftmanship. They were fully handbuilt.The mona lisa has craftmanshipThe vacuum tube built by the guy in the video above : craftmanship.A vacuum tube ? mass production - no craftmanship.a photocopy of the mona lisa ? no craftmanship ...So there i agree. That tube made by the guy in the video is craftmanship. no denying.That still leaves the question : why ? 99.99% of the world has moved on past vacuum tubes. just like cars are being replaced every xx years by a newer model.QuoteLike the french say: les gouts et les couleurs se dicutent pas. Colors and tastes cannot be discussed. You think it's cool. I see an ugly old thing ( like the picture above.. yuckkk. ) But , agreed, colors and taste and style cannot be discussed. One likes Louis XiV the other one want dieter Rams .. i like neither. It's got to be functional. So i'm not going to argue this point simpy becasue you can;t argue about it. you like itor you don't.QuoteI need to ask Austin powers for his 'mojo meter' one of these days.QuoteInternet streaming radio. plink . 100000 stations from all over the world in crystal clear sound. no need for obsolete tubes. no mucking with rooftop antenna's. reception whenever and where-ever. not only on a friday with a full moon and with the ionosphere in the right 'mood'...QuoteThis part i can understand. The skill of making the contraption and getting it to work. But there are so many wonderful new parts made every day that scream 'use me, use me, make something with me' , yet the hand invariable wavers and then slides toward the old wood box with the glass globes.... why ?Quoteyes, they were state of the art. but no longer. AM transmission is all but dead. I have never in my life listened to AM. maybe when i was a kid and pirate radio Mio AMigo was broadcasting from a ship in international waters . they had the cool music. But after that. FM radio has way better reception with higher bandwidth and clearer sound.It has been replaced and 99.9% of the world has moved on. Why, willingly, hang on to the 'obsolete technology' ? ( note : philiosophically speaking ).HD-DVD is dead , blu-ray won. you don't see anyone nostalgically hanging on to HD-DVD.We had analog VideoDisc at one point , 8-track audio tapes, Super Audio CD, DAT tapes , Super-8 camera's , Video 2000 , Betamax ... TV was analog since inception but has now been shut off 4 years ago. over. done. All gone. Nobody blinks.Whisper the word 'vacuum tube' and Pavlov has a field day with all the drooling going on.Kind of weird and fun to think about.-edit-i just popped on ebay . 2 grand for two REPLICA 30 tubes.. you have to be stark raving mad ....how's this one :http://www.ebay.com/itm/VARIABLE-REGULATED-DC-POWER-SUPPLY-4-WESTERN-ELECTRIC-300B-TUBE-AUDIO-AMPLIFIER-/110794252758?pt=Vintage_Electronics_R2&hash=item19cbda21d6a stupid lambda lab supply 489$ to power your tube.. I know a warehouse around the corner that has a whole pile of these ugly lambda supplies . They are priced at 50$ and nobody touches them. ( yet a 50 pound vacuum tube rectified , rusty supply with holes in the chassis and knobs missing is bought for 100$ )must be because it has 'mojo'

author: poptones
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 26, 2012, 02:32:21 am
content: If you think most internet radio stations sound great, you need to get out more and hear what music really sounds like. FM radio, properly done, has much better sound than most "internet radio." I love Pandora myself. It's great when I'm working and half paying attention t it and just want music I like in the background. But to pretend it's "high fidelity" just because it's "digital sound" is ludicrous.I'm driving a 15 year old car. Not because I'm so crazy about it, but because I like money more and the thing cost me all of 1500 bucks and runs like a champ.Tubes are not obsolete. Why they are not obsolete has been pointed out here dozens of times, clapping your hands on your ears and go LALALA isn't going to rebuke this fact. And if there's no "craftsmanship" involved in making this gear, why focus on hiring so many women for those "fine motor skills" and "attention to detail?"http://youtu.be/dErsA6wFmlM

author: Pentium100
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 26, 2012, 03:46:52 am
content: Quote from: free_electron on October 25, 2012, 11:53:35 pmOK, I like the design (both how the device looks and how it operates) of old devices. They look nice. Tubes look cool, especially the bigger ones with open electrodes (where you can see the faint blue glow of the anode, not confused with the blue glow between the electrodes which means that the tube is full of air).Nixie and numitron tubes look better (to me) than VFDs. VFDs look better than LED/LCD displays. For whatever reason modern devices are full of blue LEDs, but for me red or green LEDs look better. Neon color is better then red or green.QuoteBecause everyone has different standards for what is considered "good". I like the neon color, somebody likes blue LEDs, to each his own. I like the sound of my tube tape recorders but only for certain music (older music), for the rest of the music, a newer tape deck or even digital is better. You know the loudness war in audio, right? A lot of people hate it, but there are some who actually prefer the heavily compressed sound.QuoteI doubt that that many internet stations stream 256-320kbps. Also, radio does not depend on the ISP working and the connection being stable. Also, while the number of stations is lower for radio, selecting between them is easier and faster.QuoteWell, I made a circuit with a whole bunch of discrete logic chips instead of a MCU because it seemed better to me (easier to troubleshoot, no need to rely on my programming skills), even tough the board now looks similar to a CGA card (a bit smaller and a veroboard, not a PCB tough). Also, I can't really buy a tube amplifier (an affordable one, not audiophile-grade), but I can build one. No need for a PCB or SMD components. Also, did I mention that tubes look cool and are fun? No, really, I'd rather stare at a tube than a transistor or a chip.QuoteFM, as a technology is superior to AM. However, FM radio stations use high frequencies (67-108MHz, usually 88-108MHz now) that do not travel as far as the medium and long waves of AM because they do not bend around the Earth as well. FM is usually only good for 50-75km, AM, under right conditions, can travel thousands of kilometers.QuoteTo me old technology is fun. I can actually understand how it works without needing to do lots of math (how else would I understand how MP3 decoding works?), tape recorders are (to me) good to look at when listening to music. It is really fun for me to imagine all those idlers, gears and rollers working. Too bad I do not have enough brain capacity to imagine the thousands or millions of transistors rapidly switching when I listen to a MP3 on my PC or my MD player.QuoteIf I had any movies on HD-DVD, I would keep them instead of throwing them away and buying the same movies on a different disc. HD-DVD and Bluray are not that different in terms of video quality after all. I am sure that there are people with HD-DVD collections, just like I have a relatively large cassette, reel and record collection.QuoteNot in my country for a few days. Also, while digital TV has better maximum video quality, it falls apart when the signal is weak. I'd rather have a lot of snow instead of pauses, squares or just no image at all. Too bad it is being switched off so that some companies could make a lot of money from clueless people (the ads here now are pretty much "Analog TV will be switched off, you need a new TV" and "Analog TV will be switched off, you need cable/satellite/IPTV and pay us".)

author: G7PSK
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 26, 2012, 12:19:52 pm
content: Judging by the sentiments shown by some, we might as well knock down the pyramids and build a hotel and car park and melt down the statue of liberty to make bearings .

author: free_electron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 26, 2012, 02:53:34 pm
content: Quote from: G7PSK on October 26, 2012, 12:19:52 pmwhy bother. they're in the desert and are doing a good job of falling apart all by themselves. if they were in the middle of my city and parking place was scarce i'd be the first to go and stand there with a petition to tear the damn thing down. yes.as for the statue of liberty that was given by the french. can't tear that down. it's bloody hard to get something for free from frenchmen....Tubes do still have their place in specialistic apps ( although there too they are dwindling )But my feeling says that most 'affcionados' waver to them because of thow they 'look' , their 'cool' factor and the warm fuzzy glow emanating from them. Granted a chrome and mohgany box with exposed glowing tubes may be nicer to stare at than a matchbox with some surface mounted parts in it. But why stare at it.. It's an amp. it should take a signal , crank up the amplitude and eliver it to somewhere else without being in the way ( like in the way because you keep tripping over it because its so damn large ). I'd rather have a B&O system. slim sleek and nuthing but a chrome or black glass surface when off. its unobtrusive, it sits quitly in a corner doing its thing : playing music. walk over to it and it lights up , walk away and all indicators go back off and it blends back into the background.Anyway. it's interesting to see how tastes differ. But you can't discuss tastes. Everyone has his own.

author: G7PSK
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 26, 2012, 02:59:23 pm
content: I like tubes or valves for some things but not sticking out the top to get broken they should be out of sight where you cant get your hands on the anode connection at the top complete with half KV potential. Transistors and chips have their own place as well but talking of taste I like my chips with salt and vinegar and not mayonnaise.

author: Pentium100
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 26, 2012, 07:42:08 pm
content: Quote from: free_electron on October 26, 2012, 02:53:34 pmAnd I think that it would be cool to have a power meter connected to my amp (and maybe will build one when I have some money).I also like the tube sound, especially of the older equipment (SE amps = quite a lot of 2nd harmonic), but the larger distortion does not make all music sound better, just some. I am sure it would be possible to get that sound with a DSP, but I cannot program one. And even a big chip does not look as good as a 6S33S or 6AS7G. New (=low(er) distortion) tube amps also sound great and for pretty much everything.I also have a tape deck with a worn out head (so, not much high frequencies) - I use it to record music from low bitrate MP3 - the result sounds better because the high frequency artifacts are filtered out.

author: poptones
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 26, 2012, 08:06:30 pm
content: Very few tubes have the anode connection at the top, and most of those are transmitter tubes. Usually the top connection is the grid. Touch that and you'll change the bias of the tube, but generally won't be shocked.And B&O is cheap Philips crap inside. It may look nice but it sounds like shit. Might as well buy Bose.

author: Colfaxmingo
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: October 26, 2012, 08:36:35 pm
content: Oh, so I guess those 80 years old FET's can be chucked out. pffft grandpa stuff.

author: SeanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 26, 2012, 09:00:52 pm
content: I have a dead B&O TV, VCR and CD player that is scheduled for decommissioning. When I get around to it you will be amazed how much extra switching you can put into a basic Phillips TV set. BEOLINK remote went on eBay......... It costs more than the rest put together, the nice LCD version with full feedback and transparent display. i got the rest as junk.

author: poptones
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 26, 2012, 11:49:55 pm
content: I also have a tape deck with a worn out head (so, not much high frequencies)Actually that's most likely due to misalignment. A big gap is fine for a recording head, it allows more energy to transfer. What's needed is a fin gap for playback. This is part of the reason for separate record/playback heads.

author: Pentium100
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 27, 2012, 12:28:58 am
content: Quote from: poptones on October 26, 2012, 11:49:55 pmNo, the head is really worn (the tape recorder looks like it was used a lot by the previous owner) and there is no way to align it to get more than 10KHz. Two head tape decks are a pain to electronically align, sure, but this one needs a new head if I want to have the full frequency response (about 15kHz, since the tape speed is 9.5cm/s). It was made with saving money in mind - the power amp tube is also the bias oscillator (no sound during recording). What is interesting is that the tape recorder itself is quite sturdy, which today would not be associated with "cheap".While recording may be fine with a worn out head (larger gap), playback suffers a lot.