Ot -- hi-fi and tubes

From: William Donzelli <aw288_at_osfn.org>
Date: Mon Nov 18 22:47:01 2002

> The funny things is some say the best tubes are from the 30's
> and the 40's.

Well, for the "mystique", yes the tubes from the 30s and 40s were the
best. For pure performance, the tubes of the 1960s were the best. All
those junk TV tubes ("the embarrassing glut") are actually really very
good - low noise, low microphonics, high gm, high reliability, and made
to tolerances that were tighter than anything imagined in the 1930s.

I think it took these later (post-1955) tubes in order to make the computer
industry happen. I doubt anyone could have made a really usable machine
in decent quantities with earlier tubes.

William Donzelli
aw288_at_osfn.org
Received on Mon Nov 18 2002 - 22:47:01 GMT