Telecaster Guitar Forum - View Single Post - Wonder when vacuum tubes will go the way of film

iansmitchell · July 2nd, 2009, 08:49 PM

Russia can't stand to lose another industry, they've already chopped down all the trees and shipped away all the attractive women. :P

Honestly? Guitarists have been using 1950's technology for nearly 60 years.
Digital is great, but it takes one HELL of an algorithm to recreate the effects of a signal remotely close to a single valve circuit, let alone rectifiers, capacitors, biasing. Even if the digital amps could recreate a tube amp, they'd recreate ONE AMP, not the cold solders, aged caps, hot biased tubes, half-burned filaments, and power rectifications of another amp from the same factory, same day, same amp.
Tubes are like blue jeans, they're rough, imperfect, but they're responsive, quirky, and durable. Just like some guys will never wear carbon fiber pants, some factory, somewhere, will ALWAYS be making vaccum tubes. If not for guitarists, for those countless ham radios or for satilite signal jammers(tubes still do it best).

SO maybe it's not digital we need to worry about, but instead solid-state direct valve replacements.

A guitar teacher of mine interned at peavey for a while. While he was there, his boss had a company come in, and because peavey does a lot of work with tubes, they asked him to analyze these new tube-replacement valves they had designed. Being a guitarist and a tinkerer to the bone, he decided to put a set of 'em in a classic 30 prototype he had.
Well, he cranked them up, he got a big jump in power from valves, but they worked relatively similarly. Anyway, a few days later, the black-suburban guys come to his office. Apparently while he was juicing these tubes, some big NSA circuit was being completely obstructed. The feds revealed the company which assigned these valves was a subsidiary of the chinese government, they confiscated the valves, and all research abstracts he had.

Now, it may have to wait for the freedom of information act to apply, but we may well one day be using something like those(which, as they were spec'd shouldn't burn out within a human lifetime of use), in out amps.

July 2nd, 2009, 08:49 PM	#4 (permalink)
iansmitchell Tele-Afflicted Join Date: Jun 2008 Location: Gainesville, Florida Posts: 1,041	Russia can't stand to lose another industry, they've already chopped down all the trees and shipped away all the attractive women. :P Honestly? Guitarists have been using 1950's technology for nearly 60 years. Digital is great, but it takes one HELL of an algorithm to recreate the effects of a signal remotely close to a single valve circuit, let alone rectifiers, capacitors, biasing. Even if the digital amps could recreate a tube amp, they'd recreate ONE AMP, not the cold solders, aged caps, hot biased tubes, half-burned filaments, and power rectifications of another amp from the same factory, same day, same amp. Tubes are like blue jeans, they're rough, imperfect, but they're responsive, quirky, and durable. Just like some guys will never wear carbon fiber pants, some factory, somewhere, will ALWAYS be making vaccum tubes. If not for guitarists, for those countless ham radios or for satilite signal jammers(tubes still do it best). SO maybe it's not digital we need to worry about, but instead solid-state direct valve replacements. A guitar teacher of mine interned at peavey for a while. While he was there, his boss had a company come in, and because peavey does a lot of work with tubes, they asked him to analyze these new tube-replacement valves they had designed. Being a guitarist and a tinkerer to the bone, he decided to put a set of 'em in a classic 30 prototype he had. Well, he cranked them up, he got a big jump in power from valves, but they worked relatively similarly. Anyway, a few days later, the black-suburban guys come to his office. Apparently while he was juicing these tubes, some big NSA circuit was being completely obstructed. The feds revealed the company which assigned these valves was a subsidiary of the chinese government, they confiscated the valves, and all research abstracts he had. Now, it may have to wait for the freedom of information act to apply, but we may well one day be using something like those(which, as they were spec'd shouldn't burn out within a human lifetime of use), in out amps. __________________ ... Please do not insinuate anything sexual from that.