I discovered this by accident. I often search Google for tube amplifier schematics based on various tubes or topologies. It is not unusual for me to find something interesting I can copy from or use as a basis for an experiment.
However, every now and then, I search for some oddball tube in use as an audio amplifier and I come up empty.
Then I discovered the wonderful world of Japanese tube amplifier designers. They often make amplifiers out of the most odd tubes you can imagine. I get the feeling they do it for the same reason I do; to see if it can be done.
Anyway, I discovered a Japanese word that seems to help me in my search patterns. The word is アンプ and apparently it means 'amplifier' in Japanese.
So if I search, for example, for 6JV8 アンプ, I find a number of amplifiers designed and built in Japan, but I don't find much in the way of that tube being used in English-speaking countries.
So that's my tip. Search google for your tube and the word アンプ and you may find some really cool schematics.
However, every now and then, I search for some oddball tube in use as an audio amplifier and I come up empty.
Then I discovered the wonderful world of Japanese tube amplifier designers. They often make amplifiers out of the most odd tubes you can imagine. I get the feeling they do it for the same reason I do; to see if it can be done.
Anyway, I discovered a Japanese word that seems to help me in my search patterns. The word is アンプ and apparently it means 'amplifier' in Japanese.
So if I search, for example, for 6JV8 アンプ, I find a number of amplifiers designed and built in Japan, but I don't find much in the way of that tube being used in English-speaking countries.
So that's my tip. Search google for your tube and the word アンプ and you may find some really cool schematics.
One has to learn to live with the bad auto-translations, but the schematics are typically quite clear and speak for themselves. For me, this overcomes any issue with difficulty reading the narrative. I can generally figure out what was being said by inference. For example, Google apparently auto-translates 'valve' or 'tube' in this context as 'ball'. But I get it, I don't scoff because the translation leaves room for improvement.
Schematic is the accepted term here in the U.S. with circuit diagram running a pretty distant second.
The Japanese appear to have had a much more vibrant and longer running fascination with vacuum tube audio than is the case here in the West. The hobby is one way that Japanese express their individualism in a society where conformity at least in the working world has been highly valued. I am saddened by the fact that language barriers have largely kept this world closed to us, there is no current analog to magazines like MJ here in the west, perhaps the closest was Sound Practices a couple of decades back, but that was quite obscure even here in the land of its publication. Hiraga brought some Japanese sensibilities to the French language world, but no one really provided that insight to the English language world.
The Japanese appear to have had a much more vibrant and longer running fascination with vacuum tube audio than is the case here in the West. The hobby is one way that Japanese express their individualism in a society where conformity at least in the working world has been highly valued. I am saddened by the fact that language barriers have largely kept this world closed to us, there is no current analog to magazines like MJ here in the west, perhaps the closest was Sound Practices a couple of decades back, but that was quite obscure even here in the land of its publication. Hiraga brought some Japanese sensibilities to the French language world, but no one really provided that insight to the English language world.
I agree. When I was a younger man, I served in the US Marine Corps and spent a year living in Okinawa, where I purchased a lot of stereo gear (most of which I still have, Luxman, Teac, Technics, JVC, etc) and vinyl records. It was clear even back in the mid 1980s that certain aspects of Japanese society were different in the sense of hobbies of various sorts.
I was quite surprised by manga (it was not known in the West at that time) and by magazines dedicated to hobbies like audio, militaria, model-making, and the like. While we might consider someone an 'eccentric' to get deeply immersed in a rare and unusual hobby, it is just kind of a normal thing there; an expression of individuality as you said.
As a martial artist today, I find myself re-absorbed into studies of 'do' or 'way' in the Japanese sense. Martial arts, tea-making, calligraphy, flower-arranging, and so on; each is studied deeply and absorbed on a level beyond what it simply appears to be on the surface. By 'way', most seem to mean a 'way of life'. I suspect that some of these amplifier builders are very much practicing a 'do'. I could be wrong, I'm guessing, but that's my gut feeling.
I loved my time on Okinawa and the people were wonderful. I still speak a little Japanese, but never learned to read any of the written languages. I barely learned to drive on the 'wrong' side of the road.
I would call that the difference betwixt Amerikin and the King's English . Now that I have advanced to some understand of Southern colloquial English things have become easier .
Wigwam, I have a bunch of MJ magazines, other than the ads and schematics it is all a mystery to me. I now know how it feels to be illiterate..
I pay attention to trends in Japan and what hobbyists there are currently playing with. So many interesting things we never get to see here. Really is a different market and set of sensibilities.
Must have been cool living there.
I pay attention to trends in Japan and what hobbyists there are currently playing with. So many interesting things we never get to see here. Really is a different market and set of sensibilities.
Must have been cool living there.
FWIW I just checked with my polyglot Son, fluent in many including Japanese, he says that word is said: "anpu" , meaning Amplifier of course.
The "n" letter is not a typo, by the way; he "an" dypthong does not have a symbol while "an" does.
Funny thing, it´s not a Japanese root word but an English one, written roughly phonetically, of course.
The "n" letter is not a typo, by the way; he "an" dypthong does not have a symbol while "an" does.
Funny thing, it´s not a Japanese root word but an English one, written roughly phonetically, of course.
What you mean is Latin script or "Rōmaji" may be used in any context where Japanese text is targeted at non-Japanese speakers who cannot read kanji or kana. Search results are very different if you use only Rōmaji...by all means include kanji, even traditional Chinese.
Wigwam, we have our do or way here in the USA too, it just takes a different form. Over there they may be into every nuance of serving tea, while over here we have sports fans who are competitive in knowing every last statistic on a player. Or amplifier fanatics who can tell you how many grooves there are on a volume knob of a Fender guitar amp. Or foodies. We love as a people to "get into" various things. We would never do bonsai trees here, but we would all have to put arugula in every salad, and have kale on every restaurant menu. Koi in every garden pond.
And argue about Pete Rose.
And argue about Pete Rose.
Really? Try searching for some oddball amp that no one here has built.
If you can't find it, you ask, and if you ask, you're told you should not do it.
Having grown up American, but living for a year in Japan as well as being a student of traditional Okinawan martial arts, I would say that American hobbies are not the same as a Japanese 'do'.
A 'way' in Japan could be seen not just as a hobby but a method of life introspection and a way of life as well. Bonsai isn't just trimming little trees, caligraphy isn't just making letters on paper. There is something internal, meditative, and different about it that I'm not sure I understand well enough to try to explain using English words. Not only do I lack the ability to show how the Japanese do is different than the American hobby, I probably don't understand the Japanese 'do' well enough anyway.
But I do get some of the edges of it, and I respect it. I don't think collecting bottlecaps or baseball cards is the same thing. Nothing better or worse about either one; just different.
Interesting point there. Something meditate about.
I get a lot of interesting stuff, diagrams, schematics, drawings when using Russian language and Russian tube codes, instead of the westernized and often wrongly made up ones.
And the Russian people I have met also seem to have an attitude to their hobbies a bit like the Japanese.
I get a lot of interesting stuff, diagrams, schematics, drawings when using Russian language and Russian tube codes, instead of the westernized and often wrongly made up ones.
And the Russian people I have met also seem to have an attitude to their hobbies a bit like the Japanese.
An option to translate printed material is to scan it using your phones camera whilst using Google translate it's incredible you can point the camera at a page of text and it will translate it for you....most people know about Google translate for web pages but it will also work on magazines etc...
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