Fake glow LED under valve in commercial devices

[kenpeter]

Blackstar Drive-HT.

Looks simple enough on the outside, but inside:
Extremely complicated, 3 PCBs crammed in there.
Only thing I'm claiming "fake" about it is the glow.
Clearly they didn't trust ECC83 filament to provide
the required lightshow.

[M Gregg]

One word

“marketability”

Cruise lights for tube amps.

Regards
M. Gregg

[taj]

I've noticed a couple Chinese amps with high intensity blue LEDs mounted in the tube socket. They're clearing aiming at a young-ish and dumb-ish marketing demographic (which I believe is a huge one.)

..Todd

[mark02131]

I saw some amps including a McIntosh preamp that had LED's under the tubes, I don't like it at all, it takes away from the warm glow of the filaments

[chrisb]

Well, in some cases the LEDs might be actually serving as part of bias or CCS circuit, so it's not necessarily always about "marketing"

[DSP_Geek]

Originally Posted by chrisb

Well, in some cases the LEDs might be actually serving as part of bias or CCS circuit, so it's not necessarily always about "marketing"

Paging Stu Yaniger to the red courtesy LED....

[SY]

Wait until you see the next one. It will make the RLD seem... understated.

[tubelab.com]

WLD? Three camera phone flash LED's in series with each cathode.

[Michael Koster]

Anything but blue!

[Frank Berry]

Originally Posted by chrisb

Well, in some cases the LEDs might be actually serving as part of bias or CCS circuit, so it's not necessarily always about "marketing"

The LED's could be located under the chassis. If they're positioned under the tubes to give them a nice blue glow, it's all about marketing.