Ode to Tube Rollers

[CoolBlueGlow]

A little light-hearted jest directed at those who talk too much and solder too little.
Ode To Tube Rollers
(aka "All The Amps I've Never Built")
copyright 2011, coolblueglow



I love the sound of all the amps
That I’ve never built
As I mock and scorn those Dynacos
You pathetic losers will

KT88 or EL34?
Those are PENTODES, don’t you see?
So I dream my triode class A dream
with a damnable certainty

I looked at the 300B and of course the 2A3
But neither one’s gm looked exactly right to me
So I found some CX310’s in a vault ‘neath the Smithsonian
They’ll only make point nine watts, but they’re genuine NOS Cunningham!

It’s true I’m not quite sure yet
Of the exact topology
but rest assured my date codes will match
and I’ll know my tubes’ precise genealogy

Of course you idiot, oil filled bypass caps
and lodestones? I use three…
and no…there’s no choke in my B+
See, I’m going ALL battery for my DC

Silver solder? Pshaw! I’ll likely braze with gold you see
though your tin ears probably can’t hear it... at least not like me
All will be connected with yak-hair cables, chilled in de-ionized ice
In my DIY hysteria, I fly to lofty heights

Bordering on meg’lomania
In fevered dreams the visions form
Of tri-filar silver-wound OPT
hand-wound by vestal virgins…on cores of Unobtanium

And on day future when you hear it?
You’ll swoon…I swear you will
‘cause the soundstage will be tall
as the peak of Mount Olympus
and deep as the canyons of the moon

Sure, I'll give you a schematic
just as soon as I figure out...
how to show the da**ed thing's on
maybe I'll use a glowing xenon VR tube

What? You say to use a LED?
Just to indicate she’s on?
Surely you jest, you moron!
Don’t you know any LED will simply destroy the tone!


You doubt? I’ll prove it to you
with my new design
Soon as I find six metal base GZ34 I’m starting
Yep, I swear this time!

Huh? You…you have a few?
Yes…but what year?
Every tube-roller can tell you
The only good ones are March of 62

Don’t you know every other GZ34 is s**t?
Might as well smash yours to atoms and be done with it
Or…I guess you could make a few quid
on eBay, they’ll sell quick
To some poor fool with a push-pull
He’s probably listening to 6L6!

No doubt, its that d***ed Williamson circuit, using some crappy old pentode,
How can they listen to AB push-pull?
Don’t they know they’ll turn to toads?

Meanwhile, I’ll be busy dreaming…
Waiting to begin
My battery powered, single-ended
Direct-coupled gem

Yeah, she’ll sound so fine, I bet
I can hardly wait to start
But until then, I’ll keep listening
thru' plastic computer speakers
I bought on sale… at Wal-Mart

[bigwill]

Very good

[DF96]

I guess we can forgive a poet for implying that KT88 is a pentode!

[CoolBlueGlow]

yes... a little poetic license, and a jab at those SE guys who think anything more that three elements is from the devil. :-)

[CoolBlueGlow]

BTW, God bless the UK and the SE triode crowd. We loves 'em anyway.

[payitforwardeddie]

Horses for courses

or


Whatever Rocks yer Boat

[Coconuts 500]

I will not have ANY electrolytics in my signal path!

...In my future amplifier.

[HollowState]

Originally Posted by DF96

I guess we can forgive a poet for implying that KT88 is a pentode!

The original definition of a pentode was a tube with five elements or five electrodes. It wasn't written in stone that three of them had to be "grids", although that was the assumption. At least that's how I learned it. Later on a sub-definition of beam tetrode was introduced to cover those newer variants.

[DF96]

Of course a classics scholar will insist that a pentode is anything with five electrodes, but it is generally understood to be a particular set of five as invented and patented by Philips. The beam tetrode was a way to achieve the same effect with only four electrodes, but sometimes beam plates are added too. Since they are considered not to be in the electron stream they are not counted, so it remains a tetrode.

[CoolBlueGlow]

Wow... leave it to tube lovers to turn a lighthearted poem about SE tube-rolling nutcases into a discussion of the nomenclature of guided beam Tetrodes vs. Pentodes!

:-)