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The future of the Valve.

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What is the future of the electronic Valve?

Is thermionic going to be the future in audio 10-20 years from now? :whazzat: :nod:

What about components? What will happen in 10 years time to all of the wide variety of specialised and common components like resistors and capacitors? :yell:

This is just a thread to bring up the best out of hypothesis and humour of our nearly-?100? year passion/tinkering... :scratch1:

:eguitar: & rock stars die someday...:eguitar:

Cheers.
 
Is thermionic going to be the future in audio 10-20 years from now?

It is allready the future of audio...??

AFAIK the tube business is growing and growing.
New tubes are being introduced almost daily. ;-)
Business selling NOS are expanding and doing well.
Companies that used to build tube based and went SS are introducing tube based designs again.
Transformer companies are doing output trannies again.
New tube audio companies are starting up...T
The pacific NW is going to be the new hollowstate valley soon! Silicon Valley is on the way down!

This is just the beginning...

However...it will ofcourse never become mainstream again.

Price and convenience rule here. Plus multichannel and non-audiophile formats seem to be gaining in popularity.

Cheers,
Bas

PS...i fail to see what religion has to do with it all. Are you implying that valvelovers are misguided?
 
i fail to see what religion has to do with it all. Are you implying that valvelovers are misguided?

In a sense, that's true. Many, if not most, tubeophiles love tubes for completely irrational reasons. I'd put myself in that category. I love them, I build most of my electronics from them, but I know in my heart-of-hearts that it's an affectation.

Maybe it's just the perspective of age, but tubes are pretty much a fashion niche nowadays. The "new" introductions are few, far between, and more based on fashions (hence transient) than anything else. And done in limited quantity. The guitar world is a much bigger driver of demand than hifi.

In the '60s, when I caught the bug, there were enormously more types available. By the '70s, that was well winding down, and we started to dig into NOS. Most of that great NOS stuff is down to the few, and the prices and availability reflect that. With the ending (or major reduction) of Soviet military usage, that source will not be a major driver of availability, either. Not good for me when I've used the last of my 6528s and 6LF6s...

My guess is that, 20 years from now, there will still be some niche guys making common guitar types (12AX7, EL34, 6550, and the like), and there may be a fashion tube or two. But if you're counting on someone still making a VT25, you're whistling past the graveyard.
 
Hmm all good points there :p

I hope wholeheartedly that valve manufacturing /does/ come back to at least 1/4 of it's mainstream counterpart sometime in the future... I would LOVE to see valve amplification every fourth house :p

PS...i fail to see what religion has to do with it all. Are you implying that valvelovers are misguided?

NOO!!

Actually some "valve lovers" are misguided, it depends upon where you're looking from, the window outside or standing in the middle of cartons full of rotting old cardboard boxes with fragile glass and metal inside?

Maybe building that cross section an extra 1foot deep for another 5 valves?

We are all misguided according to nearly everyone i've spoken to at my school/campus.

It was supposed to enlighten you to go out and burn a few soapbox Tandy preachers...AND to be put into a joking light.

Not to imply that "Valve Lovers" are fudging well misguided.

Maybe I shouldn't use this until I'm a bit older here eh?

Upon your probably credible assumption that:

"New tube audio companies are starting up...T"

Do you see this trend growing at a steady pace or otherwise?

Also do you see any further miniturisation of valves further so as to compensate for the 'bathroom-aka-closet' usage of valve amplifiers where transistors have had realm for years?

Personally I see a decline in numbers, as people buy their 5.1 systems and their TFT displays with cheap speakers and a mere single-chip for amplification all of this 'enhancement' technology that you see crammed into plugins for winamp and specialised chipsets for 'entertainment systems', which I wholly despise. *duck*

I actually had a battle with one paticular friend of 3 years a few months ago about how so un-customisable the DVD/Amplifier combo he brought recently was..My head was bitten off FFS!

He's still my friend tho. After we came to an agreement that I have my stuff and he has his.

Guess it's all up to affordability and more importantly convenience.

Cheers.
P.S. If I offend you Don't take it seriously, I don't take anything seriously anymore.
 
mmm, Maybe it's all of those movies I watched on tv as a kid but I love the smell of solder in my room/shack while it's raining outside and I'm sitting on the antenna cable while the oil heater nearby clocks up a few dimes on the power bill...

I tell you one thing though, if any kid walks up to my room in like 30 years time and gets a whiff of solder & fluxite, the burning smell of dust on my rack of the world's last remaining 6L6's, I'd die a happy man.. :)

My 20th' birthday is in 3 months and I intend on having my first KT88 U-L PP finished by then :p
 
We are all misguided according to nearly everyone i've spoken to at my school/campus

Yes...so let them...at least that way NOS remains affordable. ;-)

It's like saying that milk causes osteoporosis ...no one will believe you...because you can't prove it...science is weird...common sense takes off where science stops :)

Countries that consume most milk have highest incidence of osteoporosis... proven in my book but not to the scientific community! Go figure.

Cheers,
Bas
 
Indeed...!

Glad I can't even drink cows milk :p I get a closed throat and choke ! same goes with choclate or lollies...

I personally love fidelity, the ability to hear some Arabian old lady go nuts with a drum and bangles makes me feel like I'm that bit closer to getting somewhere else.

"Dead Can Dance - Arabian Gothic" sounds great on these vint coned 8in mid-high ranges :p
 
I remember reading a decade or so ago about 'cold cathode' technology. I would like to see somebody introduce 'cold cathode' equivalents of popular vacuum tubes (all the good sound without all the heat or aging) along with some new high transconductance/low plate resistance power varieties for audio use.
 
I wonder if I would like tubes as much if they were all cold cathode types and I would miss that filament glow??????????

I would miss it terribly. I'd miss the smell, the feel of the radiated heat, the tinkle of the glass at warmup and cooldown. I'd miss the whole bottle look, the gestalt of clinging to my youth.

If by "cold cathode," you mean the ultra-micro devices that used tunneling currents, I've got a buddy who's been working with them for years. Given the fabrication practicalities, their applications now seem to be more toward high-tech sensing.
 
Hmm I don't remember reading anything at all about cold cathode tubes being more dangerous than ordinary ones, but I do remember their usage being limited to lower-voltage operation and/or poor performance when compared to 'hot-cathode'...

Cheers.

"an electric discharge through ionized mercury vapour, producing a brilliant bluish-green light containing ultraviolet radiation"

http://www.tubecollector.org/150-6g.htm
http://www.tubecollector.org/mercuryarc.htm
 

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"In contrast to the vacuum tube which has a hard vacuum and a heated cathode, the cold-cathode switching tube has low-pressure gas inside and has an unheated cathode.

The Anita does use a small number of thermionic valves, but the logic circuits incorporate large numbers of Cold Cathode Tubes. In contrast to the thermionic valves the Cold Cathode tubes contain a rarefied inert gas (e.g. neon), and electrons are emitted in an avalanche from the unheated cathode when the voltage between the anode and cathode reaches a high enough value. The flowing current excites the gas inside and produces a glow - this is the way that the small neon mains indicator lamps work. A relatively small voltage on a control grid between the anode and cathode has a great effect on whether a current of electrons flows or not and can switch it on and off."

""... They are an accountant's dream; a typical modern tube has a life expectancy several thousand times better than the conventional thermionic tube, although they employ voltages of the same order. They are much cheaper than either semiconductor devices or vacuum tubes; they do not require costly materials with a high degree of purity in their manufacture, nor do need transformers or cooling systems to operate. The tubes require no warm-up period and they can take severe overload.""

Both quotes from: http://www.vintagecalculators.com/html/cold-cathode_tube___dekatron.html

Maybe cold cathode tubes should make a comeback!?
 
Layberinthius said:
Oh yes, the Mercury Vapour rectifier tubes :p

I'll dig up a really KICK-BUTT regulator tube and post it for you :p

Thanks, that stired really ooooold memories.

BTW Does the number OD3 make sense in this context?

As to cold cathodes. When I was a kid I made self-playing electronic instruments from ne2's. I set them up as multiple relaxation oscillators modulating each other. They could switch eachother on and off too. Back in those days it was pretty neat.
 
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