Cheap Chinese "VU" meters, meters on valve amps?

[madis64]

There are other kits, with op amps etc,

One can always add an opamp buffer or driver before the meters so that - potential distortion wise - the amplifier would "see" only the opamp input.

 

[lavane]

The ones I got have the driving circuit attached to the back of each unit, no active components, just resistors, diodes, capacitors and a pot. I connect them to the output transformers. I did some measurements and they surely did not show the right values.
There are other kits, with op amps etc, those are probably fine, but I describe tbe ones I got, which, to be honest, do what I wanted them for: retro looks.

I saw those recently. I ordered the type with a driver board for both meters sometime back. I recently built a phono preamp using Erhard Audio's new Z-PH20 board and used the VU meters for it. I had them laying around, so why not?

 

[theAnonymous1]

The ones I got have the driving circuit attached to the back of each unit, no active components, just resistors, diodes, capacitors and a pot. I connect them to the output transformers. I did some measurements and they surely did not show the right values.
There are other kits, with op amps etc, those are probably fine, but I describe tbe ones I got, which, to be honest, do what I wanted them for: retro looks.

Yes, those are the same meters I bought. That's why I bought the other driver board and removed the ones from the meters.