Thread: Vacuum tubes
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beepbeep beepbeep is online now
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Join Date: Jun 2001
Location: Sweden
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Very hi-power RF amps are still using tubes, and probably always will. There is just no way you can scale solid state into MW-range. Also, TWT (travelling wave tubes) are unmatched when it comes to amplifying signals at tens of GHz range.

That being said, tubes are quite sorry when it comes to amplifying anything else. They are noisy, non-linear, unefficient and short-lived and generally PITA to have in anything serious cept RF. That's why they are all gone.

They do distortion in graceful/fancy way though so people (me included) like them in stereo equipped. It's also somewhat steam-punkish as well, and...er...exclusive.

But a MOSFET power amp will wipe the floor with tube amp on just about any objective parameter: THD, frequency response, noise floor, efficiency etc etc. But I still like them and have built couple of them. Currently using home-built 2 x EL34 tube amp in my stereo.

P.S.
I'm secretly planning to do a monster OTL tube amp (no output transformer), which is about the holy grail of tube amp design.
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Old 07-31-2013, 01:04 PM
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