hello, this thread was dated back its opening in May 2002, almost 14 years ago. I am late.....
I am not much into tube, i am more on present day solution and processing power, but for curiosity, I got sucked in into tube amplifier (driven by curiosity and when you feel tired of SS solution) and my biggest problem (personally) is :
the power consumption
as a supporter for the low power consumption or that called Full eco compliant product/project.
well, now a days, there are design of Tube preamplifier which makes use of lower voltage based on voltage trippler, and indeed reduced the power consumption, but this is only for tube preamplifier and not for tube amplifier.
There is a question as well that, makes use of 35Vdc instead of 300Vdc makes the sound different? and remains a question, we have a group buy in other forum (elab.ph), for 115 pcs of this tube preamplifier, 45 goes to hobbyist, the rest is for school, and looks like that, what the user expect is that, the tube can make the sound better, like a miracle
, and ended up in long explaining specially to the school
, that was pain!
as suggest by others is it to have a hybrid solution, sir Tony mentioned
1. Buffer / pre amplifier.... Tube preamplifier
2. amplifier ................... class A or Class AB
There were also request to have a Power Management incorporated into the Tube amp, so that, it will
1. turn off the tube after certain time (specially when you use tube amp during your sleep)
2. will manage to tell the user when to replace the tube, etc. (and probably tell the user to contact who
??
)
As for the cost reason,
with the deployment of Chinese tube manufacturer & continuous production, tube prices gone down after 14 years compared to the price in 2002, the good thing is that, several guys offer a DIY kit already.
I have a tube preampfifer and Tube Amplifier in my friend in Manila, you may contact Rochie to have a test in his listening room, this is a DIY one. There was a plan for a group buy........ but scared of the scenario that, Group buyers think that Tube amplifier is like a "mana machine"
But the reality, is that,
Tube are coming back. In the april HK / Shenzhen and Guangzhuo show, i was there..... and many audio gadgets are on board with tube, even Samsung DVD, they put a tube and show those glowing tube, i see also TEAC.
What is painful is that, some local Chinese manufacturer designed the amplifier looks like TUBE, with cute tube glowing light but the processing is IC or class AB/D amplifier.
