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anterm anterm is offline
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Default Why are vacuum tubes still used in audio amplifiers instead of solid-state transistor

Some audiophiles say that the sound quality in vacuum tubes is better, but I fail to see why, especially since vacuum tube electronics is an older technology
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John L Stewart John L Stewart is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by anterm View Post
Some audiophiles say that the sound quality in vacuum tubes is better, but I fail to see why, especially since vacuum tube electronics is an older technology
Same odd reason some people prefer to ride a horse now & then! Not difficult to come up with many other examples.

John
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Tabby Tabby is offline
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Default Why are vacuum tubes still used in audio amplifiers instead ofsolid-state transistor

On May 8, 12:32*pm, John L Stewart John.L.Stewart.
wrote:
anterm;930852 Wrote:

Some audiophiles say that the sound quality in vacuum tubes is better,
but I fail to see why, especially since vacuum tube electronics is an
older technology


Same odd reason some people prefer to ride a horse now & then! Not
difficult to come up with many other examples.

John


Age doesn't determine quality, it more determines price. There are
still some very good amplifiers from the 1950s about, like Quad II and
similar.

There are differences between valve and transistor amps' sound
quality, both have their pros and cons, and some people much prefer
valve.


NT
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NX211 NX211 is offline
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Default Why are vacuum tubes still used in audio amplifiers instead ofsolid-state transistor

On May 8, 7:32*am, John L Stewart John.L.Stewart.
wrote:
anterm;930852 Wrote:

Some audiophiles say that the sound quality in vacuum tubes is better,
but I fail to see why, especially since vacuum tube electronics is an
older technology


Same odd reason some people prefer to ride a horse now & then! Not
difficult to come up with many other examples.

John

--
John L Stewart


Any good audio engineer can make a transistor sound like a tube but
one thing they can't do is make a transistor glow like a tube. That
my friend is the answer.
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Default Why are vacuum tubes still used in audio amplifiers instead of solid-state transistor

NX211 wrote:
On May 8, 7:32 am, John L Stewart John.L.Stewart.
wrote:
anterm;930852 Wrote:

Some audiophiles say that the sound quality in vacuum tubes is
better, but I fail to see why, especially since vacuum tube
electronics is an older technology


Same odd reason some people prefer to ride a horse now & then! Not
difficult to come up with many other examples.

John

--
John L Stewart


Any good audio engineer can make a transistor sound like a tube but
one thing they can't do is make a transistor glow like a tube. That
my friend is the answer.


Actually, it's easier to make a transistor glow like a tube than to make one sound like a tube.

Fred




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Don Pearce[_3_] Don Pearce[_3_] is offline
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Default Why are vacuum tubes still used in audio amplifiers instead of solid-state transistor

On Sun, 8 May 2011 11:06:36 -0700, "Fred" wrote:

NX211 wrote:
On May 8, 7:32 am, John L Stewart John.L.Stewart.
wrote:
anterm;930852 Wrote:

Some audiophiles say that the sound quality in vacuum tubes is
better, but I fail to see why, especially since vacuum tube
electronics is an older technology

Same odd reason some people prefer to ride a horse now & then! Not
difficult to come up with many other examples.

John

--
John L Stewart


Any good audio engineer can make a transistor sound like a tube but
one thing they can't do is make a transistor glow like a tube. That
my friend is the answer.


Actually, it's easier to make a transistor glow like a tube than to make one sound like a tube.

Fred


Yes, but if you blink you miss it.

d
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Default Why are vacuum tubes still used in audio amplifiers instead of solid-state transistor

Don Pearce wrote:
On Sun, 8 May 2011 11:06:36 -0700, "Fred" wrote:

NX211 wrote:
On May 8, 7:32 am, John L Stewart John.L.Stewart.
wrote:
anterm;930852 Wrote:

Some audiophiles say that the sound quality in vacuum tubes is
better, but I fail to see why, especially since vacuum tube
electronics is an older technology

Same odd reason some people prefer to ride a horse now & then! Not
difficult to come up with many other examples.

John

--
John L Stewart

Any good audio engineer can make a transistor sound like a tube but
one thing they can't do is make a transistor glow like a tube. That
my friend is the answer.


Actually, it's easier to make a transistor glow like a tube than to
make one sound like a tube.

Fred


Yes, but if you blink you miss it.


;-) Fred


d



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Patrick Turner Patrick Turner is offline
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Default Why are vacuum tubes still used in audio amplifiers instead ofsolid-state transistor

On May 8, 10:39*pm, Tabby wrote:
On May 8, 12:32*pm, John L Stewart John.L.Stewart.

wrote:
anterm;930852 Wrote:


Some audiophiles say that the sound quality in vacuum tubes is better,
but I fail to see why, especially since vacuum tube electronics is an
older technology


Same odd reason some people prefer to ride a horse now & then! Not
difficult to come up with many other examples.


John


Age doesn't determine quality, it more determines price. There are
still some very good amplifiers from the 1950s about, like Quad II and
similar.


IMHO, Quad-II has a quite parsimonious amount amount of "very good" in
it. It is one of the poorest mass made amplifiers ever foisted upon
the public. But so were many others from 1950, Most mass makers were
reluctant to make gear which compares well to what we can do with
tubes now. The car industry also produced attrocious cars in 1950.
nearly everything you bought was butcherd quality, or quality watered
down. In 1955, everyone complained about cars rusting from the inside
out while also wearing out rather too soon.

Peter Walker didn't get famous because of his amps. He became famous
for his electrostatic speakers.

The Chinese make Quad amps now and has tried to make them better, but
the Quad 40 has many shortcomings; they just don't get it.

Things have not changed, the vast majority of stuff for sale is what I
never want to own. And the fact that slave labour in China makes it
for almost nothing so that when its sold in Oz after rapacious shop
owners here sell it at 20 times the Chinese factory gate price, I
still don't want it. The Chinese can make good underpants
and plastic reader glasses, but not tube amps. I also get many solid
state amps coming in for repairs, and made badly.


There are differences between valve and transistor amps' sound

quality, both have their pros and cons, and some people much prefer
valve.


Indeed. Both forms of amps should measure well at normal listening
levels. I've heard some tube amps which don't, and they don't sound so
good, and often its because the makers have NO IDEA about how to
design anything. I have had to totally re-wire a lot of brandname amps
because of the ignorance of the makers. Much tube gear is complete
rubbish and the prooduct of minds that were merely greedy, and they
peddle crap in an entrepreneuring effort which is a complete con job.
Many people have more money than good sense let alone any ability to
tell what really sounds well and slick promotion efforts get sales of
rubbsh. Some people woud gladly eat a **** sandwich if they are told
how ****in marvellous the sandwich is and shown how wonderful the
sandwich looks.

But I raise my hat to the **** producers of the world.

I can then compete with the crap products by offering real
performance.

NT


Patrick Turner.

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Default Why are vacuum tubes still used in audio amplifiers instead ofsolid-state transistor

On May 9, 4:06*am, "Fred" wrote:
NX211 wrote:
On May 8, 7:32 am, John L Stewart John.L.Stewart.
wrote:
anterm;930852 Wrote:


Some audiophiles say that the sound quality in vacuum tubes is
better, but I fail to see why, especially since vacuum tube
electronics is an older technology


Same odd reason some people prefer to ride a horse now & then! Not
difficult to come up with many other examples.


John


--
John L Stewart


Any good audio engineer can make a transistor sound like a tube but
one thing they can't do is make a transistor glow like a tube. *That
my friend is the answer.


Actually, it's easier to make a transistor glow like a tube than to make one sound like a tube.

Fred- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -


NO. I never been able to make a transistor glow. But they can easily
make fuses blow, after they have failed to become a sullen dull
useless bit of junk which conducts like wire in both directions.

Patrick Turner.
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Patrick Turner Patrick Turner is offline
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Default Why are vacuum tubes still used in audio amplifiers instead ofsolid-state transistor

On May 9, 4:57*am, (Don Pearce) wrote:
On Sun, 8 May 2011 11:06:36 -0700, "Fred" wrote:
NX211 wrote:
On May 8, 7:32 am, John L Stewart John.L.Stewart.
wrote:
anterm;930852 Wrote:


Some audiophiles say that the sound quality in vacuum tubes is
better, but I fail to see why, especially since vacuum tube
electronics is an older technology


Same odd reason some people prefer to ride a horse now & then! Not
difficult to come up with many other examples.


John


--
John L Stewart


Any good audio engineer can make a transistor sound like a tube but
one thing they can't do is make a transistor glow like a tube. *That
my friend is the answer.


Actually, it's easier to make a transistor glow like a tube than to make one sound like a tube.


Fred


Yes, but if you blink you miss it.


Sometimes bjts explode if they try to get hot. Then you need to have
eyes wide shut.

Patrick Turner.

d- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -




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Don Pearce[_3_] Don Pearce[_3_] is offline
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Default Why are vacuum tubes still used in audio amplifiers instead of solid-state transistor

On Sun, 8 May 2011 17:03:26 -0700 (PDT), Patrick Turner
wrote:

On May 9, 4:06*am, "Fred" wrote:
NX211 wrote:
On May 8, 7:32 am, John L Stewart John.L.Stewart.
wrote:
anterm;930852 Wrote:


Some audiophiles say that the sound quality in vacuum tubes is
better, but I fail to see why, especially since vacuum tube
electronics is an older technology


Same odd reason some people prefer to ride a horse now & then! Not
difficult to come up with many other examples.


John


--
John L Stewart


Any good audio engineer can make a transistor sound like a tube but
one thing they can't do is make a transistor glow like a tube. *That
my friend is the answer.


Actually, it's easier to make a transistor glow like a tube than to make one sound like a tube.

Fred- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -


NO. I never been able to make a transistor glow. But they can easily
make fuses blow, after they have failed to become a sullen dull
useless bit of junk which conducts like wire in both directions.

Patrick Turner.


Back in the 1970s when I was designing the first digital pagers, we
used a system called Molybdenum Gate Technology which would run off
2.5V. If you prised the lids off the chips, the FET drains would glow
when they conducted. You could actually follow what the logic of the
chip was doing this way.

d
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Patrick Turner Patrick Turner is offline
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Default Why are vacuum tubes still used in audio amplifiers instead ofsolid-state transistor

On May 9, 1:48*pm, flipper wrote:
On Sun, 8 May 2011 17:00:41 -0700 (PDT), Patrick Turner





wrote:
On May 8, 10:39*pm, Tabby wrote:
On May 8, 12:32*pm, John L Stewart John.L.Stewart.


wrote:
anterm;930852 Wrote:


Some audiophiles say that the sound quality in vacuum tubes is better,
but I fail to see why, especially since vacuum tube electronics is an
older technology


Same odd reason some people prefer to ride a horse now & then! Not
difficult to come up with many other examples.


John


Age doesn't determine quality, it more determines price. There are
still some very good amplifiers from the 1950s about, like Quad II and
similar.


IMHO, Quad-II has a quite parsimonious amount amount of "very good" in
it. It is one of the poorest mass made amplifiers ever foisted upon
the public. But so were many others from 1950, Most mass makers were
reluctant to make gear which compares well to what we can do with
tubes now. The car industry also produced attrocious cars in 1950.
nearly everything you bought was butcherd quality, or quality watered
down. In 1955, everyone complained about cars rusting from the inside
out while also wearing out rather too soon.


Peter Walker didn't get famous because of his amps. He became famous
for his electrostatic speakers.


The Chinese make Quad amps now and has tried to make them better, but
the Quad 40 has many shortcomings; they just don't get it.


Things have not changed, the vast majority of stuff for sale is what I
never want to own. And the fact that slave labour in China makes it
for almost nothing so that when its sold in Oz after rapacious shop
owners here sell it at 20 times the Chinese factory gate price, I
still don't want it. The Chinese can make good underpants
and plastic reader glasses, but not tube amps. I also get many solid
state amps coming in for repairs, and made badly.


There are differences between valve and transistor amps' sound
quality, both have their pros and cons, and some people much prefer
valve.


Indeed. Both forms of amps should measure well at normal listening
levels. I've heard some tube amps which don't, and they don't sound so
good, and often its because the makers have NO IDEA about how to
design anything. I have had to totally re-wire a lot of brandname amps
because of the ignorance of the makers. Much tube gear is complete
rubbish and the prooduct of minds that were merely greedy, and they
peddle crap in an entrepreneuring effort which is a complete con job.
Many people have more money than good sense let alone any ability to
tell what really sounds well and slick promotion efforts get sales of
rubbsh. Some people woud gladly eat a **** sandwich if they are told
how ****in marvellous the sandwich is and shown how wonderful the
sandwich looks.


But I raise my hat to the **** producers of the world.


I can then compete with the crap products by offering real
performance.


Until such time as you build and sell 'real performance' for the same
or less price as the alleged 'crap' you're just an elitist curmudgeon.

AND I am PROUD to be an elitist curmudgeon......

You don' realise that chinese workers get less than anyone I know
here.

A quick Google gave me

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine...2051_mz011.htm

I quote.....

""""" .......The cost of Chinese factory labor is a paltry 64 cents
an hour. Although that figure is rough, since it's pieced together
from sketchy statistics, it's still the most thorough estimate ever
compiled. It includes both wages and employer contributions for
benefits and social insurance. And it covers not just city factory
workers, who get the most attention, but the more numerous rural and
suburban factory workers as well......... """""

Average mean income per annum where I live in Canberra = $66,000 pa.
270 days work at 9 hrs a day = 2,430 hrs, so mean hourly rate = $27.00
per hour.

This by rough comparision is 42.4 times the wage of a Chinese worker.
Or +32.5 dB more wages.

Now I dunno about youse, but I refuse to work for 64 cents an hour. Of
course the cost of living is less in China but at the end of the day
if there are 200 man hours in a chinese amp, ( 5 men working for a
week ), the cost of wages is $128, and if materials in chinese prices
are also $128, then total cost of production = $256,and if you double
that for the profit made my whoever owns the chinese company, maybe
the Chinese Communist Party, then the export price might be $512.

Take a look at
http://www.avhub.com.au/index.php/Pr...amplifier.html
Quad 80 is shown for $14,000.
I searched around for Quad II-Forty and saw $6,500, but other places
showed they are unavailable,
maybe the Chinese have stopped production.

Seems to me the curmudgeons are the western country importers and shop
owners.

I raise my hat to such cumudgeons, I'd never sell a damn thing if they
cut their prices to what I consider reasonable. For awhile you could
buy 5050 stereo power amps from "Hong-Kong Hi-Fi", some bunch of
Chinese goons, and online for about $1,000. These POS amps are Jolida
quality. I had rewire two which were bought by local guys to make 'em
sing and stop smoking.

People here and everywhere just don't give a **** about Chinese slave
labour; oh yeah, nobody has trouble with social inequities all around
the world. Yet all thse ****wit know-alls try to tell us the Chinese
are giving us a mighty raw deal yet they are doing what we refuse to
do. Just imagine if the Chinese quit exporting cheap underpants and
gadgets. Your standard of living would plummet.

Patrick Turner.
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On May 9, 3:34*am, Patrick Turner wrote:

People here and everywhere just don't give a **** about Chinese slave
labour; oh yeah, nobody has trouble with social inequities all around
the world. Yet all thse ****wit know-alls try to tell us the Chinese
are giving us a mighty raw deal yet they are doing what we refuse to
do. Just imagine if the Chinese quit exporting cheap underpants and
gadgets. Your standard of living would plummet.

Patrick Turner


What did we do when underware and gadgets were made in the USA?
Somehow I was able to afford a pair of Haines boxer shorts.

Pt
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John L Stewart John L Stewart is offline
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Location: Toronto
Posts: 301
Default

Back in the 1970s when I was designing the first digital pagers, we
used a system called Molybdenum Gate Technology which would run off
2.5V. If you prised the lids off the chips, the FET drains would glow
when they conducted. You could actually follow what the logic of the
chip was doing this way.

d[/quote]


The Junctions must then be of GaAs.

HoHo!
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John L Stewart John L Stewart is offline
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Location: Toronto
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Quote:
Originally Posted by anterm View Post
Some audiophiles say that the sound quality in vacuum tubes is better, but I fail to see why, especially since vacuum tube electronics is an older technology
Many people build or are involved with all kinds of older technology. They perhaps do not perform as well as what is possible today. But they let ordinary folks try their inventiveness & perhaps satisfy some curiosities.

For myself the vacuum tube amplifier is a source of satisfaction not thru listening but rather the challenge of building something. That way I can perform lots of objective tests on the circuit with modern test equipment. Compare how it does with others of similar bent & with the old original stuff. Then I put it on the shelf. Done quite a few that way, then authored articles for publication. But I could not make the kind of living I like doing that. All just for fun & my curiosity. Most of them seldom listened to again at all.

I don't have enough money to build a race car. Or own a stable of antiques like Jay Leno. Can't afford a Shelby Mustang. But I do have an 87 Cobra I bought new back when I had a few extra bucks! Had it out the other day. It goes like Hell but drives like a truck.

So there, John


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Patrick Turner Patrick Turner is offline
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Default Why are vacuum tubes still used in audio amplifiers instead ofsolid-state transistor

On May 10, 8:59*am, flipper wrote:
On Mon, 9 May 2011 06:06:04 -0700 (PDT), Pt wrote:
On May 9, 3:34*am, Patrick Turner wrote:


People here and everywhere just don't give a **** about Chinese slave
labour; oh yeah, nobody has trouble with social inequities all around
the world. Yet all thse ****wit know-alls try to tell us the Chinese
are giving us a mighty raw deal yet they are doing what we refuse to
do. Just imagine if the Chinese quit exporting cheap underpants and
gadgets. Your standard of living would plummet.


Patrick Turner


What did we do when underware and gadgets were made in the USA?


You had less of it.

It's a simple matter of how much things cost vs how much you have to
spend.

Somehow I was able to afford a pair of Haines boxer shorts.


And you could 'afford' them at twice the current price too. But would
you 'like' paying twice as much?


Price "mechanisms" are accepted without us big rich fat cats feeling
the slightest guilt about what we pay because it is assumed the seller
is happy with the price he's offering you.

Of course there are happy slaves around the world and the USA was full
of them until they abolished slavery around the time they had a civil
war where a million men perished. Here in Oz, we probably had some
happy convicts who'd been transported under duress from Brittain by
the King of England and used as cheap labour everywhere. Our native
blacks here were shot, poisoned, and treated like scum and no doubt
some may have been happy to work as cowboys rounding up the cattle,
but at wages far below "white fella pay". But we didn't have a civil
war, maybe the worst that happened were a few pub brawls, and maybe
two Labour Party meetings where a few chairs were broken after a rowdy
night deciding what workers should do to give unified opposition to
the Association Of Fat Arsed Bosses who always tried to keep Mr Little
poor.

I am not a rabid socialist who wants the lazy unproductive anarchy of
East Germany or Russia or Cambodia etc where people get trambled down
by others who think they are "more equal than anyone else". But all
men are just blokes, and all women are just sheilas and once somebody
is born anywhere in the world they should have equal rights,
oppportunity, freedoms and equal duties of care to others, which means
they are prepared to work not bludge, and not try un-ethical means to
derive income without raising a sweat. Those who are rich should see
to it that those who are poor may pull themselves up to us; If an
african breaks a leg, he should be able to get to a doctor in a clean
hospital and not have to bribe anyone, or pay $1,200 a month for
medical insurance.

Unfortunately, while everyone in the West likes to think how ****in
marvellous they are there isn't much chance that Western human nature
will ever insist on paying the Chinese the same price for something
made in the West. The West is in a mad greedy scramble where the rich
get richer yey they never have enough and they like to see others NOT
doing so well as themselves because that boosts their cherished
picture of their own grandness. Of course rich countries can go
astray and become obsessed by all sorts of things such as maintaining
influence and control over foreign countries. The more they do it, the
more it costs, and it can send a rich country broke. Nobody wants to
know. All sorts of crap reasons are trotted out. Its a long turgid
story. Empires come, empires go.

I should be able to open a factory to make tube amps here just as
easily as I could anywhere else, but it is not so. A bloke here runs a
small business selling music amps, electric guitars, all sorts of
stuff to the "music industry." He found bigger shops who established
themselves 50 years ago ganged up to prevent him getting supplies of
Fenders and Marshalls from importers. Oh how people hate fair
competition! Anyway, this new local fella's response was to go
straight over to China and have tube amps and guitars made there by Mr
Sixty Four Cents An Hour. The guys in China were happy to see him, and
they produce a pile of generic crap that feeds out to the world all
over.
And our fella here gets his own name put on the Chinese stuff he
imports. Once here in Oz, its sold at many times the Chinese ex
factory price. There is NO established repair agent or product
support. The young kids here trying to learn how to be rock stars buy
all this stuff on their apprentice or junior worker wages. Are these
kids mindful of their Chinese brothers whose apprentice wage was maybe
10c an hour and whose prospects of being a pop star are zip. What on
earth is going through the minds of kids who want to be rock stars?
Whoever thinks of the Mexicans making Fenders?

Anyway, its very easy to see why a questioned existance poses far more
questions than answers, and hence the need for a stable supply of
container fulls of anti-depressant pills. Unrest among young minds is
well known, and hence a proportion of them find solace in far stronger
meds whose origin are the poppy fields of Afghanistan, where you
guessed it, the West is at war with some locals.

But I like to question everything I can and its net effect prevents
depression. It sure prevented me leading an entirely pointless
existance while trying to become richer than most other people on the
Planet. One could argue that by agreeing to pay a smiling Chinese
person 64c an hour, we are denying him his part of the Planet to which
he is entitled. We sure are supporting a huge network of middle men. I
always feel slightly guilty when I buy underpants. But nobody on Oz
makes any. I'm too lazy to make my own, even though I have a sewing
machine. And if I tried, the cloth itself would be from China, and
maybe cost more than if already made into underpants by a Chinese
Shiela working 10hrs a day at 40c an hour.

But a couple of weeks ago I walked around the City to look in all the
mensware stores for a black skivy. I wanted long arms, polo neck, all
cotton, plain black. At K-mart, you could get a red one for $10. ( 60c
ex China ), but no black. The up-market menswear stores with
pretentious decor thought I may have been a bank robber looking for
clobber, especially after I derided them for trying to flog me a "Made
In Italy" brand of skivy at a knock down discount price of only $330.
But cheap black skivies are not sold much because blokes buy them
rather than buy a couple of shirts and a tie and a new suit which
would make me look like Mr Pretentious. Maybe an online store will
have WHAT I WANT, which isn't much, really. At least by shopping
online I don't make quite so many middle men rich, but I can't arrange
for the worker in China to get an extra dollar for their child's
education - too many grasping hands are in the way.

Patrick Turner.



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Big Bad Bob Big Bad Bob is offline
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Default Why are vacuum tubes still used in audio amplifiers instead ofsolid-state transistor

On 05/08/11 20:48, flipper so wittily quipped:
I can then compete with the crap products by offering real
performance.


Until such time as you build and sell 'real performance' for the same
or less price as the alleged 'crap' you're just an elitist curmudgeon.


there may be a way to build the 'real performance' stuff AND compete
with the 'crap products', but it might also involve a bit of 'slave
labor' - at least for some of the assemblies and components. But... if
you can get a working board design, then have some board shop make you a
zillion of them and ship them to an assembly shop to insert components
and wave-solder it, then ship you a completed board 'minus tubes', and
also have someone else stamp out chassis and ship THEM to you, you could
THEN hire a handful of people to bolt everything into place (about 10
minutes per amp, let's say), insert the tubes, run a final test, and
crate 'em for shipping.

I think you'd be able to compete with the 'low budget' people if you use
a reasonable design (low cost + good performance) and decent quality
components.


As for developing custom board designs, I did a test run a few months
back with a Canadian company that will do an overnight run of your board
designs (in groups of 2) for (typically) under $100 (minimum order size
2) including the shipping (you just need gerber files and a credit card,
upload via the web). Once the board's right you can have someone else
make lots of them. Of course there are other board shops that do this,
but I found them to be pretty easy to work with so I'll probably work
with them again. The software I have doesn't have any tube socket
layouts pre-done but a little work might yield 7 pin and 9 pin minis and
octals. Might have to surface solder them due to 'round holes only'.
Someone out there likely has the tube sockets 'ready to go'.

Anyway, hand-wiring terminal strips is too old school for a modern amp.
But you could actually have tube sockets exposed through a chassis to
make it look like it's old-school point to point if you wanted to, and
just use the boards to keep assembly costs down.

FYI - did the board design and schematics with open source apps, 'PCB
Designer' and 'gEDA' on a non-windows OS.

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Big Bad Bob Big Bad Bob is offline
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Default Why are vacuum tubes still used in audio amplifiers instead ofsolid-state transistor

On 05/09/11 01:34, Patrick Turner so wittily quipped:
if there are 200 man hours in a chinese amp, ( 5 men working for a
week ), the cost of wages is $128, and if materials in chinese prices
are also $128, then total cost of production = $256,and if you double
that for the profit made my whoever owns the chinese company, maybe
the Chinese Communist Party, then the export price might be $512.


you'd need a design where the cost of the components is the majority of
YOUR cost, and it doesn't take 200 man hours to build. In fact, it
shouldn't take more than 1 or 2 (and that includes MACHINE hours)
implying "no point to point".

Of course that means 'circuit board with parts soldered in place' as ONE
of the 'components' that you'd assemble locally. A cost of $10 per
finished board assembly (to you) is _NOT_ an unreasonable estimate
(assuming volume is high enough).

Anyway, at that point the cost of parts will be 90% of the cost of the
unit. The rest will be the 10 minutes or so it would take a tech to
bolt it together, solder a small number of wires, plug in the tubes, do
a final test, and box it. And if you had pre-fab cables that plug
together "already soldered to the board" you could plug them into each
other, save time and $. Anyway, you might prefer soldering a few extra
interconnecting wires yourself, to avoid connector issues (or have the
boards ship with 'pigtails' already tinned to make that part easy). But
that takes more time. 30 seconds per wire, maybe?


Anyway, all of that needs capital, so I hope you know a rich guy who
likes tube amps.

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Default Why are vacuum tubes still used in audio amplifiers instead ofsolid-state transistor

On 05/08/11 05:58, NX211 so wittily quipped:
On May 8, 7:32 am, John L StewartJohn.L.Stewart.
wrote:
anterm;930852 Wrote:

Some audiophiles say that the sound quality in vacuum tubes is better,
but I fail to see why, especially since vacuum tube electronics is an
older technology


Same odd reason some people prefer to ride a horse now& then! Not
difficult to come up with many other examples.

John

--
John L Stewart


Any good audio engineer can make a transistor sound like a tube but
one thing they can't do is make a transistor glow like a tube. That
my friend is the answer.


glowy bottles look cool, especially power tubes with that blue glow.
almost like a little nuke reactor. heh.

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On 05/09/11 21:36, flipper so wittily quipped:
but at the end of the day
if there are 200 man hours in a chinese amp, ( 5 men working for a
week ), the cost of wages is $128, and if materials in chinese prices
are also $128, then total cost of production = $256,and if you double
that for the profit made my whoever owns the chinese company, maybe
the Chinese Communist Party, then the export price might be $512.


All ridiculous assumptions, not to mention the cost of doing business
is more than simply COGS.


my point was that the design would determine how many man hours you
need. there are really a LOT of variables in the cost of manufacturing
something. mfg engineers get paid HUGE bucks to figure out inexpensive
ways of building something (without compromising quality even). But if
you can have it all done via automation, so much the better. Then the
assembly production costs can become "COGS" eh? Final assembly and test
would take very little time for a reasonably experienced tech.



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Patrick Turner Patrick Turner is offline
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Default Why are vacuum tubes still used in audio amplifiers instead ofsolid-state transistor

On May 10, 2:10*pm, flipper wrote: And you
could 'afford' them at twice the current price too. But would
you 'like' paying twice as much?


Price "mechanisms" are accepted without us big rich fat cats feeling
the slightest guilt about what we pay because it is assumed the seller
is happy with the price he's offering you.


I'm no 'fat cat', there is no "price mechanism" in free trade, and no
one is holding a gun to the seller's head.


I never said YOU were, but the West has people with the biggest
waistlines.

Free trade? every time people in our goverment try to discuss free
trade with the USA they come up against a pile of obstructive trade
practices and we can't export a lotta stuff to the US.
There is very little real free trade; more like expensive and un-
free.




Of course there are happy slaves around the world and the USA was full
of them until they abolished slavery around the time they had a civil
war where a million men perished.


Slavery is not free trade nor is 150 years ago relevant.


Amnesty International might disagree with you....

Here in Oz, we probably had some
happy convicts who'd been transported under duress from Brittain by
the King of England and used as cheap labour everywhere. Our native
blacks here were shot, poisoned, and treated like scum and no doubt
some may have been happy to work as cowboys rounding up the cattle,
but at wages far below "white fella pay". But we didn't have a civil
war, maybe the worst that happened were a few pub brawls, and maybe
two Labour Party meetings where a few chairs were broken after a rowdy
night deciding what workers should do to give unified opposition to
the Association Of Fat Arsed Bosses who always tried to keep Mr Little
poor.


Maybe you should try free trade.


I'd like to, but conditions are rigged against me.



I am not a rabid socialist who wants the lazy unproductive anarchy of
East Germany or Russia or Cambodia etc where people get trambled down
by others who think they are "more equal than anyone else".


The hell you aren't.. You just claim you'd be more righteous and
benevolent in your dictatorship.


I AM NOT A SOCIALIST. I just believe in equal human rights. Socialism
has been proven not to work in most parts of the world because human
nature is more greedy than it is altruistic. I am a capitalist, in muy
own very small way.



Of course, that's what Mussolini, Hitler, Staling, Ho Chi Minh, Mao,
Kim Jong-il and all the rest said. Give us power and it'll be a
workers' paradise.


Give us some money and we'll all get rich. Delete all the controls on
banks, yippee. Well, then the GFC happened, delivered personally by
rabid capitalists.

Fact is there is good and bad about capcitalism and socialism. I
believe in Oz we have a good mix of the two.

And its a reason why communism never got a foothold in Oz; people had
it so good, and they could see what was wrong with Russia and China
and eastern Europe. Sure, some were sorely tempted, but after Russia
invaded Hungary the zest went right out of the Australian Communist
Party. I was never a member.

But all
men are just blokes, and all women are just sheilas and once somebody
is born anywhere in the world they should have equal rights,
oppportunity, freedoms and equal duties of care to others, which means
they are prepared to work not bludge, and not try un-ethical means to
derive income without raising a sweat.


And just how much do you 'sweat' soldering an amplifier together?


Quite a bit on a hot day in my shed in mid-summer.

Certainly not as much as your ditch digger comrade, comrade.


My ditch digger? whooze zat?

Interesting to hear that your knowledge of how to build them is
worthless, though.


Yeah, I have no secrets. People are welcome to what I know. There's
been 100MB a day average download from my site for the last 6 years.
Somebody values what I say.


I heard all this communist crap from the horses' mouth when I was in
China.

Those who are rich should see
to it that those who are poor may pull themselves up to us; If an
african breaks a leg, he should be able to get to a doctor in a clean
hospital and not have to bribe anyone, or pay $1,200 a month for
medical insurance.


And you'll send in the storm troopers should anyone disobey.

Sieg Heil.


I am into fairness, the direct opposite of what Hitler promoted.

Unfortunately, while everyone in the West likes to think how ****in
marvellous they are there isn't much chance that Western human nature
will ever insist on paying the Chinese the same price for something
made in the West.


There is no need to 'insist'. The free market sets price.

The West is in a mad greedy scramble where the rich
get richer yey they never have enough


None of your business. It ain't your money and you ain't dictator.


No, but we are all on this Planet together, so it oughtto be shared
out equally. It means you should not take more than your share of the
cake on the table.

The Rich hate being told they have too much when all they wanna do is
get richer. Nothing is enough. Its a fenzy....and crazy and wrong.

and they like to see others NOT
doing so well as themselves because that boosts their cherished
picture of their own grandness.


It's irrelevant what they 'like to see'. Anyone who makes a better
mousetrap gets to sell the better mousetrap.


Not if the market can be rigged to make the inferior trap sell better
and destroy the guy who tried to make a better one.



*Of course rich countries can go
astray and become obsessed by all sorts of things such as maintaining
influence and control over foreign countries. The more they do it, the
more it costs, and it can send a rich country broke. Nobody wants to
know. All sorts of crap reasons are trotted out. Its a long turgid
story. Empires come, empires go.


Speak for yourself. You're the one praying at the alter of dictating
wages and prices, not I.


Yes and its always the rich wage earners who complain about wage
fixing because usually it means a wage reduction. But if the fix means
a wage increase they don't mind a bit.



I should be able to open a factory to make tube amps here just as
easily as I could anywhere else, but it is not so. A bloke here runs a
small business selling music amps, electric guitars, all sorts of
stuff to the "music industry." *He found bigger shops who established
themselves 50 years ago ganged up to prevent him getting supplies of
Fenders and Marshalls from importers. Oh how people hate fair
competition! *Anyway, this new local fella's response was to go
straight over to China and have tube amps and guitars made there by Mr
Sixty Four Cents An Hour. The guys in China were happy to see him, and
they produce a pile of generic crap that feeds out to the world all
over.


We have laws against collusion and price fixing because that is not a
free market. Maybe you folks should try the same.


Ha, collusion abounds despite laws.

Unfortunately, we also have a President who thinks he can dictate to
companies where to manufacturing plants but that's another story.
You'd love him.


Obama would probably make a nice Prime Minister of Oz. He wouldn't
have to reform the health system if he came here becasue it was all
done years ago and I don't have to pay a cent for hospital treatments.
No $1,200 per mth for insurance premiums either.

Yeah, just where companies place factories could be government
business. People's lives are affected. People vote for other people to
do something to make life better, and that may include telling
companies what they can and can't do.



And our fella here gets his own name put on the Chinese stuff he
imports. Once here in Oz, its sold at many times the Chinese ex
factory price.


Good for him. Maybe someone else will get the idea too.


I don't really care because I feel no desire to manufacture junk for
the music industry ,guitar amps and so forth. They'll always be repair
work though.


There is NO established repair agent or product
support. The young kids here trying to learn how to be rock stars buy
all this stuff on their apprentice or junior worker wages.


So you say it's a 'bad thing' they can afford it.


Its good they can afford it, but it ain't so good there isn't the
product support like it may have been like in old times.
But support isn't a huge need now because the broken product is often
fixed by buying a new one.


Are these
kids mindful of their Chinese brothers whose apprentice wage was maybe
10c an hour and whose prospects of being a pop star are zip. What on
earth is going through the minds of kids who want to be rock stars?
Whoever thinks of the Mexicans making Fenders?


If you think putting those Chinese workers out of a job is 'helping
them' then have at it.


I want to see everone who wants to work able to get work - but with
equal pay world wide. It means the Chinese worker just like the USA
worker should get equal pay for equal work and equal standard of
living, ie, the price of bread is the same both countries.

Its never going to be though, I know that. I'm allowed to say what is
fair, even though human nature won't budge.



Anyway, its very easy to see why a questioned existance poses far more
questions than answers, and hence the need for a stable supply of
container fulls of anti-depressant pills. Unrest among young minds is
well known, and hence a proportion of them find solace in far stronger
meds whose origin are the poppy fields of Afghanistan, where you
guessed it, the West is at war with some locals.


Well, let's see. So far you've claimed the unthinking ignorance of
youth is wisdom,


Gee, did I say that? Don't think I did, but youth isn't too wise,
street wise maybe, but hey, there's a lotta dumb yongans out there and
they don't wanna study nothin.t

mind altering drugs are a wonderful thing, we
shouldn't be 'interfering' with the Afghan drug trade, and the foreign
Taliban are 'locals'.


Well Taliban sem to be native to that part of the world. They ain't
Martians. I don't like em. Just look how they treat shielas - like
rubbish.

Anyway, Taliban + drugs = money for somebody, and money corrupts, and
maybe after spending another trillion or two the US might just
persuade the Afghanies to quit grwing poppies to destroy the minds of
US kids and to adopt good old american knowhow with a McDonalds on the
corner.

But rather than spend so much money and still lose, methinks someone
will have to make a deal with Taliban, and I think it will happen if
they can be seen to be solving the problem, ie, quitting Afghanistan.
Does anyone really think the locals will hand over their country to
foreigners?

In Iraq, the idea was to spend 5 billion of US taxpayer money to knock
out Saddam and then private enterprize would corner the oil. 20
billion would be invested over 20 years and oh how the money would
roll in. Well, look how it reallt turned out. The US taxpayer got
shafted.
Dubbya did it.

But in the US they have well oiled printing presses and they know how
to make a dollar!


Let me know if you ever visit earth.

But I like to question everything I can and its net effect prevents
depression.


That farcical claim is getting old.


You should start a Farcebook account.

It sure prevented me leading an entirely pointless
existance while trying to become richer than most other people on the
Planet. One could argue that by agreeing to pay a smiling Chinese
person 64c an hour, we are denying him his part of the Planet to which
he is entitled.


One could also 'argue' that Elvis is still alive but that doesn't make
it any more rational than the nonsensical notion if you don't buy
Chinese products you're going to 'help' the then unemployed worker.

We sure are supporting a huge network of middle men.


Yeah, like all the people employed in transporting goods and those
selling goods, to name but a few. But, what the hell, lets put them
out of work too.


Well, if everyone was like me the world economy would go broke
overnight. I ain't got any money. I hardlywant anything. If the shops
just had what i wanted, they'd only need to be 1/40 of their size.

We are all lucky everyone else wants far more than I want.

People are busy everywhere.

But just where we are heading ultimately, and how fair things are is
what is questionable.

I
always feel slightly guilty when I buy underpants. But nobody on Oz
makes any.


No wonder at $27 an hour.


Well, it might take a girl sewing undies to do it in 3 minutes, and
her labour is worth $1.35. But garments ARE sewn up here by women
often working for far far less than $27 per hour, more like $5, so the
garment cost is almost nothing no matter where its made. The shop
price is so much higher than the cost of production. But unless the
shops and manufacturers can make the huge profits they fade away from
business.


*I'm too lazy to make my own, even though I have a sewing
machine. And if I tried, the cloth itself would be from China, and
maybe cost more than if already made into underpants by a Chinese
Shiela working 10hrs a day at 40c an hour.


The Sheila can go to the other company paying twice as much. Oh, wait,
no she can't because China doesn't do free trade.


Its un-free trade. And the next factory along won't pay twice the wage
of the other one. All the owners and managers of the factories in a
given town all know who gets what, and its impossible to improve one's
pay by factory hopping.

Its always been like this in most places where factories have peppered
the landscape.


So when are you planning to invade?


Did I say THAT?

But a couple of weeks ago I walked around the City to look in all the
mensware stores for a black skivy. I wanted long arms, polo neck, all
cotton, plain black. At K-mart, you could get a red one for $10. ( 60c
ex China ), but no black.


"Red China."


Indeed, Chinese Communist Party control of Chinese Capitalism. Deng
said, "To grow rich is glorious"
All that Mao insisted upon became passe'.

The up-market menswear stores with
pretentious decor thought I may have been a bank robber looking for
clobber, especially after I derided them for trying to flog me a "Made
In Italy" brand of skivy at a knock down discount price of only $330.


Made for $27 an hour, no doubt.


I dunno what wages are in Italy.

But cheap black skivies are not sold much because blokes buy them
rather than buy a couple of shirts and a tie and a new suit which
would make me look like Mr Pretentious. Maybe an online store will
have WHAT I WANT, which isn't much, really. *At least by shopping
online I don't make quite so many middle men rich, but I can't arrange
for the worker in China to get an extra dollar for their child's
education - too many grasping hands are in the way.


You can't dictate to China no matter what and 'middle men' have not
one blessed thing to do with it.


The middle men have a lot to do with what you pay for goods and
services, and their effect on prices ppl might pay for Chinese mades
is enormous. A soldering iron costing 50c from China sells for $20 in
a hardware store. If it fails in a month, the shop replaces it without
argument because it cost them virtually nothing. I been there done
that twice in two months.

Patrick Turner.

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John L Stewart John L Stewart is offline
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I'm a Jeffersonian constitutional republican who believes in free will
and free trade but I'm not dumb enough to think it'll 'help' Chinese
workers to put them out of a job.

Yet all thse ****wit know-alls try to tell us the Chinese
are giving us a mighty raw deal


They are in dictating wages, price controls, and currency
manipulation, to name but a few.

yet they are doing what we refuse to
do.


hogswallop

Just imagine if the Chinese quit exporting cheap underpants and
gadgets. Your standard of living would plummet.


As opposed to going bankrupt?


Patrick Turner.
[/quote]

Seems T Jefferson had his very own slaves. Guess that is a form of 'free trade'.

Cheers, John
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Patrick Turner Patrick Turner is offline
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Default Why are vacuum tubes still used in audio amplifiers instead ofsolid-state transistor

On May 11, 11:01*am, flipper wrote:

.......
snip a lot which I feel no need to argue with....,


The most abusive form of 'social engineering' is when groups argue,
put in simple terms, "you have money, we want it, so we take it,"
using government as the source of enabling power. The founding fathers
of the United States, and other liberals of the era, called this
organized theft. Socialists, who falsely claim to be 'liberals'
because socialism has a bad reputation, argue that the one with money
"owes" it to those who don't and use government power to 'enforce
payment', aka "redistribution of wealth," arguably as a means of
bribery to power.


Despite all the good will expressed in the Constitution of the USA,
many terms used to express how society conduct itself, rule its
citizens and fund itself for the common good are rather rubbery, and
as anyone might tell you, rules are made to be broken, or at least
bent, twisted, warped, convoluted, trans-mogified, modified, ammended,
or outlawed.

Just consider QUOTE :- "you have money, we want it, so we take it,"
using government as the source of enabling power. The founding fathers
of the United States, and other liberals of the era, called this
organized theft. UNQUOTE.

From this idea came those who saw fit to describe all government
expense out of taxes collected as theft, and in the 1970s I saw ppl
with stickers on car bumper bars and back of motorcycle helmets with
"Taxation is Theft" . Anyway, usually there is little agreement about
how taxes are to be imposed on money flow, or wealth flow in any
economy so that all may benefit. Usually the ****in rich hate being
taxed, and perceive that their higher % of income tax is unfair
because they are effectively being expected to financially support
those poorer than themselves. The ****in rich always want more andf
****in more and MORE, and less and less government "interference" in
the form of taxes, financial regulation and environmental laws. The
****in rich want to put their competitors out of business, send 'em
broke, so only they may flourish. The ****in rich fund the media to
get the population to agree with them; effectively, the Rich tell the
poor, "eat this **** sandwich, its delicious" or they give messages
like "buy, buy, buy more and more from us because it'll make youse
'appy" But the taste, like the price is sour, and the happiness gained
is a myth, and people soon find themselves on a treadmill of paying
off never ending debts.

IMHO, there is nothing at all sacred about Big Business which seeks to
be a sacred cow, but tells lies to convey how wonderful they are and
how transparent all their dealings are. ( BP in the gulf ? ) All
governments are Social Experiments, some more successful than others,
depending who you are, what you are, and your social status. Equality
of status and opportunity and equity is a myth in most societies no
matter what their constitution says.

On the other side of the coin, unionists can also be a bunch of ****s
to deal with when they try to raise earnings while lessening
productivity. One might say environmentalists can also be a BOCTDW
when they try to hold up industrial projects or regulate industry.

Winston Churchill once said "Democracy is a terrible thing, until you
consider the alternative." But even the mild mannered polite Brittish
OK'd the bombing of Dresden. There are many still recovering from
bites on their arse from Thatcher.

Healthy discussions of gripes and troubles and rights and wrongs are
quite good tonic instead of secret police with jails full of ppl
disagreeing with Our Dear Leader, a la Nth Korea. Unfortunately, Dear
Leaders around the world are slow to catch on about what ppl want -
freedom of the press, separation of powers, no corruption, fairness,
equal equity, equal opportunity, and equal wages and equal shopping
opportunities. That's only for starters. Gaddaffi is finding outabout
it now.

At the moment, seems like Consumerism has replaced Communism.
Consumerism is now catching on everywhere around the world and
unfortunately we need 6 planet fulls of resources to keep everyone
happy with a north american lifestyle. The alternative would be to
seriously reduce the standard of living expectations in rich western
nations, but have everyone raise real standards to an equal level, and
thus make do with the One and Only PLanet we find ourselves upon. We
seem to have Peak Oil, yet we face a huge population increase and vast
increase in wish lists, ie, expectational increase while sea levels
are rising 3mm a year. Economists will tell you that the one shortage
of supply that the world will never experience is a shortage of
demand. The more we get connected, Farcing on Farcebook, ****tering on
****ter, the bigger becomes our sense of self importance and desire
for more and more meaningless aquistion of stuff. We head into an
unknown area if we all ignore history.

I guess the markets will decide what happens over the next 50 years,
if some jolly humdinger big fat wars don't.

Whatever happens, it'll never be over, things are never solved or
resolved.

Knowing that uncertainty is so damn certain, and that unknown un-
knowables abound, its easier to be happy and not worry, if you can
make it to next year without insanity and neurosis in spending habits
sending you broke.

You can survive well if you reject the message pedalled by the rich.
For me, "Putting on the Agony, Putting on the Style" has no meaning.
This was a title of a folk song written during the Californian gold
rush days of about 1860. Personally, I like to pedal around on a
bicycle, and I don't know how to use a mobile phone.

Patrick Turner.



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John L Stewart John L Stewart is offline
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Location: Toronto
Posts: 301
Smile

Quote:
Originally Posted by flipper View Post
On Tue, 10 May 2011 12:04:54 +0000, John L Stewart
wrote:


I'm a Jeffersonian constitutional republican who believes in free will
and free trade but I'm not dumb enough to think it'll 'help' Chinese
workers to put them out of a job.
-
Yet all thse ****wit know-alls try to tell us the Chinese
are giving us a mighty raw deal-


They are in dictating wages, price controls, and currency
manipulation, to name but a few.
-
yet they are doing what we refuse to
do.-


hogswallop
-
Just imagine if the Chinese quit exporting cheap underpants and
gadgets. Your standard of living would plummet.-


As opposed to going bankrupt?

-
Patrick Turner.-


Seems T Jefferson had his very own slaves.


Yes, he did. And a lot of them.

Guess that is a form of 'free
trade'.


The existence, or not, of slavery says nothing about the form of
trade.


Cheers, John
Are you in favour of blacks owning white slaves?

Answer Yes, No or Maybe & give reasons why in 50 words or less.

John
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Rockinghorse Winner[_6_] Rockinghorse Winner[_6_] is offline
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Default Why are vacuum tubes still used in audio amplifiers instead ofsolid-state transistor

* It may have been the liquor talking, but
John L Stewart wrote:


anterm;930852 Wrote:
Some audiophiles say that the sound quality in vacuum tubes is better,
but I fail to see why, especially since vacuum tube electronics is an
older technology


Same odd reason some people prefer to ride a horse now & then! Not
difficult to come up with many other examples.

John




--
John L Stewart


I'm not particularly attached to *tubes* as I am to my tube amp, whose
musical qualities have thus far prevented me from buying any other amp
(including SS), for fear it will not be as good. I am not one of those who
'collects' amps - one at a time for me!

The only part of the technology I don't like is the heat, which in the
summer can be a problem. That is why I am considering getting a SS low
powered amp for especially hot days. If it is an improvement over my tube
amp, all the better.

*R* *H*
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Default Why are vacuum tubes still used in audio amplifiers instead ofsolid-state transistor

* It may have been the liquor talking, but
Patrick Turner wrote:

On May 8, 10:39Â*pm, Tabby wrote:
On May 8, 12:32Â*pm, John L Stewart John.L.Stewart.

wrote:
anterm;930852 Wrote:


Some audiophiles say that the sound quality in vacuum tubes is better,
but I fail to see why, especially since vacuum tube electronics is an
older technology


Same odd reason some people prefer to ride a horse now & then! Not
difficult to come up with many other examples.


John


Age doesn't determine quality, it more determines price. There are
still some very good amplifiers from the 1950s about, like Quad II and
similar.


IMHO, Quad-II has a quite parsimonious amount amount of "very good" in
it. It is one of the poorest mass made amplifiers ever foisted upon
the public. But so were many others from 1950, Most mass makers were
reluctant to make gear which compares well to what we can do with
tubes now. The car industry also produced attrocious cars in 1950.
nearly everything you bought was butcherd quality, or quality watered
down. In 1955, everyone complained about cars rusting from the inside
out while also wearing out rather too soon.

Peter Walker didn't get famous because of his amps. He became famous
for his electrostatic speakers.

The Chinese make Quad amps now and has tried to make them better, but
the Quad 40 has many shortcomings; they just don't get it.

Things have not changed, the vast majority of stuff for sale is what I
never want to own. And the fact that slave labour in China makes it
for almost nothing so that when its sold in Oz after rapacious shop
owners here sell it at 20 times the Chinese factory gate price, I
still don't want it. The Chinese can make good underpants
and plastic reader glasses, but not tube amps. I also get many solid
state amps coming in for repairs, and made badly.


There are differences between valve and transistor amps' sound

quality, both have their pros and cons, and some people much prefer
valve.


Indeed. Both forms of amps should measure well at normal listening
levels. I've heard some tube amps which don't, and they don't sound so
good, and often its because the makers have NO IDEA about how to
design anything. I have had to totally re-wire a lot of brandname amps
because of the ignorance of the makers. Much tube gear is complete
rubbish and the prooduct of minds that were merely greedy, and they
peddle crap in an entrepreneuring effort which is a complete con job.
Many people have more money than good sense let alone any ability to
tell what really sounds well and slick promotion efforts get sales of
rubbsh. Some people woud gladly eat a **** sandwich if they are told
how ****in marvellous the sandwich is and shown how wonderful the
sandwich looks.

But I raise my hat to the **** producers of the world.

I can then compete with the crap products by offering real
performance.

NT


Patrick Turner.


I own a Chinese made amp (designed in America), and it sounds delightful.
I'm not willing to pay double for an equivalent amp made in the USA.

*R* *H*
--
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  #27   Report Post  
John L Stewart John L Stewart is offline
Senior Member
 
Location: Toronto
Posts: 301
Smile

Quote:
Originally Posted by flipper View Post
On Wed, 11 May 2011 18:23:20 +0000, John L Stewart
wrote:


flipper;931174 Wrote:
On Tue, 10 May 2011 12:04:54 +0000, John L Stewart
wrote:
-

I'm a Jeffersonian constitutional republican who believes in free will
and free trade but I'm not dumb enough to think it'll 'help' Chinese
workers to put them out of a job.
--
Yet all thse ****wit know-alls try to tell us the Chinese
are giving us a mighty raw deal--

They are in dictating wages, price controls, and currency
manipulation, to name but a few.
--
yet they are doing what we refuse to
do.--

hogswallop
--
Just imagine if the Chinese quit exporting cheap underpants and
gadgets. Your standard of living would plummet.--

As opposed to going bankrupt?

--
Patrick Turner.--

Seems T Jefferson had his very own slaves.-


Yes, he did. And a lot of them.
-
Guess that is a form of 'free
trade'.-


The existence, or not, of slavery says nothing about the form of
trade.

-
Cheers, John-


Are you in favour of blacks owning white slaves?

Answer Yes, No or Maybe & give reasons why in 50 words or less.

John


I'm not in 'favour' of anyone owning slaves.

Do you have some kind of point or just using the keyboard for finger
exercise?
Settle down now Flipper, your blood pressure is already too high.

Just trying to get a handle on your politics. Me thinks you are watching & listening to FOX NEWS too much. Do you ever watch PBS or listen to NPR to get the other side on the news?

Diversity of opinion is a factor that makes us as a people successful. We can't all be at the far right. Gets too damned crowded.

You will never win the debate with the honorable gentleman from Her Majesties Republic of Aus. And don't need to.

I still like your tube stuff & that is what should be on this forum. There are probably other places where you can discuss Geo W Bush & A Hitler.

BTW, America today ain't what the Founding Fathers intended. It seems like you have 'Jumped the Shark' & now on the decent.

Cheers, John
  #28   Report Post  
Posted to rec.audio.tubes
Patrick Turner Patrick Turner is offline
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 3,964
Default Why are vacuum tubes still used in audio amplifiers instead ofsolid-state transistor

On May 13, 1:01*pm, flipper wrote:
On Tue, 10 May 2011 00:35:40 -0700, Big Bad Bob

wrote:
On 05/08/11 20:48, flipper so wittily quipped:
I can then compete with the crap products by offering real
performance.


Until such time as you build and sell 'real performance' for the same
or less price as the alleged 'crap' you're just an elitist curmudgeon.


there may be a way to build the 'real performance' stuff AND compete
with the 'crap products',


Maybe or maybe not but that isn't the point. The point is Patrick
doesn't have a clue how to design and manufacture a product for the
mass market.


Patrick has a very clear idea about how to design and manufacture a
product for the mass market. But he doesn't want to, because he sees
it is an excellent recipe for him to lose all his possessions and
become a bankrupt. He'd have to get venture capital, and remove the
quality like the others do to compete, and investors won't invest
unless you give them everything you have in case you go broke, and the
history of tube amp makers shows so many manufacturer wannabes have
gone broke.

Patrick is aware Chinese labour costs are 64c per hour or therabouts,
and he knows he'd have to get stuff made in China to compete. Patrick
is sensible, and knows the risks, and is also 64, and he doesn't plan
to dive into terribly risky ventures producing niche retro mass mades
with serious entreprenurial schemes using his own money; one must use
only other people's money, and be 30 with nothing to lose, so the hard
work of making things happen can be done.


Which is not a criticism, per see, because most people don't and it
wouldn't be a problem if he didn't go around pontificating as if he
did.


Are, but there you go trying to copy the Pope, who pontificates at the
Vatican.....

Patrick Turner.

  #29   Report Post  
Posted to rec.audio.tubes
Tabby Tabby is offline
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 9
Default Why are vacuum tubes still used in audio amplifiers instead ofsolid-state transistor

On May 9, 1:00*am, Patrick Turner wrote:
On May 8, 10:39*pm, Tabby wrote:
On May 8, 12:32*pm, John L Stewart John.L.Stewart.
wrote:
anterm;930852 Wrote:



Some audiophiles say that the sound quality in vacuum tubes is better,
but I fail to see why, especially since vacuum tube electronics is an
older technology


Same odd reason some people prefer to ride a horse now & then! Not
difficult to come up with many other examples.


John


Age doesn't determine quality, it more determines price. There are
still some very good amplifiers from the 1950s about, like Quad II and
similar.


IMHO, Quad-II has a quite parsimonious amount amount of "very good" in
it. It is one of the poorest mass made amplifiers ever foisted upon
the public. But so were many others from 1950, Most mass makers were
reluctant to make gear which compares well to what we can do with
tubes now. The car industry also produced attrocious cars in 1950.
nearly everything you bought was butcherd quality, or quality watered
down. In 1955, everyone complained about cars rusting from the inside
out while also wearing out rather too soon.

Peter Walker didn't get famous because of his amps. He became famous
for his electrostatic speakers.

The Chinese make Quad amps now and has tried to make them better, but
the Quad 40 has many shortcomings; they just don't get it.

Things have not changed, the vast majority of stuff for sale is what I
never want to own. And the fact that slave labour in China makes it
for almost nothing so that when its sold in Oz after rapacious shop
owners here sell it at 20 times the Chinese factory gate price, I
still don't want it. The Chinese can make good underpants
and plastic reader glasses, but not tube amps. I also get many solid
state amps coming in for repairs, and made badly.

There are differences between valve and transistor amps' sound

quality, both have their pros and cons, and some people much prefer
valve.


Indeed. Both forms of amps should measure well at normal listening
levels. I've heard some tube amps which don't, and they don't sound so
good, and often its because the makers have NO IDEA about how to
design anything. I have had to totally re-wire a lot of brandname amps
because of the ignorance of the makers. Much tube gear is complete
rubbish and the prooduct of minds that were merely greedy, and they
peddle crap in an entrepreneuring effort which is a complete con job.
Many people have more money than good sense let alone any ability to
tell what really sounds well and slick promotion efforts get sales of
rubbsh. Some people woud gladly eat a **** sandwich if they are told
how ****in marvellous the sandwich is and shown how wonderful the
sandwich looks.

But I raise my hat to the **** producers of the world.

I can then compete with the crap products by offering real
performance.

* NT

Patrick Turner.


So which valve amps do you like?


NT
  #30   Report Post  
Posted to rec.audio.tubes
Big Bad Bob Big Bad Bob is offline
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 366
Default Why are vacuum tubes still used in audio amplifiers instead ofsolid-state transistor

On 05/12/11 19:48, flipper so wittily quipped:
There are many still recovering from
bites on their arse from Thatcher.


What were they doing sticking their arses up her nose?


Exactly.

I believe Margaret Thatcher was a great world leader. She and Ronald
Reagan helped make the world a better place, by bringing about the
policies and economic boon that ended Soviet communism.

I wish more people saw it that way...


  #31   Report Post  
Posted to rec.audio.tubes
Patrick Turner Patrick Turner is offline
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 3,964
Default Why are vacuum tubes still used in audio amplifiers instead ofsolid-state transistor

On May 14, 3:33*am, Tabby wrote:
On May 9, 1:00*am, Patrick Turner wrote:





On May 8, 10:39*pm, Tabby wrote:
On May 8, 12:32*pm, John L Stewart John.L.Stewart.
wrote:
anterm;930852 Wrote:
Some audiophiles say that the sound quality in vacuum tubes is better,
but I fail to see why, especially since vacuum tube electronics is an
older technology


Same odd reason some people prefer to ride a horse now & then! Not
difficult to come up with many other examples.


John


Age doesn't determine quality, it more determines price. There are
still some very good amplifiers from the 1950s about, like Quad II and
similar.


IMHO, Quad-II has a quite parsimonious amount amount of "very good" in
it. It is one of the poorest mass made amplifiers ever foisted upon
the public. But so were many others from 1950, Most mass makers were
reluctant to make gear which compares well to what we can do with
tubes now. The car industry also produced attrocious cars in 1950.
nearly everything you bought was butcherd quality, or quality watered
down. In 1955, everyone complained about cars rusting from the inside
out while also wearing out rather too soon.


Peter Walker didn't get famous because of his amps. He became famous
for his electrostatic speakers.


The Chinese make Quad amps now and has tried to make them better, but
the Quad 40 has many shortcomings; they just don't get it.


Things have not changed, the vast majority of stuff for sale is what I
never want to own. And the fact that slave labour in China makes it
for almost nothing so that when its sold in Oz after rapacious shop
owners here sell it at 20 times the Chinese factory gate price, I
still don't want it. The Chinese can make good underpants
and plastic reader glasses, but not tube amps. I also get many solid
state amps coming in for repairs, and made badly.


There are differences between valve and transistor amps' sound
quality, both have their pros and cons, and some people much prefer
valve.


Indeed. Both forms of amps should measure well at normal listening
levels. I've heard some tube amps which don't, and they don't sound so
good, and often its because the makers have NO IDEA about how to
design anything. I have had to totally re-wire a lot of brandname amps
because of the ignorance of the makers. Much tube gear is complete
rubbish and the prooduct of minds that were merely greedy, and they
peddle crap in an entrepreneuring effort which is a complete con job.
Many people have more money than good sense let alone any ability to
tell what really sounds well and slick promotion efforts get sales of
rubbsh. Some people woud gladly eat a **** sandwich if they are told
how ****in marvellous the sandwich is and shown how wonderful the
sandwich looks.


But I raise my hat to the **** producers of the world.


I can then compete with the crap products by offering real
performance.


* NT


Patrick Turner.


So which valve amps do you like?

NT- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -


Not many.

Patrick Turner.
  #32   Report Post  
Posted to rec.audio.tubes
Engineer[_2_] Engineer[_2_] is offline
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Posts: 209
Default Why are vacuum tubes still used in audio amplifiers instead ofsolid-state transistor

On May 10, 4:09*am, Big Bad Bob BigBadBob-at-mrp3-
wrote:
On 05/09/11 21:36, flipper so wittily quipped:

but at the end of the day
if there are 200 man hours in a chinese amp, ( 5 men working for a
week ), the cost of wages is $128, and if materials in chinese prices
are also $128, then total cost of production = $256,and if you double
that for the profit made my whoever owns the chinese company, maybe
the Chinese Communist Party, then the export price might be $512.


All ridiculous assumptions, not to mention the cost of doing business
is more than simply COGS.


my point was that the design would determine how many man hours you
need. *there are really a LOT of variables in the cost of manufacturing
something. *mfg engineers get paid HUGE bucks to figure out inexpensive
ways of building something (without compromising quality even). *But if
you can have it all done via automation, so much the better. *Then the
assembly production costs can become "COGS" eh? *Final assembly and test
would take very little time for a reasonably experienced tech.


Bob, I like your comments... there's a core truth here and it would be
nice to see someone try to bring this type of manufacturing back to
North America, in particular back to Ontario, Canada, where I promote
such a manufacturing revival in my professional engineering volunteer
work. I actually retired as VP Engineering from a profitable Toronto
company that still manufactures specialized instrumentation here and
sells it world wide.
One minor quibble... manufacturing engineers (ME's) here are not paid
"HUGE bucks", they get about the same as other salaried professionals,
and it's taxed at rates up to some 46% on the last dollar (very few of
them!), with most ME's at about the 39% marginal rate.
Cheers,
Roger
  #33   Report Post  
Posted to rec.audio.tubes
Patrick Turner Patrick Turner is offline
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Posts: 3,964
Default Why are vacuum tubes still used in audio amplifiers instead ofsolid-state transistor

On May 16, 3:25*am, Engineer wrote:
On May 10, 4:09*am, Big Bad Bob BigBadBob-at-mrp3-





wrote:
On 05/09/11 21:36, flipper so wittily quipped:


but at the end of the day
if there are 200 man hours in a chinese amp, ( 5 men working for a
week ), the cost of wages is $128, and if materials in chinese prices
are also $128, then total cost of production = $256,and if you double
that for the profit made my whoever owns the chinese company, maybe
the Chinese Communist Party, then the export price might be $512.


All ridiculous assumptions, not to mention the cost of doing business
is more than simply COGS.


my point was that the design would determine how many man hours you
need. *there are really a LOT of variables in the cost of manufacturing
something. *mfg engineers get paid HUGE bucks to figure out inexpensive
ways of building something (without compromising quality even). *But if
you can have it all done via automation, so much the better. *Then the
assembly production costs can become "COGS" eh? *Final assembly and test
would take very little time for a reasonably experienced tech.


Bob, I like your comments... there's a core truth here and it would be
nice to see someone try to bring this type of manufacturing back to
North America, in particular back to Ontario, Canada, where I promote
such a manufacturing revival in my professional engineering volunteer
work. *I actually retired as VP Engineering *from a profitable Toronto
company that still manufactures specialized instrumentation here and
sells it world wide.
One minor quibble... manufacturing engineers (ME's) here are not paid
"HUGE bucks", they get about the same as other salaried professionals,
and it's taxed at rates up to some 46% on the last dollar (very few of
them!), with most ME's at about the 39% marginal rate.
Cheers,
Roger- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -


someone mentioned " ...it would be nice to see someone try to bring
this type of manufacturing back..."

Maybe its too late for the Reformation Of America.

Patrick Turner.

  #34   Report Post  
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Big Bad Bob Big Bad Bob is offline
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Posts: 366
Default Why are vacuum tubes still used in audio amplifiers instead ofsolid-state transistor

On 05/12/11 20:26, flipper so wittily quipped:
On Tue, 10 May 2011 01:09:06 -0700, Big Bad Bob
wrote:

On 05/09/11 21:36, flipper so wittily quipped:
but at the end of the day
if there are 200 man hours in a chinese amp, ( 5 men working for a
week ), the cost of wages is $128, and if materials in chinese prices
are also $128, then total cost of production = $256,and if you double
that for the profit made my whoever owns the chinese company, maybe
the Chinese Communist Party, then the export price might be $512.

All ridiculous assumptions, not to mention the cost of doing business
is more than simply COGS.


my point


That reply was to Patrick, not you.


heh, sometimes hard for me to follow.

was that the design would determine how many man hours you
need. there are really a LOT of variables in the cost of manufacturing
something. mfg engineers get paid HUGE bucks to figure out inexpensive
ways of building something (without compromising quality even). But if
you can have it all done via automation, so much the better. Then the
assembly production costs can become "COGS" eh?


COGS depends a lot on how one does the accounting. Like, for one,
whether R&D is amortized into the product cost or overhead margin,
often a combination of both.

My point was similar to your "there are really a LOT of variables" and
that simply adding up some parts costs and assembly labor doesn't
begin to paint the picture.


yep. being in the manufacturing sector (at various levels) helps you
understand that.

For one, it leaves out the entire financial, legal, and regulatory
departments dedicated to sifting through the bazillion regulations
socialists love to impose on everything and, of course, the ever
changing 'screw you' tax laws.


don't forget potential patent infringement and international regulations
and requirements for exported products (like ROHS for one). There are a
number of businesses oriented around getting 'approval stickers' on your
product. Look on a laptop power supply some time and all of those logos
(UL, ROHS, etc.) involve some company testing your product or reviewing
the manufacturing process (or both). From what I can tell, Chinese
manufacturers seem to have streamlined this process somewhat, so when
you outsource your manufacturing to them you can set up a 'package deal'
pretty fast and get all of the logos with it for an up-front fee.

Overhead costs can easily be more than the product, especially in
niche markets.

Final assembly and test
would take very little time for a reasonably experienced tech.


And what are you going to do with the faulty ones? Scrap or repair?


scrap is probably faster, if the cost is low, but testing and rework is
more likely since you could swap out the faulty component. But what you
have to do is set the process up to be foolproof: Board(s) + tubes +
transformers + chassis + front panel assembly + case with associated
screws, washers, insulated binding posts, crimp connectors, and so on.
Each component sent to you would either be pre-tested or process
verified, like if you bought them from directly from hammond or similar,
so the likelihood of fallouts is pretty small. If you can't get it
below 1%, you're probably NOT going to do well, and that's easily
achievable nowadays. "Final test" would involve a warmup, a test
signal, and a dummy load, possibly run by computer (so the tech just
plugs it in). If the board is bad, you swap out the board, then tubes
can be individually tested or you could use a test point on the board
and a 'special test unit' (computer driven - or someone like me could
program a microcontroller to do it for ya). Anyway, that's how things
are usually done by companies that are profitable.

That's not a simple choice, nor is the choice of when to do testing,
or how long (aka burn in).


You could have 2 stations per employee for testing, and rotate the
devices in. That would give you at least 10 minutes per device to run a
series of standard tests on it, and you would randomly take 1 of 'xx'
units out for more stringent testing by a reasonably trained tech.

Those costs have to be rolled in too. And how many do you predict will
be returned? Damaged in shipment? Are you insured?


heh, yeah, these are all factors. Normally you would initially make
assumptions based on gross margin percentage along with expected sales,
and then you burden the costs with 'standard values' based on normal
business practices (this would be presented to the board of directors
and potential investors), then add in your fixed costs and so on. So
yeah, this would be part of the 'sell the business' end of it. After a
time you would adjust your costs based on actual rather than 'estimated'
values. 'One man band' shops could (instead) grow slowly, doing the
work yourself at first, then hiring people as your sales grow.

It's not easy starting a business these days.


yeah, no kidding. fortunately you can't eat an amplifier. and let's
not forget, Oregon is further left than California.

  #35   Report Post  
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Big Bad Bob Big Bad Bob is offline
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Posts: 366
Default Why are vacuum tubes still used in audio amplifiers instead ofsolid-state transistor

On 05/15/11 10:25, Engineer so wittily quipped:
On May 10, 4:09 am, Big Bad BobBigBadBob-at-mrp3-
wrote:
On 05/09/11 21:36, flipper so wittily quipped:

but at the end of the day
if there are 200 man hours in a chinese amp, ( 5 men working for a
week ), the cost of wages is $128, and if materials in chinese prices
are also $128, then total cost of production = $256,and if you double
that for the profit made my whoever owns the chinese company, maybe
the Chinese Communist Party, then the export price might be $512.


All ridiculous assumptions, not to mention the cost of doing business
is more than simply COGS.


my point was that the design would determine how many man hours you
need. there are really a LOT of variables in the cost of manufacturing
something. mfg engineers get paid HUGE bucks to figure out inexpensive
ways of building something (without compromising quality even). But if
you can have it all done via automation, so much the better. Then the
assembly production costs can become "COGS" eh? Final assembly and test
would take very little time for a reasonably experienced tech.


Bob, I like your comments... there's a core truth here and it would be
nice to see someone try to bring this type of manufacturing back to
North America, in particular back to Ontario, Canada, where I promote
such a manufacturing revival in my professional engineering volunteer
work. I actually retired as VP Engineering from a profitable Toronto
company that still manufactures specialized instrumentation here and
sells it world wide.
One minor quibble... manufacturing engineers (ME's) here are not paid
"HUGE bucks", they get about the same as other salaried professionals,
and it's taxed at rates up to some 46% on the last dollar (very few of
them!), with most ME's at about the 39% marginal rate.


ouch on the tax rates!

seriously, though, in cases where the engineer regularly saves millions
of dollars per year in manufacturing costs, he will be very well
compensated (or else someone ELSE will get his services). Or at least
an M.E. will earn several more times the salary of someone on an
assembly line. 'Huge Bucks' is somewhat relative. Point taken anyway.

kudos on the VP eng position, by the way. that's pretty good.


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Big Bad Bob Big Bad Bob is offline
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Default Why are vacuum tubes still used in audio amplifiers instead ofsolid-state transistor

On 05/12/11 20:01, flipper so wittily quipped:
On Tue, 10 May 2011 00:35:40 -0700, Big Bad Bob
wrote:

On 05/08/11 20:48, flipper so wittily quipped:
I can then compete with the crap products by offering real
performance.

Until such time as you build and sell 'real performance' for the same
or less price as the alleged 'crap' you're just an elitist curmudgeon.


there may be a way to build the 'real performance' stuff AND compete
with the 'crap products',


Maybe or maybe not but that isn't the point. The point is Patrick
doesn't have a clue how to design and manufacture a product for the
mass market.


yeah, that was pretty evident with the '100 man hours' part in the
earlier post. Even with point to point wiring, it would only take about
20 to build an amp (my gross estimate), and that's soldering at MY speed
(which isn't all that fast).

Which is not a criticism, per see, because most people don't and it
wouldn't be a problem if he didn't go around pontificating as if he
did.


yeah, but it does make for interesting follow-up discussions. The
various expertise of those who chimed in might be enough to actually
start something [who'd a thunk it?]. Now, where do I find the investors...

/me volunteers as CFO even though I hate accounting
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Default Why are vacuum tubes still used in audio amplifiers instead ofsolid-state transistor

On 05/13/11 02:06, Patrick Turner so wittily quipped:
On May 13, 1:01 pm, wrote:
On Tue, 10 May 2011 00:35:40 -0700, Big Bad Bob

wrote:
On 05/08/11 20:48, flipper so wittily quipped:
I can then compete with the crap products by offering real
performance.


Until such time as you build and sell 'real performance' for the same
or less price as the alleged 'crap' you're just an elitist curmudgeon.


there may be a way to build the 'real performance' stuff AND compete
with the 'crap products',


Maybe or maybe not but that isn't the point. The point is Patrick
doesn't have a clue how to design and manufacture a product for the
mass market.


Patrick has a very clear idea about how to design and manufacture a
product for the mass market.


excellent!

But he doesn't want to, because he sees it is an excellent recipe
for him to lose all his possessions and become a bankrupt.


all things worth doing involve risk. corporations help minimize that.
You become a corporate officer and stock holder. If your stock suddenly
becomes worthless, that's all you lose (the value of the stock). You
might have to get another job afterwards, but that's pretty much the end
of it.

He'd have to get venture capital, and remove the quality like the
others do to compete


I earlier suggested that quality doesn't have to compromise, and gave
some examples on how to do it while still keeping costs down.

and investors won't invest unless you give them everything you have
in case you go broke


well, if they own stock they each get a portion of the liquidation
dollars (or 'sell the company' dollars) according to their shares, but
yeah that's kind of how it works when they buy up part of the company
and put money in to keep it running.

and the history of tube amp makers shows so many manufacturer
wannabes have gone broke.


it is the same for most businesses. venture capital is high risk. I
think 1 out of 3 actually "make it" to the point of profitability where
the VCs get a return on their investment. The return potential is so
high, though, that they continue to invest and make a profit.

Patrick is aware Chinese labour costs are 64c per hour or therabouts,
and he knows he'd have to get stuff made in China to compete.


my suggestions is 'certain assemblies' but not "the whole kit & kaboodle"

Patrick is sensible, and knows the risks, and is also 64, and he
doesn't plan to dive into terribly risky ventures producing niche
retro mass made with serious entreprenurial schemes using his own
money;


I'll accept that. (shooting others' attempts down, though, doesn't cut
it with me - I've seen and been around too many people who are like
that, always telling you why it CAN'T be done, etc.)

one must use only other people's money


unless you have your own capital available

and be 30 with nothing to lose, so the hard
work of making things happen can be done.


Age is irrelevant (think young, be young). The 'nothing to lose' part
is never applicable anyway (there is ALWAYS something to lose). No need
to ever 'retire' in my book, so I'll go on tossing about ideas about
starting businesses indefinitely, WAY past the age of 64, and maybe even
do it (again) once or twice. I figure I'll work until I'm dead (I know
this guy that's over 70, climbed Mt. Whitney a few years ago, and still
works as a senior EE, though he admitted it was a 'cushy' job) or until
I earn the classic 'F.U.' money (where you have SO much money you can
tell the world 'F.U.').

then with 'F.U.' money I could run a business at a loss just for fun.
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