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From 1972, but since the tube technology is older than that, it still seems
valid.

Find it he http://www.butleraudio.com/tubesvstrans1.html

An excerpt from part 2 of 3:

The curves shown in Fig. 2 are representative of the general distortion
characteristics of single-stage class A audio amplifiers. The devices are
all operating open loop (no feedback) with a bias point which allows for
maximum undis- torted output swing. The curves are referenced to a common
point of 3% (THD), regardless of actual input or output levels. Since the
objective of these comparisons is to detect variations in the slopes of the
distortion character- istics, the x axis is a scale of relative level
independent of circuit impedance considerations. These particular curves
were chosen from the many plotted as representative of different families:
silicon transistors, triodes, and pentode. A quick look shows that the often
versed opinion that tubes overload more gently than transistors is obviously
a myth.


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Bret Ludwig
 
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The full text of the Hamm report is well worth the reading for all
audio people and still unchallenged. However, I think your excerpt is a
little misleading for what it does not say.

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"Bret Ludwig" wrote in message
oups.com...
The full text of the Hamm report is well worth the reading for all
audio people and still unchallenged. However, I think your excerpt is a
little misleading for what it does not say.

I was just trying to generate interest, it wasn't meant for anything else.



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Iain Churches
 
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wrote in message
ink.net...

"Bret Ludwig" wrote in message
oups.com...
The full text of the Hamm report is well worth the reading for all
audio people and still unchallenged. However, I think your excerpt is a
little misleading for what it does not say.

I was just trying to generate interest, it wasn't meant for anything else.


Thanks. I rememeber reading this same article a very long time ago.
Interesting to see it again.
Iain


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Arny Krueger
 
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"Bret Ludwig" wrote in message
oups.com

The full text of the Hamm report is well worth the
reading


If printed on unglazed paper, then the text of the Hamm report might be
worthy of clean-up duty in an out house.

for all audio people and still unchallenged.


Hamm unchallenged?

LOL!

It was truth-challenged on the day it was printed in the JAES.






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"Arny Krueger" wrote in message
...
"Bret Ludwig" wrote in message
oups.com

The full text of the Hamm report is well worth the
reading


If printed on unglazed paper, then the text of the Hamm report might be
worthy of clean-up duty in an out house.

for all audio people and still unchallenged.


Hamm unchallenged?

LOL!

It was truth-challenged on the day it was printed in the JAES.



Do tell, please.


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Andy Evans
 
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Very interesting read - thanks for posting. Haven't seen it before. Andy

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Arny Krueger
 
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wrote in message
ink.net
"Arny Krueger" wrote in message
...
"Bret Ludwig" wrote in message
oups.com

The full text of the Hamm report is well worth the
reading


If printed on unglazed paper, then the text of the Hamm
report might be worthy of clean-up duty in an out house.

for all audio people and still unchallenged.


Hamm unchallenged?

LOL!

It was truth-challenged on the day it was printed in the
JAES.


Do tell, please.


By the time the conference paper was published in the JAES SS technology had
progressed well beyond the circuit examples in the Hamm paper.



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Bret Ludwig
 
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Arny Krueger wrote:
..
The full text of the Hamm report is well worth the

reading


If printed on unglazed paper, then the text of the Hamm report might be
worthy of clean-up duty in an out house.

for all audio people and still unchallenged.


Hamm unchallenged?

LOL!

It was truth-challenged on the day it was printed in the JAES.

Reply


Do tell, please.


By the time the conference paper was published in the JAES SS technology had
progressed well beyond the circuit examples in the Hamm paper.


Arny, it's you and not the paper-unglazed or otherwise-which is
loaded with ****. The laws of physics have not changed, and improved
discrete transistors change the picture only incrementally.

But if you are so certain this is not so, please submit a rebuttal.
Submit a rebuttal or be forever hence known as GG Allin Krueger-after
the late punk rocker who would give himself an enema for an encore and
blow **** all over the paying front row.

The bag is up, Arny!

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Pooh Bear
 
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Bret Ludwig wrote:

Arny Krueger wrote:
.
The full text of the Hamm report is well worth the

reading


If printed on unglazed paper, then the text of the Hamm report might be
worthy of clean-up duty in an out house.

for all audio people and still unchallenged.


Hamm unchallenged?

LOL!

It was truth-challenged on the day it was printed in the JAES.

Reply

Do tell, please.


By the time the conference paper was published in the JAES SS technology had
progressed well beyond the circuit examples in the Hamm paper.


Arny, it's you and not the paper-unglazed or otherwise-which is
loaded with ****. The laws of physics have not changed, and improved
discrete transistors change the picture only incrementally.


It's not improved transistors but improved *circuits* using transistors that's the
reason. Early transistors were still quite expensive whereas I can source good
'small signal' devices in quantity now for 2 cents each. Hence early transistor
circuits used them sparingly with attendant defects. Modern usage is quite
different.

The figures for op-amps are also representative only of first-generation examples.

Very dated and quite irrelevant to today.

Graham



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Bret Ludwig
 
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Pooh Bear wrote:

snip

It's not improved transistors but improved *circuits* using transistors that's the
reason. Early transistors were still quite expensive whereas I can source good
'small signal' devices in quantity now for 2 cents each. Hence early transistor
circuits used them sparingly with attendant defects. Modern usage is quite
different.

The figures for op-amps are also representative only of first-generation examples.

Very dated and quite irrelevant to today.


Among the most esteemed solid state designs today are Nelson Pass and
Rupert Neve designs from the general era as Hammm et al. To say nothing
of the Deane Jensen designed op amp module, a discrete affair almost
the size of early solid state Philbricks.

Besides, even if that were not so, would Arny be stopped somehow from
writing his rebuttal assignment?

  #12   Report Post  
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Arny Krueger
 
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"Bret Ludwig" wrote in message
oups.com

Arny Krueger wrote:


By the time the conference paper was published in the
JAES SS technology had progressed well beyond the
circuit examples in the Hamm paper.


snip childish profanity and prerequisite subjectivist personal attack

The laws of physics
have not changed, and improved discrete transistors
change the picture only incrementally.


Bret, you're talking just discrete transistors and I'm talking the totality
of SS technology.

If you actually read Hamm's paper and understood is, you'd know that his
paper was full of deceptive arguments. For example he compared the
distortion of single stage triode, pentode, and transistor amplfiers (figure
2).

What Hamm's paper ignored is the fact that the gain of pentode and
transistor stages are far higher. He also ignored the fact that even way
back then, one can economically build far more amplification stages with
transistors than tubes. One can usually trade gain off for lower distortion
with local or loop feedback. But Hamm seemingly *forgot* to mention that.

As we all know, triodes have massive amounts of internal negative feedback,
which pentodes lack by design, and transistors simply lack.

If you're going to do an apples-to-apples comparison of amplifiers, then
they should all have the same amount of gain. Hamm never did that comparison
because engineers knew, even then that if you decrease the gain of a pentode
or transistor amplifier stage to that of a triode, their distortion
characteristics are similar or better.

Hamm also deceptively loaded the deck against the higher-gain alternatives
by plotting distortion against input signal in figure 2. The higher gain
pentode and SS alternatives simply put out larger signals that of course had
more distortion than the low-gain. low-output triode.

Do you see the difference between a tiny subset of SS technology and the
whole blooming technology?

Do you see that Hamm's paper was full of deceptive comparisons?

snip more of the prerequisite subjectivist personal attacks


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Arny Krueger
 
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"Bret Ludwig" wrote in message
oups.com
Pooh Bear wrote:

snip

It's not improved transistors but improved *circuits*
using transistors that's the reason. Early transistors
were still quite expensive whereas I can source good
'small signal' devices in quantity now for 2 cents each.
Hence early transistor circuits used them sparingly with
attendant defects. Modern usage is quite different.

The figures for op-amps are also representative only of
first-generation examples.

Very dated and quite irrelevant to today.


Among the most esteemed solid state designs today are
Nelson Pass and Rupert Neve designs from the general era
as Hamm et al.


Nonsense!

To say nothing of the Deane Jensen
designed op amp module, a discrete affair almost the size
of early solid state Philbricks.


A piece of legacy technology if there ever was one.

Besides, even if that were not so, would Arny be stopped
somehow from writing his rebuttal assignment?


Say what?


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mick
 
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On Tue, 20 Dec 2005 05:08:58 +0000, nyob123 burbled:

snip
I was just trying to generate interest, it wasn't meant for anything else.


Yep - it worked - I followed your link & read the lot, so I was probably
interested!

The report is, of course, rather dated and obviously couldn't include
later component & circuit developments. Hamm did seem to do his research
though and I can see why some people wouldn't like his conclusions -
especially when proof of an amplifier's "quality" is judged on the test
bench.

--
Mick
(no M$ software on here... :-) )
Web: http://www.nascom.info
Web: http://projectedsound.tk

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Bret Ludwig
 
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Arny Krueger wrote:

snip
As we all know, triodes have massive amounts of internal negative feedback,
which pentodes lack by design, and transistors simply lack.

If you're going to do an apples-to-apples comparison of amplifiers, then
they should all have the same amount of gain. Hamm never did that comparison
because engineers knew, even then that if you decrease the gain of a pentode
or transistor amplifier stage to that of a triode, their distortion
characteristics are similar or better.

Hamm also deceptively loaded the deck against the higher-gain alternatives
by plotting distortion against input signal in figure 2. The higher gain
pentode and SS alternatives simply put out larger signals that of course had
more distortion than the low-gain. low-output triode.

Do you see the difference between a tiny subset of SS technology and the
whole blooming technology?

Do you see that Hamm's paper was full of deceptive comparisons?


I'll see it better when you have presented it to the AES in a
peer-reviewed article.Talk is cheap on Usenet. Make your case,
systematically, and bury Hamm, or live with it every day. As of now,
Hamm et al is valiid and accepted doctrine, not so much with
audiophiles, but with the multimmillion-dollar recording studio
business. AES is chock filled with toob gear. Pro Tools has not only
not killed the toob, it has caused a lot more people to buy toob
compressors, limiters, EQ, mics, mic pres, playback amps, and every
other thing imaginable.



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John Stewart
 
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Bret Ludwig wrote:

Arny Krueger wrote:

snip
As we all know, triodes have massive amounts of internal negative feedback,
which pentodes lack by design, and transistors simply lack.

If you're going to do an apples-to-apples comparison of amplifiers, then
they should all have the same amount of gain. Hamm never did that comparison
because engineers knew, even then that if you decrease the gain of a pentode
or transistor amplifier stage to that of a triode, their distortion
characteristics are similar or better.

Hamm also deceptively loaded the deck against the higher-gain alternatives
by plotting distortion against input signal in figure 2. The higher gain
pentode and SS alternatives simply put out larger signals that of course had
more distortion than the low-gain. low-output triode.

Do you see the difference between a tiny subset of SS technology and the
whole blooming technology?

Do you see that Hamm's paper was full of deceptive comparisons?


I'll see it better when you have presented it to the AES in a
peer-reviewed article.Talk is cheap on Usenet. Make your case,
systematically, and bury Hamm, or live with it every day. As of now,
Hamm et al is valiid and accepted doctrine, not so much with
audiophiles, but with the multimmillion-dollar recording studio
business. AES is chock filled with toob gear. Pro Tools has not only
not killed the toob, it has caused a lot more people to buy toob
compressors, limiters, EQ, mics, mic pres, playback amps, and every
other thing imaginable.


Bret is always right, in his mind anyway. Would you hire this guy to get a job
completed? He will tell you why it can't be done. Just a douch looking for
attention. JLS

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Pooh Bear
 
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Bret Ludwig wrote:

Arny Krueger wrote:

snip
As we all know, triodes have massive amounts of internal negative feedback,
which pentodes lack by design, and transistors simply lack.

If you're going to do an apples-to-apples comparison of amplifiers, then
they should all have the same amount of gain. Hamm never did that comparison
because engineers knew, even then that if you decrease the gain of a pentode
or transistor amplifier stage to that of a triode, their distortion
characteristics are similar or better.

Hamm also deceptively loaded the deck against the higher-gain alternatives
by plotting distortion against input signal in figure 2. The higher gain
pentode and SS alternatives simply put out larger signals that of course had
more distortion than the low-gain. low-output triode.

Do you see the difference between a tiny subset of SS technology and the
whole blooming technology?

Do you see that Hamm's paper was full of deceptive comparisons?


I'll see it better when you have presented it to the AES in a
peer-reviewed article.


I'm not sure that AES articles are actually peer-reviewed ( at least in the sense
that you may be suggesting ) as it happens.

Talk is cheap on Usenet. Make your case,
systematically, and bury Hamm, or live with it every day. As of now,
Hamm et al is valiid and accepted doctrine,


No. Never was.

It was out of date even before it was publsihed.

not so much with
audiophiles, but with the multimmillion-dollar recording studio
business.


Even more laughable.

Pro-audio has *no* time for quackery of that ilk. I speak as a pro-audio designer
and AES member in fact.


AES is chock filled with toob gear.


Uh ?

Pro Tools has not only
not killed the toob, it has caused a lot more people to buy toob
compressors, limiters, EQ, mics, mic pres, playback amps, and every
other thing imaginable.


In their tens rather than tens of thousands actually. You're clearly not familiar
with mainstream pro-audio.

Graham


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Bret Ludwig
 
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Pooh Bear wrote:
snip

Look at any copy of the recording magazines such as Mix or Tape Op.
There are tons of ads for tube gizmos. Companies like Swee****er and
Guitar Center sell this stuff by the truckload.

"Pro audio" means a LOT of things. Recording is only a very small
chunk but it's what the AES brings out big time at Javits and Moscone.
THere is virtually no PA, commercial sound reinforcement or consumer.
It's all boards, mics, mic pres and other yuppie bait. More than half
has toobs.

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Pooh Bear
 
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Bret Ludwig wrote:

Pooh Bear wrote:
snip

Look at any copy of the recording magazines such as Mix or Tape Op.
There are tons of ads for tube gizmos. Companies like Swee****er and
Guitar Center sell this stuff by the truckload.

"Pro audio" means a LOT of things. Recording is only a very small
chunk but it's what the AES brings out big time at Javits and Moscone.
THere is virtually no PA, commercial sound reinforcement or consumer.
It's all boards, mics, mic pres and other yuppie bait. More than half
has toobs.


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Pooh Bear
 
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Bret Ludwig wrote:

Pooh Bear wrote:
snip

Look at any copy of the recording magazines such as Mix or Tape Op.
There are tons of ads for tube gizmos. Companies like Swee****er and
Guitar Center sell this stuff by the truckload.

"Pro audio" means a LOT of things. Recording is only a very small
chunk but it's what the AES brings out big time at Javits and Moscone.
THere is virtually no PA, commercial sound reinforcement or consumer.
It's all boards, mics, mic pres and other yuppie bait. More than half
has toobs.


The only 'boards' with toobs are a minute, microscopic in fact, fraction
of the market. No way do half of them have tubes. That's a idiotic
assertion.

The market for tube gear in the MI market ( such as guitar amps ) is well
known. I don't count that as pro-audio.

If you want to see what sells by the truckload see Behringer. Hardly a
tube in sight.

Graham




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Bret Ludwig
 
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Pooh Bear wrote:

The only 'boards' with toobs are a minute, microscopic in fact, fraction
of the market. No way do half of them have tubes. That's a idiotic
assertion.

The market for tube gear in the MI market ( such as guitar amps ) is well
known. I don't count that as pro-audio.

If you want to see what sells by the truckload see Behringer. Hardly a
tube in sight.


Behringer is lower than **** on a shingle, **** on a shingle being
Mackie and Alesis.

There are probably TEN different makes of tube mic, that many of tube
mic pre, five or six tube compressors and EQs, several tube DI boxes,
on and on."On an" ism is what arguing with you is, you read the
magazines just like I do.

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Pooh Bear
 
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Bret Ludwig wrote:

Pooh Bear wrote:

The only 'boards' with toobs are a minute, microscopic in fact, fraction
of the market. No way do half of them have tubes. That's a idiotic
assertion.

The market for tube gear in the MI market ( such as guitar amps ) is well
known. I don't count that as pro-audio.

If you want to see what sells by the truckload see Behringer. Hardly a
tube in sight.


Behringer is lower than **** on a shingle, **** on a shingle being
Mackie and Alesis.


I suggest you go visit a pro-audio group and read their opinions on Behringer's
curremt offerings in that case in order to educate yourself.


There are probably TEN different makes of tube mic, that many of tube
mic pre, five or six tube compressors and EQs, several tube DI boxes,
on and on."On an" ism is what arguing with you is, you read the
magazines just like I do.


Tube based condenser mics hugely undersell solid state types. As you say, the
tube versions of 'toys' are quite limited in number. I know of only one
company making tube consoles to special order.

There is certainly a 'boutique' market for these items - no question about it -
but it's quite small.

Graham



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Bret Ludwig
 
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Pooh Bear wrote:
snip


No one makes tube boards. No one ever did, before solid state you
BUILT one. Collins and WE/Altec had them for radio but recording ones
were homebuilt.

http://www.mercenary.com/****onastick.html

"**** on a stick" I meant to say.

Everything else-Manley alone does millions a year.

  #24   Report Post  
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Pooh Bear
 
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Bret Ludwig wrote:

Pooh Bear wrote:
snip

No one makes tube boards. No one ever did,


Really, Bret !

You should know better than to contradict me.

" The M-3 is a small format 8/2 valve mixer that features discrete valve
mic pres, four band EQ (loosely based on that of the VTC console but with
swept mids), two aux sends & returns, and a simple but flexible master
section that features valve stages in the mix buss plus an optional
stereo digital output. "

http://www.tlaudio.co.uk/tlaudio/docs/products/m3.shtml

" The VTC (Valve Technology Console) is a fully modular in-line
multitrack mixer that offers all the benefits of the compact 8 buss /
multiple tape output format but with the supreme advantage of TL Audio's
critically acclaimed valve circuitry - which forms an integral part of
the channel, monitor, group and master section signal paths. "

http://www.tlaudio.co.uk/tlaudio/doc...ucts/vtc.shtml

A nice litle niche market.

before solid state you
BUILT one. Collins and WE/Altec had them for radio but recording ones
were homebuilt.


Studio built to be accurate. A old mate of mine did stuff like that when
he worked for Decca. Back then when you said you were an audio *engineer*
it had rather more literal meaning.

Graham

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"Bret Ludwig" wrote in message
oups.com...

Pooh Bear wrote:

snip

It's not improved transistors but improved *circuits* using transistors
that's the
reason. Early transistors were still quite expensive whereas I can source
good
'small signal' devices in quantity now for 2 cents each. Hence early
transistor
circuits used them sparingly with attendant defects. Modern usage is
quite
different.

The figures for op-amps are also representative only of first-generation
examples.

Very dated and quite irrelevant to today.


Among the most esteemed solid state designs today are Nelson Pass and
Rupert Neve designs from the general era as Hammm et al. To say nothing
of the Deane Jensen designed op amp module, a discrete affair almost
the size of early solid state Philbricks.

Youi seem to think that because a bunch of wannbe's at Stereophile and other
assorted geeks worship Pass that somehow makes his designs sound better, it
doesn't, they sound like all other similar spec'd devices, and would not be
able to stand out in an ABX comparison.

Once the threshold of audiblity is reached it doesn't make any difference
how you design it, it passes the straightwire test or not. If it does,
which is pretty easy, then it's good, if not it probably has tubes.




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Bret Ludwig
 
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Pooh Bear wrote:
Bret Ludwig wrote:

Pooh Bear wrote:
snip

No one makes tube boards. No one ever did,


Really, Bret !

You should know better than to contradict me.

Actually, in the tube era, Telefunken did-they had modular plug-ins
and a mainframe to support them. In the US if a Collins board wasn't
enough you built your own. it wasn't untl the mid-60s that you needed
anything much bigger and by then solid state was out.

But the fact is that today the tube board is a yuppie affectation.
Tube mic pre's and compressors are very much mainstream in almost all
aspects of the recording industry, even the facilities of
televangelists buy Avalon and Manley products in quantity.

  #27   Report Post  
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Pooh Bear
 
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Bret Ludwig wrote:

Pooh Bear wrote:
Bret Ludwig wrote:

Pooh Bear wrote:
snip

No one makes tube boards. No one ever did,


Really, Bret !

You should know better than to contradict me.

Actually, in the tube era, Telefunken did-they had modular plug-ins
and a mainframe to support them. In the US if a Collins board wasn't
enough you built your own. it wasn't untl the mid-60s that you needed
anything much bigger and by then solid state was out.


Sure but you did say 'makes' present tense.

But the fact is that today the tube board is a yuppie affectation.
Tube mic pre's and compressors are very much mainstream in almost all
aspects of the recording industry, even the facilities of
televangelists buy Avalon and Manley products in quantity.


Tube mic pres etc may indeed be a 'mainstream' product but are hugely
outsold - I'd guess not less than 1000:1 - by semiconductor models.

Graham


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