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  • Future of Tubes is TODAY

    KORG INC and Noritake Co. Announce Limited Release Innovative Vacuum Tube | Emusician

    Worst thing is that it may work as advertised
    Juan Manuel Fahey

  • #2
    Hope they make it see-thru. Then manufacturers can put a red LED behind it so it looks like a real tube when viewed through the specially cut window printed up with the outline of a 12AX7.

    Comment


    • #3
      Sure doesn't have the romantic curvy sex appeal of a real vacuum tube... okay if you're into pointy angular things. I'm limited. Somebody put up a pic of an old 300B & this wingding... case closed.

      Justin
      "Wow it's red! That doesn't look like the standard Marshall red. It's more like hooker lipstick/clown nose/poodle pecker red." - Chuck H. -
      "Of course that means playing **LOUD** , best but useless solution to modern sissy snowflake players." - J.M. Fahey -
      "All I ever managed to do with that amp was... kill small rodents within a 50 yard radius of my practice building." - Tone Meister -

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      • #4
        I bet many said the same when those funky miniature tubes first appeared.
        Juan Manuel Fahey

        Comment


        • #5
          I want to see a datasheet. Obviously it will depend on the application and you can fudge a lot of bonky figures for a modern guitar amp, but it might be good to know what it's amplification factor, inter electrode capacitance and distortion figures are. Even better would be some scope shots of what happens to it when it's clipping. Also, a lot of the way tubes sound in guitar amps is precisely because of the higher power consumption. This could be carefully re designed into a nano tube power supply, but you know they won't take it that far. I guess we'll see. Thanks for catching this and posting Juan.
          "Take two placebos, works twice as well." Enzo

          "Now get off my lawn with your silicooties and boom-chucka speakers and computers masquerading as amplifiers" Justin Thomas

          "If you're not interested in opinions and the experience of others, why even start a thread?
          You can't just expect consent." Helmholtz

          Comment


          • #6
            I saw this at NAMM the other week, and I spoke to the engineer who designed it. Unfortunately there was a huge communication gap as he was Chinese with very limited English speaking skills, and I have absolutely zero Chinese speaking skills, I got nowhere with him and really got no useful information out of him at all. Maybe I should've approached him with pencil and paper and started drawing a schematic, maybe we could've communicated that way better. The lack of visual appeal doesn't bother me, I would use them if they are practical and work as implied.

            Comment


            • #7
              Originally posted by J M Fahey View Post
              I bet many said the same when those funky miniature tubes first appeared.
              Fair enough, but how am I supposed to heat my dinner in the back of my amp? I mean, if it could chill my beer, I might give it a shot!

              And we all know the real tube magic comes from power tubes, not barely-powered starved (and LED-backlit!) 12AX7s. Unless master volumes is your thing... It's not mine. And MV amps still sound best LOUD.

              Justin
              "Wow it's red! That doesn't look like the standard Marshall red. It's more like hooker lipstick/clown nose/poodle pecker red." - Chuck H. -
              "Of course that means playing **LOUD** , best but useless solution to modern sissy snowflake players." - J.M. Fahey -
              "All I ever managed to do with that amp was... kill small rodents within a 50 yard radius of my practice building." - Tone Meister -

              Comment


              • #8
                It looks to me like this is just a VFD, without the fluorescent display part. You can actually use VFDs to amplify things pretty well, since they're just triodes and work at battery voltages. Most of them have some weird configurations where you have about 20 different cathode segments for various symbols, and the cathode is almost always directly heated.

                Comment


                • #9
                  Well, if there's no risk of electrocution, I'm out. How pedestrian.
                  Originally posted by Enzo
                  I have a sign in my shop that says, "Never think up reasons not to check something."


                  Comment


                  • #10
                    I think no matter what advancements are made in this field people will always want their "glass" even if something like this new product would sound exactly the same as a real tube.

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      Originally posted by Gregg View Post
                      ...even if something like this new product would sound exactly the same as a real tube.
                      It won't. But they'll say it does. And so will a lot of the people that buy them because THEY can't discern the difference or they just refuse to acknowledge, even to themselves, that there is one.

                      It's starting to look more like a marketing ploy than a good way to make an amplifier. If these are just modified VFD's, and VFD's were GOOD to use as amplifiers, someone would have done this long ago for the RIGHT reasons.

                      Believe it or not though, I can be cynical and will still give them a listen, read reviews and form an honest opinion on how they sound.

                      Time will tell
                      "Take two placebos, works twice as well." Enzo

                      "Now get off my lawn with your silicooties and boom-chucka speakers and computers masquerading as amplifiers" Justin Thomas

                      "If you're not interested in opinions and the experience of others, why even start a thread?
                      You can't just expect consent." Helmholtz

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Well, they are real tubes, real DC filament triodes to be precise.

                        Nobody claimed they will work like pentodes (even less power pentodes) .

                        They will amplify, clip, the same way.

                        And plates will be optimized for amplification, not for fluo display.

                        Technically nothing new really, only these guys have been optimizing design for decades for as low as possible voltage supplies. Fine with me.

                        In dact yesterday I went straight to Mouser to check whether some cheap display was available, to load its ppates with resistors and experiment.

                        Unfortunately they are quite expensive, some $50 on average, with only two around $15 , no pictures, and apparently unwanted surplus.

                        But I can easily picture the display guys, who obviously know their trade, making this blindfolded and with one hand tied to their back.

                        Why wasn't this done before?

                        I bet the main problem is that there is no real tube amp design done in the last decades, all "new" ones just the same old circuits refried over and over.

                        "How do you want your CUSTOM Mc Burger?"
                        is the joke of the Century if you only have the same 5 or 6 old tired ingredients.

                        Oh !!!! , you can always sandwich a bun between 2 patties !!!!!
                        I bet nobody did that yet

                        Won't mention the burger made with 1 meat patty and 1 chicken one, because Mesa already did that and called it "Simulclass" ... if you get the analogy.
                        Juan Manuel Fahey

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          Maybe they don't realize how much of the demand is because they are socketed and wear out. You want to deny guys (especially in hi-fi) who spend their days nitpicking over tube differences and constantly trying out different tubes? How do you brag about the price you paid?
                          I think for their own Korg products, cool idea. But I don't think anyone is interested in some new version of a tube that is not backwards compatible.
                          But maybe they are only thinking in terms of their own products.
                          Originally posted by Enzo
                          I have a sign in my shop that says, "Never think up reasons not to check something."


                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Unfortunately, they used a 27 nm process, so it won't support a B+ over 1.8V.

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              Originally posted by J M Fahey View Post
                              Won't mention the burger made with 1 meat patty and 1 chicken one, because Mesa already did that and called it "Simulclass"
                              Reading thin in the wee hours (working nights right now painting a vet clinic) and I hope I didn't wake anyone else in the house laughing out loud.

                              Incidentally... The Nutube may be made of the same stuff as any other tube, and is therefor an actual tube. But I'm pretty sure chickens are made of meat too
                              "Take two placebos, works twice as well." Enzo

                              "Now get off my lawn with your silicooties and boom-chucka speakers and computers masquerading as amplifiers" Justin Thomas

                              "If you're not interested in opinions and the experience of others, why even start a thread?
                              You can't just expect consent." Helmholtz

                              Comment

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