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If tubes were hidden within an enclosure, would people still desire them as much?

I spent too much of my childhood taking tubes to the 7-11, in hopes of making the TV work.

I have no love at all for tubes.

I did have a nice little Luxman receiver with glowing tubes. Looked pretty. Gave it to my daughter, and it stillworks.

I think the tubes are mostly cosmetic.
 
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Pancreas said:
It's a fashion statement as well. Part of the audiophile snobbery. Let's people know you be serious about your audio.

Just as people who have vinyl players with vinyl discs on display in their living room, is also a statement, let's people know you are not a commoner, ahh you're one of those audio connoisseurs eh

If ALL tubes were hidden inside an enclosure and no longer on display for the eyes to see, would tube amps for headphones be as popular and desired without the erect devices sticking out?

The answer is obvious.

Boom

boom-anna-kendrick.gif
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And a more interesting question if the presence or not of tubes where unknown to the end user :) …….
 
mhardy6647 said:
oh -- and in the interest of equal time -- some of us have tube amplifiers that are just plain ugly.
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Audio Research for many years hid tubes inside the plainest of boxes, but they seem to have pivoted to ostentation.
 
This is a very funny question. I look forward to reading the responses. As a guitar player who owns a tube amp, which I have gigged with for years, I think I understand the appeal of tubes. Keep in mind you cannot see the tubes glowing in my amp from the front of my amp. I have gotten away from using it, and now accurately simulate it with a digital modeler. My personal opinion is that tubes are costly and a pain to deal with...I'd rather have an easier alternative. I am guessing most people are enamored by the aesthetic. I can relate to this, but at the end of the day, I am practical.
 
easyj said:
This is a very funny question. I look forward to reading the responses. As a guitar player who owns a tube amp, which I have gigged with for years, I think I understand the appeal of tubes. Keep in mind you cannot see the tubes glowing in my amp from the front of my amp. I have gotten away from using it, and now accurately simulate it with a digital modeler. My personal opinion is that tubes are costly and a pain to deal with...I'd rather have an easier alternative. I am guessing most people are enamored by the aesthetic. I can relate to this, but at the end of the day, I am practical.
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In your guitar amp they serve a purpose , that special kind of distortion was until recently a bit hard to model, today’s models are probably very accurate.
But a guitar amp is an instrument it supposed to have “a sound” .

HIFI amps are not really supposed to have a sound on thier own , the artists should provide the art :)
 
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Petrushka said:
I spent too much of my childhood taking tubes to the 7-11, in hopes of making the TV work.

I have no love at all for tubes.

I did have a nice little Luxman receiver with glowing tubes. Looked pretty. Gave it to my daughter, and it stillworks.

I think the tubes are mostly cosmetic.
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LOL, I was happy to leave tubes behind, as I was happy to leave vinyl behind, and then leave CDs behind. I find it interesting and understand that people really appreciate the way older technologies produce/reproduce sound, and that it is important to hold onto it. I don't consider myself an audiophile, and I think that the character that tubes bring can now be effectively simulated.
 
Mnyb said:
In your guitar amp they serve a purpose , that special kind of distortion was until recently a bit hard to model, today’s models are probably very accurate.
But a guitar amp is an instrument it supposed to have “a sound” .

HIFI amps are not really supposed to have a sound on thier own , the artists should provide the art :)
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The clean channel on my amp is typically used to amplify without obvious distortion. Yet, tubes still react differently, and flavor the sound. I believe that audiophiles are chasing that flavor in "clean" amplification. That flavor can be simulated, without tubes. I agree with you. I don't want my sound flavored when I am playing a recording.
 
My take is that done right, the tube sound is mostly a power amp thing. I also prefer vintage tube amps to most modern tube amps because in the days of yore manufacturers were shooting for the best specs, not following a visual and sonic fashion statement.
I think it was easier to find better sounding tube hifi than solid state up through the early seventies. Also, back in the day, preamps didn’t display tubes and the power amps with or without cages were often concealed in a cabinet.
 
I saw a Rick Beato video where he visited one the amp modelling companies, tldr they put serious effort in making it work .
Apart from the obvious like machine learning they had a room with robotic setup that could twiddle knobs on a guitar amp automatically combined with some signal generator, this setup could then walk trough thousand of possible variations of the settings you can have .
I assume the results goes into creating the model .
 
Image.jpg

Trigger warning: I just got that cause it looks awesome (IMHO) all because of the tubes.
 
Pancreas said:
It's a fashion statement as well. Part of the audiophile snobbery. Let's people know you be serious about your audio.

Just as people who have vinyl players with vinyl discs on display in their living room, is also a statement, let's people know you are not a commoner, ahh you're one of those audio connoisseurs eh

If ALL tubes were hidden inside an enclosure and no longer on display for the eyes to see, would tube amps for headphones be as popular and desired without the erect devices sticking out?
Click to expand...

possible counter evidence: guitar wankers revere tube amps even though the toobz aren't usually visible from the front.
 
I am cheating a little above... but only a little. The bottom photo shows a Tungar tube (low voltage rectifier) in a low voltage, high current DC power supply for the electromagnets in electrodynamic speaker drivers. :)

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Something like an 811A or an 845 power triode has a tungsten filament, too -- but I don't have a good photo of an 811 handy. :facepalm:
 
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