Magic Eyes?

[watchnerd]

I've seen pictures of these on vintage audio equipment, but I've never encountered one in real life.

They sure look cool. But how do the work? What are they used for? How are they superior to normal analog dials? Or are they?

By the late 1960s they seem to mostly disappear...why did they fall out of favor?

 

[RayDunzl]

http://www.radioremembered.org/tuneye.htm

 

[Blumlein 88]

Though not a picture of mine, I have one exactly like it. Still works perfectly. Inject and then trace a signal. The eye is almost fully open and then the two sides illuminate toward each other until full illumination around the eye with a strong signal. I have had tuners with them, and other gear. Very neat, and actually cooler looking than in the pics.

Vacuum tube of course a triode which is inside this tube. Decent explanation a video here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_eye_tube

The strip type indicators were nice too, but not as neat as the eye imo.

Here is a video showing a real one and they then make a simulation with spinning leds.

 

[watchnerd]

View attachment 5611

Though not a picture of mine, I have one exactly like it. Still works perfectly. Inject and then trace a signal. The eye is almost fully open and then the two sides illuminate toward each other until full illumination around the eye with a strong signal. I have had tuners with them, and other gear. Very neat, and actually cooler looking than in the pics.

Vacuum tube of course a triode which is inside this tube. Decent explanation a video here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_eye_tube

The strip type indicators were nice too, but not as neat as the eye imo.

Here is a video showing a real one and they then make a simulation with spinning leds.

Wow...his modern LED creation actually looked more "old timey" than the original.

Amazingly clever electro-mechanical combo. That guy is McGuyver.

 

[watchnerd]

http://www.radioremembered.org/tuneye.htm

Sounds like a combination of quartz tuning and solid state circuits would be the reason they went away.

 

[Sal1950]

I've seen pictures of these on vintage audio equipment, but I've never encountered one in real life.

LOL, Youngster.
I owned a bunch of gear back in the day with magic eye tuning tubes.
They were just SO KOOL

 

[iridium]

I have tubes like that on one of my preamplifiers [tubes placed in an up-down position].

iridium.

 

[Sal1950]

Here is a video showing a real one and they then make a simulation with spinning leds.

Dang that background music was annoying. LOL

 

[DonH56]

PLLs lock right to the FM pilot and obviated most of the fine tuning required. Then we got all the digital tuners using DLLs so even less required. Plus they added cost. Heck, it's hard to find a tuning meter on a receiver these days, let alone a Magic Eye.

 

[Sal1950]

PLLs lock right to the FM pilot and obviated most of the fine tuning required. Then we got all the digital tuners using DLLs so even less required. Plus they added cost. Heck, it's hard to find a tuning meter on a receiver these days, let alone a Magic Eye.

Sometimes in the march towards simplicity or making things "idiot proof" we lose that sense of involvement that the older gear had. I loved my Mitsubishi DA-F20 FM tuner for the kool little extras it had. One of the very first (affordable) tuners with a digital frequency readout it also included the analog dial. Plus it had a 3 led tuning indicator,stereo light, and led signal strength indicators. Great tuner over all and "fun" to see and use. Designed for the enthusiast, ($430 in 1978 dollars) also having bandwidth switching for best FR when appropriate, manual mono switching, squelch switching. and record level tone. One of the all time great FM tuners.
I feel the same way about my vehicles, stick shift only for me, it's just part of the driving experience.

 

[DonH56]

I like my old Yamaha T-1 but it's in storage...

I thought I would drive sticks forever, but trying to deal with kids and traffic led to automatics and I haven't gone back.

I miss the oscilloscope some of those old receivers had...

 

[RayDunzl]

My only-has-a-couple-of-chips-in-it HD Tuner has a little orange HD light that is mightily impressive when it comes on.

I like that it outputs digits for further processing downstream, which took me a while to figure out how or why, when first listening to an analog broadcast, and not knowing whether it would or not.

It's also my main streaming solution. Plays stuff I don't have when I want that, and bonus, the playlists are professionally curated. I find I'm a lousy DJ when I have to pick things to play from a source with billions and billions of choices.

See? Nothing there.

No static at all.

 

[Sal1950]

See? Nothing there.

Now that's funny, all that meat with no potato's. LOL

 

[watchnerd]

It's also my main streaming solution. Plays stuff I don't have when I want that, and bonus, the playlists are professionally curated. I find I'm a lousy DJ when I have to pick things to play from a source with billions and billions of choices.

Oh, that's what the celebrity streaming playlists are for!

 

[watchnerd]

See? Nothing there.

No static at all.

At least this little guy (TEAC PD-301) crams a CD player into the spare space:

 

[RayDunzl]

At least this little guy (TEAC PD-301) crams a CD player into the spare space:

Well for 8 times more you should get some little extra...

No HD tuner though, that I can see in the specs.

 

[watchnerd]

Well for 8 times more you should get some little extra...

No HD tuner though, that I can see in the specs.

Europe gets an RDS / DAB option...

 

[Sal1950]

At least this little guy (TEAC PD-301) crams a CD player into the spare space:

Slot loaders always looked like a guaranteed way to scratch up your disc's to me.

 

[watchnerd]

Slot loaders always looked like a guaranteed way to scratch up your disc's to me.

It has soft hairy lips to help prevent that.