Tubes Tubes why??

[Grant Richter]

Thank you Eric for an outstanding and informative article.

It would seem, based on the article, that the practice
of DC coupling synthesizer modules has the distinct
advantage of eliminating all electrolytic interstage
coupling capacitors and the associated low 
frequency problems.

----------
> From: Eric <svetengr at earthlink.net>
> To: Grant Richter <grichter at execpc.com>
> Cc: synth-diy at mailhost.bpa.nl
> Subject: Re: Tubes Tubes why??
> Date: Tuesday, December 14, 1999 2:07 AM
> 
> Grant:
> 
> See my article in IEEE SPECTRUM:
> http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/select/0898/tube.html
> It discusses the pros and cons of designing audio
> equipment with tubes or transistors. Even has
> distortion spectra for a triode, a pentode, and
> various
> transistors in simple circuits--demonstrates quite
> effectively that the triode has both the lowest
> distortion,
> AND lower noise than the lowest-distortion
> transistors.
> 
> And there are other things transistors do which
> have to
> be accounted for (and often aren't), like thermal
> tailing
> and voltage-varying capacitances. Tubes are free
> of
> these semiconductor problems. (They just have
> different
> problems.....but ones that don't severely
> interfere with
> audio amplification!)
> 
> --Eric
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Grant Richter <grichter at execpc.com>
> To: Paul Maddox <Paul.Maddox at unilever.com>;
> synthdiy <synth-diy at mailhost.bpa.nl>
> Date: Monday, December 13, 1999 7:29 AM
> Subject: Re: Tubes Tubes
> 
> 
> >Would someone be kind enough to explain why tube
> >circuitry is preferable for audio over solid
> state?
> >I realize this has probably been beat to death
> >on ault.audio.hifi but is there a short
> explanation?
> >
> >I mean if two different circuits which are linear
> gain stages,
> >both amplifying the same signal and one sounds
> >different from the other, then one is non-linear,
> >or they are both non-linear in different ways.
> >It seems to me to be a case of the circuit
> failing to follow
> >the mathematical prediction of the circuit
> action.
> >Now this can be a good thing, but is what sense
> is
> >it failing? And which one fails in which way?
> >
> >At the time solid state was taking over for
> tubes,
> >the best explanation I heard, which only applied
> to
> >large power amps, was that during peak clipping,
> >a tube amplifier would clip with a perfect square
> >corner which produced only odd harmonic
> distortion.
> >A transistor amp would go into "soft clipping"
> which was
> >waveform rounding and mathematically produced
> >inharmonic partials like a ring modulator.
> >
> >Is that true?
> >
> >Thanks for the background.
> >
> >
> >----------
> >> From: Paul Maddox <Paul.Maddox at unilever.com>
> >> To: synthdiy <synth-diy at mailhost.bpa.nl>
> >> Subject: Tubes Tubes
> >> Date: Monday, December 13, 1999 2:17 AM
> >>
> >> All,
> >>
> >>   Found this, looked kinda like fun...
> >>
> >> http://www.clarkson.edu/~stokessd/dac.html
> >>
> >>   A DAC useing a tube...
> >>
> >>   Paul
> >>
> >>
> **************************************************
> *******
> >> *   Modulus Synthesiser DIY page ;- *
> >> * http://www.xavax.com/modulus *
> >> *  Email ;- *
> >> *   Paul.Maddox at unilever.com *
> >>
> **************************************************
> *******
> >