Time to chime re: tube synth

[harrybissell at prodigy.net]

Interesting Analogy... but the loser in the "foot-race" is the tube synth which you noted... almost NOBODY builds. 

Tubes are very suitable for amps (especially guitar, where their shortcommings like microphonics etc. become features).
Users are willing to pay PREMIUM prices for the real or perceived advantages of TUBE guitar amps. I myself own two of them. They do sound better than my "solid state" amps. I don't gig with them because of their very real drawbacks... size and weight. 

Tubes are not so suited for synthesizers. Note that there are hundreds of successful solid state designs that have met market and/or DIY'er appeal...
VS: One tube synth ???

This is "winning" the race ???

Naw... this is like saying your dog can outrun a bird... provided that you drop the dog off a high building first...

God Bless Tube Synths if they sound good...

I say... Keep the old as long as it is good... and take the new as soon as it is better...

:^) Harry Bissell 


 ---- On Oct 27 Bill Layer <blayer at uswest.net> wrote: 
> Hey hey all,
> 
> I've been following the LATEST tube synth thread, and it strikes me as 
> being quite a great deal like the last several. Pro arguments from the open 
> minded, derision from the silicon-entrenched and NOBODY building one save 
> myself and one other brave soul who actually built prototypes.
> 
> With respect to the argument that the thermal drift experiment is a hoax, 
> due to the tube's superior insulating properties: This is a lot like coming 
> in second in a footrace, and claiming that it was only due to the winner's 
> superior body. Silicon devices could be encapsulated as easily in glass as 
> a thermionic device, but they aren't because they are products of the 
> plastic age, and hence CHEAP.
> 
> When the transistor was first brought to use, it wasn't because it was more 
> linear, or better sounding; it emerged in the consumer market as a cheap, 
> light alternative, and by that time we were competing with the Asians for 
> consumer electronics. Funny that in a world of "linear, stable and robust" 
> transistors, the simple 6080W vacuum voltage regulator was still being 
> produced in 1987, some 40 years after the advent of silicon devices. The 
> machine of capitalism has much more to do with the fact that we subsist on 
> doped silicon, than the actual properties of the devices themselves.
> 
> Remember the promise of plastic? How it would enrich all of our lives with 
> inexpensive consumer goods? How true was that (just look at a new appliance 
> for god's sake)? What other things were said back then that also proved to 
> be untrue?
> 
> 
> Carrying the torch,
> Bill
> 
> 
> 
> 
> +----------------------------------------------------------+
> |      "The" Bill Layer - Frogtown, Minnesota. U.S.A.      |
> | Vacuum tubes, Analog, Motorcycles and Other Alternatives |
> +----------------------------------------------------------+	
> +---------------------+  +---------------------------------+
> | <blayer at uswest.net> |  | <b.layer at vikingelectronics.com> |
> +---------------------+  +---------------------------------+
>