Any Advantages of Tubes (Valves) Over Solid State & Microelectronics?

[John R Retired]

For HAM Radio

For Audio

For "Other" Applications

 

[Martaine2005]

Tube guitar amps, without doubt sound much better.
Efficiency is probably terrible in comparison to solid state/digital.
But I have no experience with tubes other than Marshall and Fender amps. If you are interested in tubes, there is a great YouTube channel called Mr Carlson’s lab. He gives great explanations and walks through restorations of tube equipment.

Martin

 

[bertus]

Hello,

Tubes are considered vintage.
Have a look at this resource I made:
Vintage info from the days of vacuum tubes

Bertus

 

[kellys_eye]

Tubes have (or maybe 'had') advantages when it comes to RF. You can abuse a tube RF amplifier without much consequence but such abuse will kill a solid-state system (unless fitted with multiple redundant error detection systems) in a microsecond. Building high output systems with only one or two active devices is also an advantage. Over 100W using solid-state can be expensive. kW??? Fergeddit!

This is, of course, a Luddite's response!

 

[bertus]

Hello,

In the old days we had an RF amplifier capable of 1 kW pulses using 2 4CX250 ceramic tubes.
Nowerdays we have mosfet RF amplifiers capable of almost 2 kW pulses.

Bertus

 

[kellys_eye]

almost 2 kW pulses

Do you know of any that do continuous output rather than pulsed (where the effective power is a LOT less).

 

[bertus]

Hello,

The RF power amplifier is only used for pulsing in a NMR or MRI system.

Bertus

 

[kellys_eye]

...and radar.

 

[Harald Kapp]

For "Other" Applications

In winter tubes help much better warming up your home.

 

[John R Retired]

"Tubes are considered vintage"

I like tubes especially 6L6 and 12AX7. They get my blood flowing. I remember the days you could take a tube into a drug store (pharmacy) and check them on the tube tester machines they had there. Now you can't even find a Radio Shack store to buy resistors
and capacitors, at least in the USA. Nothing like the smell of tubes heating up all those passive components and the large transformers also. That "electronic" smell that permeated the surrounding air, and Yes, the heat given off by the tubes especially the 6L6s.
Now all you got is "Arduinos" , Rasbery Pis" and kids spelling out "code", and THAT is called, "electronics".

 

[bertus]

Hello,

Do you know of any that do continuous output rather than pulsed (where the effective power is a LOT less).

I looked up the specs and found this:


CW is most times used for decoupling in NMR, wich requires low power.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_magnetic_resonance_decoupling

Bertus

 

[Audioguru]

Without my hearing aids, tube amplifiers sound the same as good solid state amplifiers because my old ears cannot hear the high frequencies of distortion produced by tubes. When I was young with good hearing I hated hearing the buzz and fuzz played by rock musicians using tube amplifiers. I think the noise they produced deafened them to the very high amount of distortion they produced.
I sold my tubes amplifier 58 years ago and used very low distortion sold state amplifiers ever since.

Lately I am trialing new hearing aids to replace my old worn out ones and their "noise reduction" reduces the distortion of rock music and the noise of game spectators screaming and clapping. The hearing aid circuits are mostly digital including class-D output amplifiers.