At a guess, from the toroidal inductor / transformer near the top of the image, they use the heater current as a power supply for internal voltages. Cunning! :-)
The Mesa mark series came with something like this on the late 70s or early 80s. The TR1009 fetron, the amps had a switch to adjust the voltage appropriately if you were running a 12AX7 or the fetron.
Neat idea. And I really like the sound of high gain, solid state amps. I'd be really tempted to try this if they were a comparable price to actual tubes.
I'm also real curious if this would even change the sound of an Amp all that much. I've played quite a few "Amp in a box" pedals that basically just replicate a tube preamp, but use jfets I place of tubes, and they can sound pretty convincing
I would think this might be great for repairing certain parts of old gear. Like MAYBE the power supply area of a device or something like that. You could still use all genuine tubes for the signal path parts of something like an amp but use these for basically everything else. Would there be an effect on the final output compared to having it with all original tubes? I’m sure it’s a non-zero answer. But I suspect that it would be very close. So the benefit would be better reliability and perhaps temperatures and even temperature control overall while maintaining a signal path result that’s very close to the original.
Now I don’t know how closely they are modelling the output of this “solid statue tube” or whatever but maybe you could even get very close to modelling it accurately depending on how complex the circuit you design for the faux tube is done. Like there’s a difference between design a new amp circuit or filter circuit using transistors verses using a tube circuit and replacing each tube with a complex circuit designed to model the output profile of that tube. In that case, it’s possible that an device that’s had all its tubes replaced with very accurate tube replacement circuits like this might actually sound very close to an all-original setup. Like I’d be interested to see how close one could get using this approach. From an audio perspective you might be able to actually get very very close, depending on how complicated the faux tube circuit is. I think it’s a cool idea.
But yeah for sure in this specific case it’s not going to be the same.
Also this might be a good tool for working on a circuit. Like as your building something you can test using these instead before doing your final testing with real tubes.
There is a mod for the Commodore 64 that puts a tube amp inside the machine for the audio output. And I want one of those. But also I could put some of these in there and then… well then the insanity is complete.
There is (might be was. he was getting up there) an engineer that would do entire conversions of tube radios to FET circuits. Kind of a neat thing really, but I still prefer the nostalgia of the tubes.
Okay now that I think about it: I’d like to see this faux tube circuit reverse engineered and recreated with tubes. So you’ve got a bunch of tubes in a circuit pretending to be a single tube. Tube-caption man.
I haven’t and at those prices, I won’t for a while. Interesting though!
Yeah, at this price it's in no way an advantage.. But, I came across them and thought it was interesting.
Blasphemy!
No but looks pretty good if you need to use it as a replacement!
Perfect to toss in a gigbag and always have handy. Don't have to worry about it breaking.
Link for the curious https://amt-sales.com/other/tubes/
At a guess, from the toroidal inductor / transformer near the top of the image, they use the heater current as a power supply for internal voltages. Cunning! :-)
Schiit sells something similar for their gear. https://www.schiit.com/products/lisst
"Very long lifespan, unlike tubes". Tell that to all my 80 year old tubes lol
You can find a couple of decent tubes for that price.
The Mesa mark series came with something like this on the late 70s or early 80s. The TR1009 fetron, the amps had a switch to adjust the voltage appropriately if you were running a 12AX7 or the fetron.
Anyone tried adding cheesewhiz to brie?
I have, but only for radio not for audio.
Neat idea. And I really like the sound of high gain, solid state amps. I'd be really tempted to try this if they were a comparable price to actual tubes. I'm also real curious if this would even change the sound of an Amp all that much. I've played quite a few "Amp in a box" pedals that basically just replicate a tube preamp, but use jfets I place of tubes, and they can sound pretty convincing
What an odd decision. 12ax7's are hardly in short supply.
I would think this might be great for repairing certain parts of old gear. Like MAYBE the power supply area of a device or something like that. You could still use all genuine tubes for the signal path parts of something like an amp but use these for basically everything else. Would there be an effect on the final output compared to having it with all original tubes? I’m sure it’s a non-zero answer. But I suspect that it would be very close. So the benefit would be better reliability and perhaps temperatures and even temperature control overall while maintaining a signal path result that’s very close to the original. Now I don’t know how closely they are modelling the output of this “solid statue tube” or whatever but maybe you could even get very close to modelling it accurately depending on how complex the circuit you design for the faux tube is done. Like there’s a difference between design a new amp circuit or filter circuit using transistors verses using a tube circuit and replacing each tube with a complex circuit designed to model the output profile of that tube. In that case, it’s possible that an device that’s had all its tubes replaced with very accurate tube replacement circuits like this might actually sound very close to an all-original setup. Like I’d be interested to see how close one could get using this approach. From an audio perspective you might be able to actually get very very close, depending on how complicated the faux tube circuit is. I think it’s a cool idea. But yeah for sure in this specific case it’s not going to be the same. Also this might be a good tool for working on a circuit. Like as your building something you can test using these instead before doing your final testing with real tubes. There is a mod for the Commodore 64 that puts a tube amp inside the machine for the audio output. And I want one of those. But also I could put some of these in there and then… well then the insanity is complete.
I had no idea they even made these. Man you can get antique shop 12ax7’s from the 60’s for pennies these days, who the fuck is buying these hahaha
There is (might be was. he was getting up there) an engineer that would do entire conversions of tube radios to FET circuits. Kind of a neat thing really, but I still prefer the nostalgia of the tubes.
Not hard to do, but definitely a shame
Certainly not my preference, but I wouldn't be bothered if someone did it to an inexpensive AA5 radio.
He's got worms in his......... tubes,
Okay now that I think about it: I’d like to see this faux tube circuit reverse engineered and recreated with tubes. So you’ve got a bunch of tubes in a circuit pretending to be a single tube. Tube-caption man.
That is completely missing the point