Re: Use of electron tubes today

Your information is very old. The military now have semiconductor
equipment that is very robust and can take any Electromagnetic Pulse.
The new equipment is properly designed and as much higher performance
than what they can get with tubes. Tube equipment requires a large power
source to operate.

There is a big market in tube equipment for musicians and diehard type
audio files who like the sound better from tubes. This is a rather large
industry in the audio file world. Tube equipment tends to be a higher in
THD consisting of more of the odd harmonics. The clipping is less harsh
when over driven. The noise floor is a little higher. This all
attributes to giving the effect of a smoother sound.

On the other side of things, if you want a more accurate sound with less
distorion, then a well designed solid state system is the better way to
go. There are also audio files that prefer this to tube equipment. Also
tube equipment requires higher maintenance. Tubes will wear out, and
capacitors will tend to wear down faster from the heat.

Personally, I don't think tube equipment for audio applications will die
out very soon.

--

Jerry G.


"Rene" <invalid@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:FX1uj.45094$f97.34337@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Hi to all,

I was wondering how important tube electronics are today in military
equipment. In the 80's I often heard that many electronics still were
built
of them because they are far more tolerant than semiconductors when it
comes
to nucleair explosions. Nowadays one can buy tubes relatively cheap
because
large warehouses, mostly in Russia, that were filled with spares for
military and other equipment are being sold out (apart from the
factories
that still build new tubes), so I was wondering whether there is no more
importance for those parts.

Anyone have any knowledge about this? What are Your opinions about the
role
of electron tubes in the future (apart from being a nice hobby for a
relatively small group of people)?

Thanks in advance for the input!
Yours sincerely,
Rene

P.S. I would like to emphasize I am not a weapons/war freak, on the
contrary, I just find the fact that this old technology has such virtues
over modern stuff very fascinating (and the glow of the tubes is so
wonderfull ;-)).



.

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