Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[bd139]

I have just spoken to someone I know who may be sending me some "desirable audio tubes". They are however knackered i.e. open filament or degraded but none are gassy so it looks like they're good. That may have the desired trolling effect 

edit: I'm going to just chuck them on the ground outside 

Don't do that. Do you personally know an audio fanatic? If yes then break all the duff tubes and string them together and hang them off his front door. 

Unfortunately I don’t know any rabid enough to offend with that.

The supplier of the tubes, who wishes to remain anonymous, has suggested that it’s a great idea. He hates the bastards as well as they steal all the ones he uses to fix radios. I’m not going to repeat his suggestion verbatim but fundamentally it involved grinding the remains up to make sandpaper and forcing the audio lot to use it as a masturbation aid before they reproduce 

[worsthorse]

anybody know much about the HP 8555A / 8552B / 141T setup?

https://seattle.craigslist.org/see/ele/d/seattle-hp-8555a-rf-8552b-if-spectrum/7064931343.html

Compared to more modern gear...  It is big and really heavy. It is cumbersome to set up and use. It has no menus and many knobs.  It works well and it is mostly still possible to fix and repair. There is good documentation for it.

In summary, it is all the reasons we love boat anchor gear.   

Seriously, I think you should buy it because I have been looking at the ad for way to long and sooner or later my resolve will falter.   

[worsthorse]

Yea, I was aware that Stan had passed. The old Tek guard is passing into history. First it was Dean Kidd and now Stan. I had posted a few weeks ago that Stan was ill and he put his collection up for sale and the audiophool tube raiders just about raped every piece of the equipment of their vacuum tubes. 

What the hell. Why. 

I know. I've been staying away from CL as much as possible and didn't hear about the sale until too late. A friend of mine, who attended, said most of the tubes were taken out of the gear and the plugins left behind. If that is true, the family will have to pay for scrapping all the now unusable electronics, which sucks.

[med6753]

anybody know much about the HP 8555A / 8552B / 141T setup?

https://seattle.craigslist.org/see/ele/d/seattle-hp-8555a-rf-8552b-if-spectrum/7064931343.html

Compared to more modern gear...  It is big and really heavy. It is cumbersome to set up and use. It has no menus and many knobs.  It works well and it is mostly still possible to fix and repair. There is good documentation for it.

In summary, it is all the reasons we love boat anchor gear.   

Seriously, I think you should buy it because I have been looking at the ad for way to long and sooner or later my resolve will falter.   

Damn, if that were close to me I might even consider it. 

[BU508A]

I have just spoken to someone I know who may be sending me some "desirable audio tubes". They are however knackered i.e. open filament or degraded but none are gassy so it looks like they're good. That may have the desired trolling effect 

edit: I'm going to just chuck them on the ground outside 

Don't do that. Do you personally know an audio fanatic? If yes then break all the duff tubes and string them together and hang them off his front door. 

Unfortunately I don’t know any rabid enough to offend with that.

The supplier of the tubes, who wishes to remain anonymous, has suggested that it’s a great idea. He hates the bastards as well as they steal all the ones he uses to fix radios. I’m not going to repeat his suggestion verbatim but fundamentally it involved grinding the remains up to make sandpaper and forcing the audio lot to use it as a masturbation aid before they reproduce 

Is he probably a descendant of the Sheriff of Nottingham? Just wondering ...

[mnementh]

I defy any of these audio jerks to tell an audible difference between a run of the mill RCA 12AX7 and an Amperex 12AX7. 99.9% of them can't. It's all in their pea brain head. 

Love you man, but really... this is just not so.

That kind of money, it's not audiophools that are the end-market; it's probably guitarheads and other professional musicians. In that application, they DO make a difference; they don't make them the same way anymore because hand-fab vs automated. Old-production Amperex 12AX7s are sought after for fuzzboxes AND analog synthesizers. They are ALSO sought after as preamp tubes because their construction does alter the sound in that the low-mid and mid are accentuated, adding "warmth" without the distortion that running through a bandpass filter causes.

However, MOST audiophools aren't going to spend that kind of money on these choobs, as typically 4 are needed for a stereo rig, and then you have to buy finals and even more 12AX7s for the tone control circuits if your preamp design has it.

I don't condone robbing vintage test equipment for these tubes; but CONSTANTLY repeating the mantra that it's ALL in their heads really does make us all sound like the old farts & hobos that we disdain about hamfests.

If you want people to believe you know better, you need to NOT repeat ignorance like this about EVERY TIME you hear folks raping gear for valves. All it does is reinforce the "What The Fuckever" attitude in those circles.

And before y'all dogpile me with pages of ridiculous adverts of moronic products featuring these precious artifacts... remember that there are a LOT MORE people selling this shit than there are people buying; literally 90% of the "product" we refer to as audiophool gear is vaporware: It does not even exist UNTIL someone buys one.

mnem
*puttin on muh flameproof jammies*

[med6753]

I defy any of these audio jerks to tell an audible difference between a run of the mill RCA 12AX7 and an Amperex 12AX7. 99.9% of them can't. It's all in their pea brain head. 

Love you man, but really... this is just not so.

That kind of money, it's not audiophools that are the end-market; it's probably guitarheads and other professional musicians. In that application, they DO make a difference; they don't make them the same way anymore because hand-fab vs automated. Old-production Amperex 12AX7s are sought after for fuzzboxes AND analog synthesizers. They are ALSO sought after as preamp tubes because their construction does alter the sound in that the low-mid and mid are accentuated, adding "warmth" without the distortion that running through a bandpass filter causes.

I call absolute and total BULLSHIT. You know why? If those supposed old school constructed tubes "alter" the sound in certain way then they have no business being in the front end of a high frequency vertical amplifier because they will distort the waveform and give you an inaccurate representation.

Stick a RCA 12AX7 and an Amprex 12AX7 in a sweep and map them. Damn.....looks the same.

 

[mnementh]

I've watched a few of his videos and while sometimes he has some good stuff I think overall he's an arrogant jerk who drinks too much wine. But that's going too far. That HP should be fully restored as is. It wouldn't take much, it's in good shape. There's plenty of guitar amps out there. Unfortunately if you look at the comments most are in favor of ripping into it. We are the minority.

This I agree with 100%. That 201B is a piece of history in its own right. 

So... that logo on the wall stands for Douche-Lab, right...?

mnem

[med6753]

I don't condone robbing vintage test equipment for these tubes; but CONSTANTLY repeating the mantra that it's ALL in their heads really does make us all sound like the old farts & hobos that we disdain about hamfests.

If you want people to believe you know better, you need to NOT repeat ignorance like this about EVERY TIME you hear folks raping gear for valves. All it does is reinforce the "What The Fuckever" attitude in those circles.

And before y'all dogpile me with pages of ridiculous adverts of moronic products featuring these precious artifacts... remember that there are a LOT MORE people selling this shit than there are people buying; literally 90% of the "product" we refer to as audiophool gear is vaporware: It does not even exist UNTIL someone buys one.

mnem
*puttin on muh flameproof jammies*

Call me a Hobo then...they need to die a slow death. 

[mnementh]

you should get a outside thermomether... family said... ok then

I found some old project of UV exposure unit timer, with STM32F030, cuted some traces, added some wires, added SHT21, about hour and half of measuring and drawing and a few hours of printing and I am in half way to finish. I have printed radiation cover for it from PLA but i have to reprint it from PETG. PLA is too fragile as I founded. A plan is to place it outside on balcony, enclosure is IP68 rating (for now:D ), powering with two 18650 and maybe solar cell. A TME has nice for a good price.

Well done!  Re-use is the highest form of recycling!

mnem
Is it getting warm in here or is it just me...?

[BU508A]

That kind of money, it's not audiophools that are the end-market; it's probably guitarheads and other professional musicians. In that application, they DO make a difference; they don't make them the same way anymore because hand-fab vs automated. Old-production Amperex 12AX7s are sought after for fuzzboxes AND analog synthesizers. They are ALSO sought after as preamp tubes because their construction does alter the sound in that the low-mid and mid are accentuated, adding "warmth" without the distortion that running through a bandpass filter causes.

I'm curious. How does a (passive) bandfilter add any k2, k3 ... kn distortion to a signal? The "warmth" or "singin' "
as for example in Gary Moore's playing can be heard ("Still got the blues") comes definitly
from the k2 distortion of the tubes, which is very typical for triodes (not so for pentodes).

I don't condone robbing vintage test equipment for these tubes; but CONSTANTLY repeating the mantra that it's ALL in their heads really does make us all sound like the old farts & hobos that we disdain about hamfests.

If it is not in their heads, then you can measure it. If you can't measure it, then it is imho audiophoolery.
I do believe in the laws of physics since they are reliable and repeatable. Not so with this marketing babble
of a big lot of these audiophools.

And I'm staying all the time behind a flat frequency response between 20 and 20kHz and a zero degree phase
between the same frequency band.

All other saying is nuts and foolish. Imho.
Exception: If you want to create an effect like this singin' guitar as in Gary Moore's playing.
But this is a different playground.

If you want people to believe you know better, you need to NOT repeat ignorance like this about EVERY TIME you hear folks raping gear for valves. All it does is reinforce the "What The Fuckever" attitude in those circles.

The ignorance is on their side. They are denying the laws of physics, not us.

And before y'all dogpile me with pages of ridiculous adverts of moronic products featuring these precious artifacts... remember that there are a LOT MORE people selling this shit than there are people buying; literally 90% of the "product" we refer to as audiophool gear is vaporware: It does not even exist UNTIL someone buys one.

And this doesn't make things better in any way.

Just my 2 cents.

[med6753]

And further...any claims of certain tubes sounding different is the result of operating them OUTSIDE their design parameters. Drive something to distortion and of course the sound changes.

[mnementh]

I have just spoken to someone I know who may be sending me some "desirable audio tubes". They are however knackered i.e. open filament or degraded but none are gassy so it looks like they're good. That may have the desired trolling effect 

edit: I'm going to just chuck them on the ground outside 

Do it up...! Plant them in the ground... paint faces on them and little hats... maybe a couple wearing headphones and playing a guitar...   

mnem
THEN you give them the Sledge-O-Matic! 

[bd139]

I have just spoken to someone I know who may be sending me some "desirable audio tubes". They are however knackered i.e. open filament or degraded but none are gassy so it looks like they're good. That may have the desired trolling effect 

edit: I'm going to just chuck them on the ground outside 

Do it up...! Plant them in the ground... paint faces on them and little hats... maybe a couple wearing headphones and playing a guitar...   

mnem
THEN you give them the Sledge-O-Matic! 

YESSSSSS that will be done 

[med6753]

I have just spoken to someone I know who may be sending me some "desirable audio tubes". They are however knackered i.e. open filament or degraded but none are gassy so it looks like they're good. That may have the desired trolling effect 

edit: I'm going to just chuck them on the ground outside 

Do it up...! Plant them in the ground... paint faces on them and little hats... maybe a couple wearing headphones and playing a guitar...   

mnem
THEN you give them the Sledge-O-Matic! 

YESSSSSS that will be done 

Make sure they have written on them "Bugle Boy" and you'll see the suicide rate take a peak upwards.

[Specmaster]

Yea, I was aware that Stan had passed. The old Tek guard is passing into history. First it was Dean Kidd and now Stan. I had posted a few weeks ago that Stan was ill and he put his collection up for sale and the audiophool tube raiders just about raped every piece of the equipment of their vacuum tubes. 

What the hell. Why. 

I know. I've been staying away from CL as much as possible and didn't hear about the sale until too late. A friend of mine, who attended, said most of the tubes were taken out of the gear and the plugins left behind. If that is true, the family will have to pay for scrapping all the now unusable electronics, which sucks.

Why if as it was reported earlier, these tubes are still being made, why not use those instead?

[grizewald]

All this audiophoolery stuff is about bragging rights and has very little to do with how things sound.

Maybe some of them have a really bad case of confirmation bias, but if you injected most audiophools with some sodium thiopental and asked them why they spent a normal man's yearly wage on a power cord, I'm pretty sure they'd say it was so that they could boast about it.

I'm with the rest of the engineers in saying that all I want from my HiFi is a flatline response from 10Hz to 20KHz.

Most older amplifiers have treble and bass controls. I've never really seen the point of these, much less of a graphic equaliser. If the recording is good, if the medium is good and the amp and speakers are good, there is absolutely no need for any of this frippery. The only thing a good HiFi system needs in the way of controls on the amplifier is a volume control and that's it.

Don't even get me started on how degraded most people's hearing is once they've passed 40. After experiencing what certain platinum based chemotherapy drugs do to your hearing, I'm actually quite amazed that to my subjective impression, my hearing has recovered completely! But, just like when the floaters in my vision multiplied a hundredfold when I had my first vitreous detachment, I can no longer see them. I'm sure my very adaptable brain managed to work around what the chemo did to my hearing as well.

[med6753]

Now that I got myself all fired up and full of piss and vinegar I'm going to rip into the 535A and scan it for Mullard's and Bugle Boys. If I find any I'm going to tear them out like a dentist pulling a wisdom tooth and throw them on Ebay for $500/ea and make a killing.

[WastelandTek]

I defy any of these audio jerks to tell an audible difference between a run of the mill RCA 12AX7 and an Amperex 12AX7. 99.9% of them can't. It's all in their pea brain head. 

Love you man, but really... this is just not so.

That kind of money, it's not audiophools that are the end-market; it's probably guitarheads and other professional musicians. In that application, they DO make a difference; they don't make them the same way anymore because hand-fab vs automated. Old-production Amperex 12AX7s are sought after for fuzzboxes AND analog synthesizers. They are ALSO sought after as preamp tubes because their construction does alter the sound in that the low-mid and mid are accentuated, adding "warmth" without the distortion that running through a bandpass filter causes.

However, MOST audiophools aren't going to spend that kind of money on these choobs, as typically 4 are needed for a stereo rig, and then you have to buy finals and even more 12AX7s for the tone control circuits if your preamp design has it.

I don't condone robbing vintage test equipment for these tubes; but CONSTANTLY repeating the mantra that it's ALL in their heads really does make us all sound like the old farts & hobos that we disdain about hamfests.

If you want people to believe you know better, you need to NOT repeat ignorance like this about EVERY TIME you hear folks raping gear for valves. All it does is reinforce the "What The Fuckever" attitude in those circles.

And before y'all dogpile me with pages of ridiculous adverts of moronic products featuring these precious artifacts... remember that there are a LOT MORE people selling this shit than there are people buying; literally 90% of the "product" we refer to as audiophool gear is vaporware: It does not even exist UNTIL someone buys one.

mnem
*puttin on muh flameproof jammies*

I wasn't going to wade in, but yeah.  If you don't believe there is a tonal difference between a current production chinesium tube and a top quality old production tube in an intentionally nonlinear application I don't know what to tell you.

I'm the first one to cry foul on monster cables and all that nonsense, and the destruction of classic test gear is unconscionable, but to claim that all valves are equal in an overdriven guitar preamp is simply ignorant.

That said, yes, there is a lot of confirmation bias, and a lot of uninformed circlejerking, AND a lot of overhyped marketing wank in this space.  I am forever on again with the guitar guys here about the variables they are not considering; variations between batches, between individual assemblies, tube age, the circuit it is in (power supply sag is a huuge issue here as it effectively causes a kind of compression ), etc. etc.

I always try to explain to them that the magic they are looking for is NOT in the paint on the outside of the tube...I am not particularly popular with Rod Dill.

(I personally run a cheap transistor head from the late 80s, straight up LED symmetrical clipping, it sounds great)

[Martin.M]

Nailed it. If I see a cheap classic guitar amp I’m going to eviscerate it on YouTube and crush the audio tubes. 

I wouldn't do that. It's not the fault of the tubes, that some human beings are that stupid.
I would build instead a nice oscillator or a measurement bridge, similar to the one in the
R&S URU BN 1080 (it is using a E88CC) just to show those tube vultures,
what REAL engineers can do with vacuum tubes. 

a really bad subject: tube vultures.

[mnementh]

That kind of money, it's not audiophools that are the end-market; it's probably guitarheads and other professional musicians. In that application, they DO make a difference; they don't make them the same way anymore because hand-fab vs automated. Old-production Amperex 12AX7s are sought after for fuzzboxes AND analog synthesizers. They are ALSO sought after as preamp tubes because their construction does alter the sound in that the low-mid and mid are accentuated, adding "warmth" without the distortion that running through a bandpass filter causes.

I'm curious. How does a (passive) bandfilter add any k2, k3 ... kn distortion to a signal? The "warmth" or "singin' " as for example in Gary Moore's playing can be heard ("Still got the blues") comes definitely from the k2 distortion of the tubes, which is very typical for triodes (not so for pentodes).

I'm not talking about harmonic distortion, I'm talking about undesired shaping of the tonal quality of the music; specifically the HiFi wonk aspect. Folks who are into this shit can and have demonstrated (with signal processing gear that can show it beat for beat) that the effect of these tubes is really different; it is dynamic and not as indiscriminate as a tone control bandpass filter. THIS is why the old production tubes are sought after for preamps. Do your research; you'll see.

I don't condone robbing vintage test equipment for these tubes; but CONSTANTLY repeating the mantra that it's ALL in their heads really does make us all sound like the old farts & hobos that we disdain about hamfests.

If it is not in their heads, then you can measure it. If you can't measure it, then it is imho audiophoolery. I do believe in the laws of physics since they are reliable and repeatable. Not so with this marketing babble of a big lot of these audiophools. And I'm staying all the time behind a flat frequency response between 20 and 20kHz and a zero degree phase between the same frequency band. All other saying is nuts and foolish. Imho.

Again... folks who mix music for a living can tell the difference, and can show it. See above.

Exception: If you want to create an effect like this singin' guitar as in Gary Moore's playing. But this is a different playground.

And yet, this is EXACTLY what I was saying. Those particular choobs are being sold to professional musicians "looking for a sound", not to audiophools. Well, okay... they don't give a damn if audiophools want them, but those prices are aimed at pro musicians for sure. Please stop quoting me out of context as if I were saying something I'm NOT. grr. 

If you want people to believe you know better, you need to NOT repeat ignorance like this about EVERY TIME you hear folks raping gear for valves. All it does is reinforce the "What The Fuckever" attitude in those circles.

The ignorance is on their side. They are denying the laws of physics, not us.

No, they are not. These valves behave the way they do in certain circuits, and those circuits are prized because of how they sound. That is just DIFFERENT ASPECTS of the same physics you are used to, being applied to a DIFFERENT STANDARD for audio reproduction. Just because you don't agree with that standard does not make it WRONG.

And before y'all dogpile me with pages of ridiculous adverts of moronic products featuring these precious artifacts... remember that there are a LOT MORE people selling this shit than there are people buying; literally 90% of the "product" we refer to as audiophool gear is vaporware: It does not even exist UNTIL someone buys one.

And this doesn't make things better in any way. Just my 2 cents.

No, it does NOT make it any better. But it's their money, and as long as they're buying the new choobs in box rather than mutilating old TE for them, I couldn't care less.

A Phool and his money are SOME PARTY.

mnem
 

[mnementh]

I have just spoken to someone I know who may be sending me some "desirable audio tubes". They are however knackered i.e. open filament or degraded but none are gassy so it looks like they're good. That may have the desired trolling effect 

edit: I'm going to just chuck them on the ground outside 

Do it up...! Plant them in the ground... paint faces on them and little hats... maybe a couple wearing headphones and playing a guitar...   

mnem
THEN you give them the Sledge-O-Matic! 

YESSSSSS that will be done 

And don't forget to post video on social media; bonus points if you can get some high-speed footage of the moment of impact!  Then, of course, you MUST post links to it on that video from D-Labs. 

mnem
*Current mood: agitating-ily*

[mnementh]

I defy any of these audio jerks to tell an audible difference between a run of the mill RCA 12AX7 and an Amperex 12AX7. 99.9% of them can't. It's all in their pea brain head. 

Love you man, but really... this is just not so.

That kind of money, it's not audiophools that are the end-market; it's probably guitarheads and other professional musicians. In that application, they DO make a difference; they don't make them the same way anymore because hand-fab vs automated. Old-production Amperex 12AX7s are sought after for fuzzboxes AND analog synthesizers. They are ALSO sought after as preamp tubes because their construction does alter the sound in that the low-mid and mid are accentuated, adding "warmth" without the distortion that running through a bandpass filter causes.

However, MOST audiophools aren't going to spend that kind of money on these choobs, as typically 4 are needed for a stereo rig, and then you have to buy finals and even more 12AX7s for the tone control circuits if your preamp design has it.

I don't condone robbing vintage test equipment for these tubes; but CONSTANTLY repeating the mantra that it's ALL in their heads really does make us all sound like the old farts & hobos that we disdain about hamfests.

If you want people to believe you know better, you need to NOT repeat ignorance like this about EVERY TIME you hear folks raping gear for valves. All it does is reinforce the "What The Fuckever" attitude in those circles.

And before y'all dogpile me with pages of ridiculous adverts of moronic products featuring these precious artifacts... remember that there are a LOT MORE people selling this shit than there are people buying; literally 90% of the "product" we refer to as audiophool gear is vaporware: It does not even exist UNTIL someone buys one.

mnem
*puttin on muh flameproof jammies*

I wasn't going to wade in, but yeah.  If you don't believe there is a tonal difference between a current production chinesium tube and a top quality old production tube in an intentionally nonlinear application I don't know what to tell you.

I'm the first one to cry foul on monster cables and all that nonsense, and the destruction of classic test gear is unconscionable, but to claim that all valves are equal in an overdriven guitar preamp is simply ignorant.

That said, yes, there is a lot of confirmation bias, and a lot of uninformed circlejerking, AND a lot of overhyped marketing wank in this space.  I am forever on again with the guitar guys here about the variables they are not considering; variations between batches, between individual assemblies, tube age, the circuit it is in (power supply sag is a huuge issue here as it effectively causes a kind of compression ), etc. etc.

I always try to explain to them that the magic they are looking for is NOT in the paint on the outside of the tube...I am not particularly popular with Rod Dill.

(I personally run a cheap transistor head from the late 80s, straight up LED symmetrical clipping, it sounds great)

My point being: There is a LOT of phoolery and BS on THEIR side of the argument. Compounding that with willful ignorance on our side only makes us look like different but equal phools in our own right; it does NOT solve the core problem at hand:

Dumb fuckers looking to make a quick buck destroying TE by carelessly dismantling it for valves, the great majority of which are NOT the precious few that are a) actually what is sought after, and 2) in good enough health to serve under the abusive conditions those choobs are sought for. 

mnem
  I'll give you $5 for that glass of lemonade RIGHT NOW. $10 for a glass of Iced TEA.

[mnementh]

Now that I got myself all fired up and full of piss and vinegar I'm going to rip into the 535A and scan it for Mullard's and Bugle Boys. If I find any I'm going to tear them out like a dentist pulling a wisdom tooth and throw them on Ebay for $500/ea and make a killing.

Don't you mean BULGE Boy...?

mnem
Heh heh... heh heh... he sed bulge... heh heh...

[Wolfgang]

This whole discussion about tubes, audiophoolery and what not the tubes can do to your ears are a bit silly, IMHO.
The main problem is that tubes are high-impedance devices, and speakers are just the opposite. 

But now this problem has been solved - by a long forgotten russian tube that can drive your speakers like nothing (45kV, 90A).
Its the GMI-2B, a must have. It adds glamour to your shack, leaves your fellow audiophools gasping with envy and it will also heat your flat.

You need it. Badly.