Thermionic emission has no PN junction voltage drop that solid state components have giving higher quality audio.
Untill recently, well about 15years ago, I was using a Quad 11 set up. This consisted of 2 mono valve (tube) amplifiers which supplied power for the FM radio module and the mixer module and two ancient russian speakers made by Rigonda. sound quality was second to none.
Wife and kids dont appreciate quality and couldn't wait for the system to heat up. Came home one day and found a horrible mass produced 'HI-Fi' thing that just couldn't reproduce anything like depth of sound the Quad 11 could.
Nowadays very few people can even listen to pure audio as everything is stored on pc's or memory cards in mp3 players. Compare an mp3 file to the original played on a turntable and the difference is staggering.
Sorry if I've gone off on a tangent here
Simon
PS I recently picked up two 1950's radios to restore and the seller said he had about 50 tube radios dating from the turn of the century up to the mid sixties that were getting ruined due to damp storage and I could have the lot for a few bucks. Trying to think how to approach the wife on this one.
Last edited by SimonUK; 02/21/10 07:33 AM.
