The Surprisingly Long Life of the Vacuum Tube • Hacker News Board

Re: The Surprisingly Long Life of the Vacuum Tube

#11

Post by cogman10 » Tue, May 12, 2026, 4:25 PM UTC

chromacity wrote: post #9

I think this is an odd article. It mixes together a variety of technologies that have little in common (gas discharge tubes, CRTs). It doesn't really say anything about the operation of vacuum tubes, their advantages, or disadvantages. And doesn't even really support its own thesis. The reign of vacuum tubes lasted for less than the reign of the transistor and is in no way unusual in the world of electronics. There a…

There's really not benefits to vacuum tubes pretty much anywhere. The only place I can think of where they are superior (which may not be true anymore) is high power transmission in, for example, radio and radar towers.

In all other applications transistors will be superior. Especially because any problem from a transistor can be fixed by adding more transistors until the problem is gone or imperceptible.

The audiophile purists are using pseudo-intelectualism to justify a superiority complex. They frequently fail double blind tests whenever push comes to shove. The most famous example of this was them being incapable of telling the difference between a coat-hanger and a premium cable.

Re: The Surprisingly Long Life of the Vacuum Tube

#12

Post by boring-human » Tue, May 12, 2026, 4:25 PM UTC

adrian_b wrote: post #10

boring-human wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to mention the cost of the gold-plated audiophile cables to wire it...

Vacuum-tube amplifiers are not in the same class with techniques that are unlikely to have any perceptible influence on what you hear. Among amplifiers that are not perfectly neutral, vacuum-tube amplifiers subjectively seem more pleasant. Moreover, while an electronic audio amplifier made with modern components can be made perfectly neutral when terminated on a resistive load, i.e. it can reproduce any input signal…

> Vacuum-tube amplifiers are not in the same class with techniques that are unlikely to have any perceptible influence on what you hear.

I don't disagree. Not in the same class, but the audience overlaps.

> one could make a modern amplifier reproduce any quirky behavior of vacuum tubes, e.g. a higher and frequency-variable impedance or certain kinds of distortions, but usually nobody bothers to do this, because it would be expensive

In other words, the willingness to pay for OG tube amplifiers exceeds the willingness to pay for the sound thereof. I'm not sure you disagree with me either.

Re: The Surprisingly Long Life of the Vacuum Tube

#13

Post by cogman10 » Tue, May 12, 2026, 4:30 PM UTC

Aurornis wrote: post #5

drfuchs wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kind of astonishing that they managed to retain the institutional / folk knowledge to be able to create a new vacuum tube product, never mind the machinery and inputs to manufacture them.

There have been multiple companies coming back to try to make small batches of vacuum tubes. It’s not a mysterious process that depends on arcane knowledge. It does require some tooling and process refinement, but the only real obstacle is getting enough demand to pay off the investment in tooling and process refinement.

It's basically the same process as making an incandescent lightbulb. Which is why vacuum tubes took off in the first place. It's more parts and more metal working, for sure. But really it's shaping and dealing with thin films and a vacuum chamber.

The hard part is precision.

Re: The Surprisingly Long Life of the Vacuum Tube

#14

Post by bregma » Tue, May 12, 2026, 4:52 PM UTC

cogman10 wrote: post #11

chromacity wrote: post #9

I think this is an odd article. It mixes together a variety of technologies that have little in common (gas discharge tubes, CRTs). It doesn't really say anything about the operation of vacuum tubes, their advantages, or disadvantages. And doesn't even really support its own thesis. The reign of vacuum tubes lasted for less than the reign of the transistor and is in no way unusual in the world of electronics. There a…

There's really not benefits to vacuum tubes pretty much anywhere. The only place I can think of where they are superior (which may not be true anymore) is high power transmission in, for example, radio and radar towers. In all other applications transistors will be superior. Especially because any problem from a transistor can be fixed by adding more transistors until the problem is gone or imperceptible. The audioph…

I disagree. There is nothing in the digitally sampled and modelled world comparable to plugging your guitar into a hot over-driven tube amp and showing the feedback who's the boss. Pure analog transistors don't give that luscious even harmonic distortion and usually just clip like a meth-addled dog stylist in a poodle-grooming station.

Re: The Surprisingly Long Life of the Vacuum Tube

#15

Post by HPsquared » Tue, May 12, 2026, 5:00 PM UTC

They are robust in their own way. Resistant to radiation, EMP and static electricity. Just don't drop them.

Re: The Surprisingly Long Life of the Vacuum Tube

#16

Post by n_kr » Tue, May 12, 2026, 5:09 PM UTC

bregma wrote: post #14

cogman10 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's really not benefits to vacuum tubes pretty much anywhere. The only place I can think of where they are superior (which may not be true anymore) is high power transmission in, for example, radio and radar towers. In all other applications transistors will be superior. Especially because any problem from a transistor can be fixed by adding more transistors until the problem is gone or imperceptible. The audioph…

I disagree. There is nothing in the digitally sampled and modelled world comparable to plugging your guitar into a hot over-driven tube amp and showing the feedback who's the boss. Pure analog transistors don't give that luscious even harmonic distortion and usually just clip like a meth-addled dog stylist in a poodle-grooming station.

As a guitarist with over 30 years of playing, and owner of many tube and non-tube amps, I disagree. Even experienced guitarist cannot reliably distinguish between transistor and tube circuits in a blind test. Having said that, if only the knowledge of playing a tube amp gives someone a better experience, even if its not empirically distinguishable, thats a perfectly valid reason to prefer it.

Re: The Surprisingly Long Life of the Vacuum Tube

#17

Post by tempaccount5050 » Tue, May 12, 2026, 5:16 PM UTC

cogman10 wrote: post #11

chromacity wrote: post #9

I think this is an odd article. It mixes together a variety of technologies that have little in common (gas discharge tubes, CRTs). It doesn't really say anything about the operation of vacuum tubes, their advantages, or disadvantages. And doesn't even really support its own thesis. The reign of vacuum tubes lasted for less than the reign of the transistor and is in no way unusual in the world of electronics. There a…

There's really not benefits to vacuum tubes pretty much anywhere. The only place I can think of where they are superior (which may not be true anymore) is high power transmission in, for example, radio and radar towers. In all other applications transistors will be superior. Especially because any problem from a transistor can be fixed by adding more transistors until the problem is gone or imperceptible. The audioph…

Eh. As far as instrument amps go, it's not about perfect fidelity. It's about color and distortion. You'd never say "perfectly white lights are the best for your living room." No one actually wants a perfect white light, people want some more yellow in there because it looks better. The goal isn't equal spectrum coverage or whatever. People like the non-linearity of tubes and that's ok.

Re: The Surprisingly Long Life of the Vacuum Tube

#18

Post by robotresearcher » Tue, May 12, 2026, 5:40 PM UTC

adrian_b wrote: post #10

boring-human wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to mention the cost of the gold-plated audiophile cables to wire it...

Vacuum-tube amplifiers are not in the same class with techniques that are unlikely to have any perceptible influence on what you hear. Among amplifiers that are not perfectly neutral, vacuum-tube amplifiers subjectively seem more pleasant. Moreover, while an electronic audio amplifier made with modern components can be made perfectly neutral when terminated on a resistive load, i.e. it can reproduce any input signal…

>In theory, one could make a modern amplifier reproduce any quirky behavior of vacuum tubes, e.g. a higher and frequency-variable impedance or certain kinds of distortions, but usually nobody bothers to do this

Don't almost all transistor guitar amps do this?

Re: The Surprisingly Long Life of the Vacuum Tube

#19

Post by adrian_b » Tue, May 12, 2026, 5:42 PM UTC

boring-human wrote: post #12

adrian_b wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vacuum-tube amplifiers are not in the same class with techniques that are unlikely to have any perceptible influence on what you hear. Among amplifiers that are not perfectly neutral, vacuum-tube amplifiers subjectively seem more pleasant. Moreover, while an electronic audio amplifier made with modern components can be made perfectly neutral when terminated on a resistive load, i.e. it can reproduce any input signal…

> Vacuum-tube amplifiers are not in the same class with techniques that are unlikely to have any perceptible influence on what you hear. I don't disagree. Not in the same class, but the audience overlaps. > one could make a modern amplifier reproduce any quirky behavior of vacuum tubes, e.g. a higher and frequency-variable impedance or certain kinds of distortions, but usually nobody bothers to do this, because it wo…

As a child, I have used some very good vacuum-tube audio amplifiers, which had been built by my father, at a time when they were still the cheapest solution, instead of being a luxury product.

They were excellent, so I feel nostalgia remembering them, and I would like to experience again listening through such an amplifier. Nevertheless, if I had so many thousands of $ to spare, I would rather buy some memory modules ... :-(

When I was young I made a few unusual transistor power audio amplifiers, e.g. with the output transistors biased in class A and designed for high output impedance instead of low output impedance. I was very satisfied with their sound and some of them resembled more some vacuum-tube amplifiers than typical transistor-based audio amplifiers.

However, despite their high audio quality they would have been completely impractical as commercial products, because they needed very big power supplies and they produced an enormous amount of heat. Semiconductor devices are much more difficult to cool than vacuum tubes, for the same amount of heat (because the temperature limit for the former is much lower than for the latter).

Nowadays, switching amplifiers can cover all the audio bandwidth with excellent energy efficiency. With an appropriate combination of linear and non-linear feedbacks, one could reproduce both the distortions and the output impedance of vacuum triodes, to make an amplifier hard to distinguish from true vacuum-tube amplifiers.

Re: The Surprisingly Long Life of the Vacuum Tube

#20

Post by globnomulous » Tue, May 12, 2026, 5:46 PM UTC

adrian_b wrote: post #10

boring-human wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to mention the cost of the gold-plated audiophile cables to wire it...

Vacuum-tube amplifiers are not in the same class with techniques that are unlikely to have any perceptible influence on what you hear. Among amplifiers that are not perfectly neutral, vacuum-tube amplifiers subjectively seem more pleasant. Moreover, while an electronic audio amplifier made with modern components can be made perfectly neutral when terminated on a resistive load, i.e. it can reproduce any input signal…

> It is not at all clear which should be the output impedance of the amplifier as a function of frequency to ensure the least degradation of the sounds in comparison with the input signal.

> So it may happen that a vacuum-tube amplifier - loudspeaker system has actually a better overall fidelity than a typical audio amplifier that was designed to demonstrate a much higher fidelity on a resistive load (because thus the transfer function is easy to measure and correct, unlike the complete transfer function to sounds).

I don't know the electrical engineering at all, but I thought that this was a solved problem -- or that the degradation and mismatch were effectively negligible, well below the point of inaudibility.