Getting the Most Out of Vacuum Tubes | Date: 28 April 2011, 10:40
|
These days tube users include some musicians (especially guitarists), audiophiles, antique-electronics collectors, and repair personnel. Any of these types of users could find this book beneficial if he has a familiarity with basic electricity.
The book does not include any introduction to electricity or electronics. Knowing the difference in triodes, pentodes, etc. will help a reader follow this book. The author occasionally uses terms like Class A amplifier, as well. Even so, with just a minimal familiarity with resistance, capacitance, inductance, Ohm's law, and the basic functions and components of tubes (e.g., heaters, cathodes, grids, and anodes), the reader can "get by." Readers can accrue real benefit without understanding everything presented.
The book has a chapter on tube testers that will interest many. The author's position is that testers can identify certain classes of performance anomalies but can't, in general, predict in-circuit performance or project life expectancy. He never makes an assertion without a technical explanation and an example. He covers desirable tester features and offers an interesting review of the four classes of testers as defined by the EIA.
The following examples of subjects covered will illustrate the levels of breadth and depth offered by the book: glass failures, heater failures, arching, getters, spurious emissions, inter-electrode leakage, pin-to-electrode interface resistance, cathode depletion, correlating measurements, quality control, design tolerances, standardization and reliability, hum/microphonics/noise, "why so many tube types" (historical perspective), life expectancy as a function of class of application, many causes of tube stress, how tube testers can stress and even damage tubes, and methods for lengthening tube life. Again, these are just examples. After reading this book, I immediately wanted to modify some of my own electronics, because I realized that a few changes could prolong the lives of some very expensive tubes!
While this book is not the easiest to read, it offers by far, the most in-depth treatment of tube failure modes that I've ever seen. I have a Ph.D. in physics that I acquired during the transition period between tubes and transistors. I still have my "Electronics in Engineering" textbook that was published in 1961, one year after this book. I've worked in areas of physics closely related to the physics of vacuum tubes, and I found no glaring errors in this book. I've been a life-long audiophile, and I'm a small-time antique electronics collector. This book has vastly increased my knowledge and understanding of the details of tube failure. I have to give it five stars, because it is definitely "best in class." It may well have an impact on tube electronics design in the future. Tube users owe a debt of gratitude to the Audio Amateur Press for reprinting it.
PassWord: no password
|
DISCLAIMER:
This site does not store Getting the Most Out of Vacuum Tubes on its server. We only index and link to Getting the Most Out of Vacuum Tubes provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete Getting the Most Out of Vacuum Tubes if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.
|
 |
|
Comments (0)
All
