Vacuum Tubes Gallery

No gadget & tech site would be complete with a nice old fashioned Vacuum Tube (or Electron Tube) section. Only very recently has solid state electronics surpassed the performance of vacuum tubes in most fields. But still, to this day, vacuum tubes are still preferred in some areas. Audiophiles, if they can afford it, & find them prefer vacuum tube amplifiers, or preamplifiers. Many modern guitar amplifiers, like Marshal, & Fender amplifiers have vacuum tubes. If you have a traditional standard (CRT) television or monitor, you're staring in the face of a vacuum tube.

If you're lucky enough to have a good vacuum tube amplifier, or did during it's era, there was a bit of fun associated with that vacuum tube equipment. The good ones had a cage around the tube area, or the tubes were totally exposed. One could see them warmly glowing red, orange or yellow. If you dimmed the lights one could see a purple high voltage corona glowing in the tubes, flickering in unison with the music. With the glows, & the shiny glass, they resembled some sort of expensive jewelry.

If the equipment was big, you can turn down the heat because the vacuum tubes could heat the room.

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