Tube Lab

I go over the basics of how cables are made up and what's important. And remember great sounding cables do not need to cost a fortune - they do not!
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[@MusiclyricsByECDaleyC]

Thank you, very much enjoyed your insight here!

[@cobar5342]

Hmmm ... you have just converted me from solid core to stranded. Thanks... again You are quite right about international prices on US parts. Here in Australia we really have to buy locally to be economically viable

[@NosEL34]

Great vid. I picked up a pair of the smoked glass RCA JAN CRC 12sn7GT tubes last week. A family member deals in antiques and will come across tubes every so often. The tubes are from 1943..just the original tube boxes are beautiful to look at. They looked perfect (other than the coloring) & like they had been undisturbed for the last 80 years.

[@Stelios.Posantzis]

15:35 - 16:20 All very valid points - I agree totally. Balanced connections are for studio gear, external application and I don't know what else. The point is, it is used out of necessity, not preference, in situations where the signal is subject to degradation due to significant external disturbances and factors. Studios and external sound installations have tons of gear. No businessman wants to double their cost of everything just for the sake of it or for an only slightly perceptible improvement in their end product unless they can charge millions or thousands of dollars to their willing clients for it. That's certainly not the case for most budget home audio gear owners.

[@tubelab194]

For years now I've been pushing back against the home audio trend to switch over to balanced equipment and this is the first time someone has written in support of this. Thank you!

[@Stelios.Posantzis]

You know, I didn't know either and was puzzled for years but while searching on the Internet I came across opinions from professionals in the music industry and others who offered this opinion. There are of course plenty of home audio equipment with balanced connections, such as Accurate and others, but going this route quickly becomes a very expensive hobby. I think that even at this level, these companiess can offer such products because of the abundance of good quality, inexpensive op-amps. Otherwise, the cost would simply skyrocket.

[@Stelios.Posantzis]

18:00 I cannot understand why there is currently no USA (or UK, German or other Western European) electron valve manufacturer given the resurgence of these devices in the audio industry and the fact that the demand for them never died in the professional music industry. One would think that with today's technology, manufacturing processes would bring the cost even lower and quality even higher than the best NOS devices out there. It would also help cure the craze for "more watts" pestering home audio consumers. In the end, good transistor gear and good electron valve gear cost roughly the same, weigh roughly the same and produce roughly the same heat - give or take. The main advantage of valve gear as I see it is that established valve types are significantly fewer and much more standardised than transistor types which nearly always guarantees one can find replacements thirty, forty, fifty or more years down the line - enough to pass on one's gear to one's grandchildren and great-grandchildren! I mean it's not about cost of production or cost of setting up a new factory. If you see the number of specialised car accessories or third party part manufacturers, these industries are not cheap to set up yet there exist tons of them! Why can't it be the same for electron valves?