Vacuum Tube Audio OnBoard

[Old sptw]

Wow :eek: Aopen AX4B-533Tube with VACUUM TUBE AUDIO OUTPUT.Take a look on it guys:

[Player0]

Think there is another post around here about that. I said it before, its the silliest idea ive ever seen in my life.

[dicki]

now that is sweet

just when you thought you had enough heat sources in your computer...

[MrP]

Now that board i really do like :)

if they did one for an AMD chip, i could see a nice comparison comming on.

On board sound V's
Sound blaster Live V's
Sound blaster audigy V's
the tubes on that board.

all connected to a nice reference setup, say £200 CD Player, £500 Amp and £4-500 of speakers

would be a nice change :)
bet the tubes glowing would also look rather nice with a neon light and a window in the side of your case

toodles :xsofa:

[mdzcpa]

Heat and other drawbacks aside, what do you guys think the tube would really do for sound quality?

[Farabomb]

The audiophiles will say it sounds "warmer" something that would get lost behind the sound of a whiring delta. It's a nice idea but it's more of a gimick than anything else imho.

My computer sounds good but my stereo still sound better.

[dicki]

yeah some people will claim it sounds warmer... i'm not convinced myself... i prefer my sound to be crisp... give me a linn / quad pre-power amp combo any day :D

dicki

[nitan]

dicki...when i can measure money in inches (inches of £50 notes :D) i will buy u a nice setup :p

nitan :)

[Player0]

Heres the funny thing. The tube is supposed to sound warmer because its an analog amplifier, versus a standard digital amplifier (transistor).

But heres the deal...it only works for an analog signal in the first place. A guitar or a record player, etc. But the computer is going to create digital sound! So there wont be any benefit from the tube!

[MrP]

Originally posted by Player0
But heres the deal...it only works for an analog signal in the first place. A guitar or a record player, etc. But the computer is going to create digital sound! So there wont be any benefit from the tube!

Dont quite agree with that.

every single amp on the markety today adds some of its own "character" to the sound you hear. be this a harsh crisp sound from a mclaren amp, or a warmer/softer sound from a valve amp.

i would still be interested to hear what it sounds like compared, but it also depends on what sound chip they are using in the first place, and what its quality is like

toodles :xsofa:

[Player0]

MrP, I agree, each amp is going to have its own characteristic sound. But that sound HIGHLY depends on the input quality.

The reason transistor amps sound different are because they simply dont react to voltage changes as fast as a tube. What this does to the signal is form jagged edges instead of the soft sweeps of a good tube (some crappy tubes can have similar problems as well but, another story).

My point is, any music generated by a computer, or any DAC, is ALREADY going to have these 'jagged edges'. The tube may be more accurate in reproducing sound,...its just going to reproduce those jagged edges more perfectly!

crappy input x good amp = crappy sound

And so, its pretty worthless. These days, transistors are much better. When I used to build amps for people, I used to use the best transistors with the fastest slew rates I could find. This usually meant using multiple transistors because they had lower amp handling capabilties. There are some people who claim they could hear the difference between the best transistor and best tube amps. Im not sure I beleive them.

Same people who hear the difference between brands of 8 guage speaker wire.

[mackerel]

I have to admit to never having used or heard a valve amp. I believe they're highly regarded as they're supposed to be able to operate linearly. Bipolar transistors are not, but I can't remember about FETs. They're close enough for most, and non linear effects can be reduced in the design. Non linearities result in distortion.

The jaggies from a digital source (DAC) should not be a significant problem. If I recall correctly this has the effect of creating additional spectra repeating at multiples of the sampling rate. This is usually removed by low pass filtering, which has the effect of smoothing out those jaggies. The better the filter, the closer you get to the intended output without loosing detail or introducing noise.

Having said all that, I'm not sure I see the point in having a high end analog amp in a computer. You're in an electrically noisy envionment, and you're sharing a power supply with everything else so you'll need a ton of conditioning adding cost.

If you have a computer and wanted good sound, I think the bet option for many is to use a digital output to feed into real hi-fi kit elsewhere. I use an optical cable to connect to a surround amp. mp3s have never sounded so good. :)

[mackerel]

I'v just been looking around a bit further on Aopen's site.
Spec (http://www.aopen.com/products/mb/ax4b-533tube.htm) Pic (http://www.aopen.com/products/mb/Pax4b-533tube.htm)

Some thoughts occur...

Is this designed to drive speakers directly? It wouldn't make sense to drive an amp since you're then introducing those transistor things back into the sound path.

So assuming you're supposed to connect decent passive speakers to it, the question is how? There's a strange connector like a small version of the ATX power connector nearby which could be it I guess. I hope they wont route it all the way back to the 3.5 mm sockets halfway across the board.

Also, there's only one tube! Can I assume you can get more than one channel in a physical device?

What is the tube fed from? Realtek ALC650 AC’97 CODEC.

'nuff said.

[Shep]

Dear oh dear oh dear :rolleyes:

Valves sound 'warmer' because basically they are smoother.
Where digital has jagged edges, the valve smoothes them, where Amps saturate (reach as high a voltage as are capable then just stop going any higher) valves rise then smoothly levels off at saturation - which not only sounds nicer it it also alot less likley to damage equipment (sharp changes in direction are baaaad).

And mackerel could the valve not be two channel? or more? you can get them.

Also, P0, you sure valves are faster then silicon? seems counter-intuitive to me.

mind you having said that it's still a silly idea - i particularly dont like the idea of a couple hundred volts flying around my mobo.

[mackerel]

Strangely enough, they didn't do valves when I was at Uni. I may be getting old, but not that old... I wonder how having more than one channel in a device would impact isolation between them.

The next thing you know, they're gonna replace your CD drive with a record player. Can you imagine the bragging?

Yeah, it sounds great. I got this 45 rpm single, and overclocked it to 60 rpm! :D

[Player0]

Shep, the tubes/valves certainly do NOT smooth out any signal. Tubes pretty much work at the speed of light, which means the will *very accurately* reproduce sound inputs. That means if there is signal distortion such as DAC jaggies, the tubes are going to reproduce these jaggies almost perfectly.

Its sort of like sampling rate, tubes have a nearly infinite sampling rate. Transistors are much slower, and dont reproduce the fine intricasies of analog sound nearly as well (although, like I said, youd be hard pressed to hear the difference these days I think).

I suppose using a sampling rate of 96khz might work better with the tube, something like the Audigy (which isnt quite true 96). 48khz sampling is about cd-quality, and we all know how the audiophiles complained about that in the past. These are the same guys using the tube amps.

A low/high pass filter won't do much to filter all the jaggies because they occur at all frequencies. Filtering on all bands could smooth out the signal, but this reduces the accuracy of the sound. Besides, at 48khz, your missing a large range of sound which you can never get back by any sort of filtering/smoothing.

[speculative]

Please tell me that isn't a real pic of a vacuum tube on a mobo!! :eek: :rolleyes: :eek:

-speculative