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RE: not worthy ...

Trial and error have nothing whatsoever to
do with good design.

Good design starts with conservative operating
points that assure that tubes and other parts will last
for years AND NOT CHANGE..

Once those parameters are SET FIRST, then theory and
listening can take place== AFTER reliability has BEEN
GUARANTEED by applying conservative design know-how.

Parts are then found that will deliver outstanding
musical performance WITH THE CONSERVATIVE OPERATING
VALUES THAT ARE SET INTO PLACE FIRST.... before anything
else is done or considered.

The challenge here is to find ways to obtain stellar
performance from ultra-conservative design, which
IS NECESSARY to have good equipment.

I have spent many years using commercial and DIY
tube gear. I never liked any of it.

Why? Performance degrades as tubes age. Reliability
suffers from power boosting crapola such as fixed
bias. Everyone wants high power from tubes.

Sonically, this is simply stupid because TUBES
DON'T LIKE THAT-- even if their plate curves
suggest otherwise. This is just one of several
areas where conventional tube equipment is mostly junk.

Along came solid-state. Once again, engineers ran
parameters based on theory and idealistic demands
which engineers expected the devices to obey. Once
again, the devices DID NOT LIKE what the engineers
were doing with them.

As a result pf this approach, it took almost 50 years
for solid state to finally reproduce music in a
convincing manner. During the last 8 years or so,
solid state equipment has finally achieved a first-ever,
High Fidelity relationship-- to music, not just to theory.

If any of you run autos in racing, or run off-road
equipment, you have spent a lot of money on computer
and SCR failures-- fixing them.

That was another standard, theory-based approach. It
also took 50 years to get a decent automobile computer.

Tube designers don't have to build junk. NO adjustments
are ever needed in truly good equipment. Tubes, in good
equipment, don't get softer and softer as the tubes age.
That is-- not when they are operated right-- and that
seldom agrees-- if ever- with published theory and assumed
correct operating points. Show me a design that sounds and
performs exactly the same after 20 years of use. Day in,
day out, with no tube replacements-- ever, unless one was
defective to start with.

Tubes still sound better-- more lifelike, more real.
You haven't lived until your amps perform like a good
furnace or refrigerator-- never needing anything.......

THAT is what makes your life worthwhile-- worth having
the musical equipment in the home.... when it never calls
attention to itself, but always plays music just like
it did last year, and the year before that, and the
year before that...... and.......on and on.

It's easy to criticize an approach to something when
you don't understand WHY the owner wanted it in the first
place... but you CAN understand-- if you really care enough.

Music is a lifestyle for some people. Building amps is
a totally different lifestyle for tinkerers and builders---

To please amp builders isn't what the amp is supposed
to do. It's best purpose is to play music flawlessly over
many years with NO attention required from its owner..

-Dennis-







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