Toob Amplified PC Speakers

How about using a modern semiconductor IC hidden inside the box and just having a couple of ornamental toobs stuck out the top and glowing. A USB port should just about power two filaments.

BTW is "boat anchor" the US term for tube based or old dead kit?

Heresy!!

...On a related note, large crates of 6AL5s have been known to turn up on eBay, advertised for Xmas lights and other assorted uses.

Big heavy kit anyway. It's not really dead if it still works..?

Toob stuff is generally iron-rich, so it fits well, although some early solid state Tek/HP/radio equipment also fits the bill nicely.

Tim

So I guess it really comes down to... what do you want?

Can you follow a schematic? (I should hope so... :-p ) Is that good enough for you? Do you have the tools to cut/punch holes in sheetmetal to mount sockets, or would you prefer a PCB mounted stuff-it-and-go solution? Would you prefer plans and drawings, or can you handle that seat-of-your-pants style?

If you can afford a kit (and don't want the hassle of fully making something yourself), then that's the way to go.

If you can't afford a kit, but don't have the tools to build a chassis and stuff, you're rather limited, but not screwed. For instance, PCB mount sockets could be dead-bugged on copper clad, just as well as ICs can be.

If cost is a big factor, you're probably better off with transistors. You can get the BOM cost in the $100 range for a basic stereo SE (~3W) amp, but not much less, big costs being the two OPTs and one power transformer. (Edcor and Hammond are the big names in retro audio transformers these days.) If you don't want the hassle of ordering parts and working from a schematic, yeah, you're better off with a kit, which includes NRE and retail markup, and as mentioned earlier, runs you over $200 or so. That price range is basically your pay-to-play range with tubes, unless you've inherited a bounty.

(Oh, and if you want more power on a budget, I have prototype designs for class D tube amplifiers. ;-) )

Tim

You've found out what the old timers knew way back. There's a heap of ancillary stuff required to get a valve to do anything useful. In the 60s I picked up a 4-250A power tube, and couldn't wait to fire it up as a transmitter final. It never got there, the list of other items would have wiped me out.

A buddy has an old stereo console from the ~60's that we got working. Maybe fix up something old? And then you've gotta put on Herb Albert and the Tijuana Brass.

George H.

You're showing my age ;-) ...Jim Thompson

"Boat anchor" includes good stuff too, e.g. most of the instruments in my lab. ;) Just about anything over 20 pounds and 15 years old qualifies, especially if it fits in a 19-inch rack.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

Old 8" hard-drives make good door stops ;-) ...Jim Thompson

It's the term for old radios that glow in the dark and that you shouldn't pick up by yourself for fear of rupturing something.

I dunno if it's US or English-speaking amateur radio parlance, though.

Tim Wescott Inscribed thus:

I belive its US in origin. In the UK we refer to "Doorstops" !

The rule is, to operate a radio on the 80M boatanchor net, it has to weigh more in pounds than it produces out in watts. (Although there are occasional arguments about whether plate input power should be used instead.) This seems a fair line to draw between boatanchor and non-boatanchor sets.

That's the thing about amateur radio, everybody talks to one another so the slang is mostly universal.

--scott

I've seen people point to an issue of "CQ" in the late fifties (when Wayne Greene was editor), a letter or snide remark after a letter. I've seen the bit, I'm not sure if that is the first use or not.

But of course, back then, "boatanchor" I think tended to mean "useless" as well as "heavy". You drag this really neat thing home from the hamfest, only to discover it is completely useless on top of being heavy. So it has no value other than as a boatanchor. SOmething like that.

Amd there was surplus like that. Really heavy items with cases that made them twice as heavy, and not really useful for much even with modifications.

And then a decade or so later, a lot of stuff became "useless" because nobody wanted AM and nobody wanted tubes, and nobody wanted whatever. So the stuff, heavy but not extremely heavy, became boatanchors when few wanted them. And you could get the stuff so cheap. I remember in the early seventies being able to get ahold of all kinds of "junk" because nobody wanted them at the time.

It was only later that "boatanchor" became an affectionate term, when "that old junk" became desirable by people nostalgic for the old days, or for the stuff they couldn't afford when younger. And by then attrition had cleared out some of the supply, suddenly making the old stuff more valuable than it had been decades before when nobody wanted it and there was lots of it.

Michael VE2BVW

Make the speakers electrostatic, and then drive them from the "plates" of high voltage mosfets.

Wont' be so good for the low frequencies, but then a lot of computer speakers arent' good down there anyway, the "subwoofers" not being useful for the actual frequencies where subwoofers kick in.

Michael

So do Liberal trolls. They can hold a 500 Lb door in place.

More like the person who dragged it home, wasn't smart enough to make it work.

Roll your own steampunk-style cabinet around this.

Is toob a brand name? What sort of amps does toob make?

Someone should start a retro amplifier company and call it "Toob". Really. Someone who loves vacuum tube amps, but doesn't suffer much from audiophoolery.

a couple of plastic tube look-a-likes lit with some orange leds and a few IC to do the actual work

;)

-Lasse