What is the most powerful audio output tube?

The ex-Soviet version GU-48 are pretty cheap on eBay...

May not be the best sounding result if you're going for audiophoolery. Low-mu triodes with the grid voltages negative would be best then, or AB1 beam tubes, maybe.

On Thursday, December 8, 2016 at 10:20:51 AM UTC-5, boomer#...@none.com wro te:

Long time ago we used to run 10KW into a vibrator made by Altec (the speake r company). The two tubes were ceramic with clamps instead of pins, sitting in a water jacket. The water went to a cooling tower on the roof. The vibr ator was basicaly a giant speaker coli made of copper tubing with coolant f lowing thru it. Also a by de-gaussing coil. They glowed the coolest red.

It seems to me that the most economical approach to having a tube sounding high power amp would be to build a low power tube amplifier to get the soun d desired and follow that with a high fidelity high power class D amplifier . That would give you the sound wanted and not have the problems of a high power tube ampliier. Of course you would have to add a lot of weight to m ake it suitable for some people.

Dan

I'm not sold on the fidelity of class D amps (but maybe I'm behind the times).

Toob purists won't sign up for it unless there's a toob in there.

Audiophools never are. ;-)

Or have oxygen-free, Litz, speaker cables.

sufficient? "

But that is class C. not quite audiophile I would say.

That reminds me of a shake table a local company, the amplifier at least made by Altec (LTV Ling) with noise generator and many channels of graphic EQ to adjust the shake spectrum. Pretty darn impressive.

Lots of power but don't remember how much if I ever did know...

boB

Old style amplitude modulated transmitter consisted of high power audio amplifier (class AB/B) driving the primary of the modulation transformer. The secondary was connected between the V+ supply and the anode of the RF tube. This effectively varied the anode voltage of the class-C RF tube and hence varied the RF output in accordance with the audio waveform.

The modulation audio amplifier tube and the RF tube had similar power ratings.

It uses 6 x 6550s or KT88s to get a genuine 435W rms.

Very clever output stage set up, with transformer drive and multiple secondaries each supplying 1/3 of the power.

.... Phil

For 100% plate modulation, the audio amplifier output power must be one-half the input power of the Class C power amplifier. In addition, the Class C amplifier must be dimensioned so that it is able to provide the modulation peak power (4 times carrier power) with double carrier-level plate voltage.

Best regards, Piotr

I had one of these in my collection:

sold it on ebay to some audio guy for lot of money :)

The heater alone consumes 90 watts.

piglet

nice!

I think you are fighting a losing battle here. About 10 or 20 years ago I wrote to the editors of the RSGB magazine complaining about "RMS power" being used in an article they published and they refused to publish my letter, apparently on the grounds that I was a boring pedant. Admittedly AM does get a bit complicated when the peak RF power of an AM transmitter is a real power (not an instaneous peak of a sinewave) whereas it represents the peak of an audio waveform of which the power is not determined by the level of this peak. But there is still no such thing as RMS power.

NT

that.

"only" ~12kW, a couple of BIG stick welders and you are getting there :)