Korg NuTube, vacuum tube for the 21st century

Re:Korg NuTube, vacuum tube for the 21st century by m0zg on Wednesday December 19, 2018 @06:41PM (#18721093)

I wonder if these are any different to JFETs in blind auditions. People have been basically taking old Marshall circuitry and turning it into pedals using J201 JFET transistors. It's a bit of a bear to set up bias for, but the results are impressive enough that there's an entire cottage industry around this by now and some higher end manufacturers (e.g. Bogner Amplification) have jumped on the bandwagon. Needless to say, a JFET is at least an order of magnitude cheaper than this can ever be.

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Re:Korg NuTube, vacuum tube for the 21st century by analog31 on Wednesday December 19, 2018 @08:20PM (#18721723)

The JFET is at a disadvantage from a marketing standpoint, because it faces the burden of proof, and is known to be cheaper. There's an automatic presumption that someone is using it to save money while making compromises to the audio quality. All it takes is one person to proclaim that it doesn't sound exactly like a tube.

In contrast, a 12AX7 is indisputably a tube.

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Re:Korg NuTube, vacuum tube for the 21st century by m0zg on Wednesday December 19, 2018 @10:50PM (#18722359)

But this is not 12ax7. And nutube is a cold cathode tube. There have been attempts to use low-power tubes called nuvistors before. Those are actually more of a tube than nutube, and they failed to get any traction. It's a notoriously fickle market, and tubes are still manufactured in China, Russia, and even in the US, so it's arguable if they need to be "replaced" by some newfangled thing.

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Re:Korg NuTube, vacuum tube for the 21st century by analog31 on Wednesday December 19, 2018 @11:25PM (#18722504)

Indeed, last I checked, a 12AX7 is like 5 bucks in quantity (and I'm no master at low cost sourcing), so it's barely even an economic argument. The guitar amp can't be made much smaller overall because it still needs a speaker.

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Re:Korg NuTube, vacuum tube for the 21st century by wishinghand on Wednesday December 19, 2018 @10:03PM (#18722175)

Which Bogner products are you referring to?

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Re:Korg NuTube, vacuum tube for the 21st century by m0zg on Wednesday December 19, 2018 @10:41PM (#18722315)

Bogner Ecstasy Red and Blue pedals, which aim to duplicate the Red and Blue channels (and the various sub-modes) of the corresponding amps, and do a pretty good job.

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