what makes vacuum tubes the better choice for some application (most notably an amp for music) over more modern options?
In: Engineering
At least in the area of musical instrument amplification it’s more traditional and aesthetics with a little bit of component properties. People generally refer to tube amps as sounding ‘warmer’ or distorting pleasantly, which is often the case, but it’s less about the tubes and more about the circuit they’re in. It’s possible to make an appreciably similar amplifier with transistors but it’d be as big and bulky as a tube one, except without all the pretty glass tubes to look at.
Outside of music, vacuum tubes have some other uses. The magnetron that makes your microwave function is a vacuum tube. As is the display used in cathode ray televisions (aka CRTs). Vacuum tubes are pretty good at directing and aiming electromagnetic waves, and they still see use in areas where this is desirable.
Latest Answers