AOpen Debuts The Funniest Motherboard Ever

Anonymous Coward X-11 writes "Has AOpen gone flipping nuts by putting vacuum tubes on its motherboards? AX4B-533Tube No, it's not replacing logic ICs with discrete components. The tubes are part of the on board audio. Not sure if they are serious about this. April 1 was two months ago." As an owner of a tube headphone amplifier I applaud AOpen's move to accomodate the high-end audio enthusiast, while simultaneous wondering about the ability of a switched psu to properly drive a tube amplification stage cleanly. There's no way this is for real, right? Right? Here's a link that seems to work pretty well. And this looks pretty, well, real. Update: /. reader Jedi1USA noted that HardOCP has more pics of the board.

Comments

My dad says...

[ColGraff]

My dad claims that some people like the sound of vacuum tube amps, so maybe this isn't nuts. But how do they deal with unfortunate tendency of vacuum tubes to burn out?

who are they kidding?

[hifizen]

As an audiophile and electrical engineer, I can tell you that no serious music (tech) lover will take this seriously. It's common knowledge amongst audiophiles that high quality audio can only be reproduced outside the electrically noisy environment inside a PC case. But more than that, audiophiles are a particular, fussy lot, and they all have their own preferences for this tube type or that.

Who are you kidding, AOpen? Leave the high-end audio to the specialists, and leave it off your mobo!

Websurfing done right! StumbleUpon

Re:Ding Ding Ding....

[scumm]

I'm not a semi-serious guitar players, I'm a pretty overly serious guitar player, and these guys are almost entirely correct.

Since the late 70's (for the most part - some have never bothered to change) venues have tended to use solid state amplification for sound reinforcement, for the reasons listed above - more efficient power consumption, more reliable, etc.

For guitars, tube amps just sound better. Digital modelling, etc., all try to REPRODUCE the sound of a tube amps, not best it. That's fairly telling. The reasons tube amps sound better for guitars are varied, but are mostly centered around overdriving the amp. The distortion comes on very smoothly as you roll the volume up, and responds to dynamics much better.

For home stereo? Some of the best audiophile home stereos I've heard have been tube (mid 70's Marantz gear), and some have been transistor (late 70's Marantz gear). But tube amps are just NOT cost effective anymore, and almost all of the supposed advantages are just audiophile snobbery.

Another problem with current tube amps is the downright sorry state of tubes. You have to search REALLY hard to find a really high quality 6L6, 12AX7, or EL34 nowadays, and those are the most common used in amplifiers. Hell, the only place to find really high quality ones, like Mullards or Telefunkens I've found is eBay. And they're expensive.

Remember, audiophiles don't listen to music, they listen to noise, and therefore souldn't be taken seriously.

Re:Pictures

[n6mod]

For the less tube savvy out there, that means it is a preamp that can drive six channels.

Uhh, no. It's a dual triode. That means it has two sections each of which have three electrodes. Those three electrodes are Plate, Grid, and Cathode, which map roughly to Emitter, Base, and Collector. (I think...it's been a while) Actually, I suppose Source, Gate, and Drain are more appropriate, this being a GloFET.

In any case, there are two devices, not six, so you get two channels, not six. In fact, I'm pretty sure the 6DJ8 was designed for balanced operation, not stereo. For the less tube savvy out there, that means it was designed for one channel, not two.