USB vacuum tube amplifier!

[4seasonphoto]

Just scored one of these on eBay, for about 1/2 of the price listed on the website:

http://teconaudio.com/model_55.html

I've wanted an itty bitty stereo tube amplifier for some time, and I can't homebrew a chassis as nice as this one. I may use it as the computer sound system, or even as basis for downsizing my main system.

 

[aphetica]

That's really cool.

 

[Bunsen]

Sweet! Just don't play any 64kb MP3s through it - such a waste

 

[mboconnell]

Just don't play any 64kb MP3s through it - such a waste

Agreed, I scored about 10 years of Electronics Now magazine, and one of the projects they listed was a Tube head amplifier for your CD player. If anyone wants a copy of the article, i'd be glad to scan it.

 

[Christopher]

Can someone tell me why when I was at some high end electronics shop, they had 160kbps playing through their systems and it sounded like 64kb. Whats the deal?

 

[benjgvps]

Can someone tell me why when I was at some high end electronics shop, they had 160kbps playing through their systems and it sounded like 64kb. Whats the deal?

Well, you don't get 160 coming out of each speaker, it is split up. For example A 128kbs song comes out as two 64kbs feeds.

 

[4seasonphoto]

Sweet! Just don't play any 64kb MP3s through it - such a waste

No worries, I ripped everything as Apple Lossless, which is full-quality but 1/2 the space. Wish Apple supported FLAC too.

 

[wthww]

Tell me about it! I re-reipped most of my music collection into flac.

Also, theres a song thats perfect for the OP. Toob amplifie - The Presidents of the U.S.A.



//wthww

 

[t3h]

Can someone tell me why when I was at some high end electronics shop, they had 160kbps playing through their systems and it sounded like 64kb. Whats the deal?

Well, you don't get 160 coming out of each speaker, it is split up. For example A 128kbs song comes out as two 64kbs feeds.

Umm, joint stereo?

 

[Anonymous Freak]

heh. I had finished ripping my entire 200+ CD collection into MP3 when Apple came out with AAC.

I had just finished re-ripping as 256 Kb/s AAC when Apple came out with Apple Lossless.

I haven't gotten around to re-ripping again... Partly due to the fact that only the shuffle supports automatic downsampling, and I don't feel like having two copies of all of my music. (As it is, my AAC collection is about 25 GB. If I re-ripped all my CDs as lossless, my iTunes Library wouldn't fit on the external hard drive I have it on.)

 

[TylerEss]

I don't worry too much about audio quality of MP3s. I rip everything I get new as 160Kbps MP3s, but I don't play MP3s when I want to sit down and pay careful attention to listening to music. I have LPs for that.

For just background music when I'm working or whatever, I find the quality of MP3s to almost always be good enough. Of course, it's a matter of taste.

I wonder about the vacuum tube USB amp... is the DAC really good and clean? It'd be kinda silly to feed a harsh, nasty DAC output full of HF garbage into a fancy tube stage...

 

[4seasonphoto]

It arrived Friday morning!

Very stoutly made of good quality materials, but fit 'n finish are a "B" mostly due to small blemishes and a couple of screw heads which didn't lie quite flush. I did some minor detailing, and it looks fine now.

Unboxing:

http://idisk.mac.com/fourseason7444-Public/tecon1.jpg

Size comparison:

http://idisk.mac.com/fourseason7444-Public/tecon2.jpg

Interior:

http://idisk.mac.com/fourseason7444-Public/tecon3.jpg

The DAC board is the inverted card on the righthand side. If voltage is sensed on the USB connector, a relay switches over from the RCA jacks to the DAC.

So far, sonics are not bad at all! I spent a few hours last night listening to tunes I had ripped as Apple Lossless and sent via USB, and it certainly wasn't thin or harsh-sounding--gotta give the engineers at Burr-Brown some credit here.

I also downloaded a free sampler (USA only, sorry) of high quality tunes from here, and this also sounded good (sonically anyhow):

http://www.hdtracks.com/