tube panasonic

erniejade

http://m.ebay.com/itm/251976824346?nav=SEARCH I know this is car audio but, I wish they would make a home unit that looks like this!!! Check this ebay link and tell me this would not make a killer looking home unit.

mhardy6647

add a 12V power supply and it can be a home component, you know? ;- )

erniejade

I really think this unit looks sharp and I hope they do put it into a home line. Maybe with the technics branding. Maybe I am just wishful thinking. I think its a great looking unit. I am a sucker for a vu and a visable tube on top of that. It just has a classic look to me.

mhardy6647

So... ahem I have nothing against vacuum tubes for hifi ;- )

but...

Overall, I actually do like the asesthetics of this little car hifi (which, indeed, is almost a vintage component now, by modern standards, I think). However, I am not a big fan of the "let's take a tube and put it in a little window up in the front of the component" school of design. It's a little too conspicuously obvious, isn't it?

I am all for the wide open-ness of many (not all) hifi audio vacuum tube power amplifiers...

DSC_0124 by Mark Hardy, on Flickr

...but if a component doesn't have any tubes that are dissipating a lot of heat, they can look just like a solid state component. The difference, of course, comes when you turn the component on :- )

Maybe sort of like a mullet, come to think of it:

Business in the front:

DSC_0246 by Mark Hardy, on Flickr

Party in the back:

DSC_0257 by Mark Hardy, on Flickr

mhardy6647

Naw, mostly odds and ends here -- but -- I know some guys...

mhardy6647

Nope.
Looked - hard - at one at NEAR-Fest last fall, but at 400 smackers it was a little* too pricey for me to care to take a chance on.

(*Naah, actually it was quite a bit too pricey for me)