POTTY PUBLISHING™ PRESENTS

 

THE UNIVERSAL HARMONIC CONVERGENCE: 300B

 

A SERIES OF ARTICLES

ABOUT

THE RE-EMERGENCE OF KING TONE

THE DIRECTLY HEATED TRIODE RENAISSANCE

BY

Dr. Harvey "Gizmo" Rosenberg

aka

THE GUILDMEISTER OF THE TRIODE GUILD

THERMIONIC TECHNO-SHAMAN

 

 

 

 

 

GIVE ME A FEW GOOD MEN

 

This is a story about how a small group of audiomaniacs can move a mountain. This is a story about the emergence of tone as the dialectical balance to digital’s un-tone.This is a story about an artful imperative in a techno-time-conundrum. This is a story about not newer is better. This is a story about the Phoenix arising to show us the next horizon of rock and roll, and it is, of course, about our DREAMS HAVE POWER!

AN EXCERPT FROM A HYPOTHETICAL ACCEPTANCE SPEECH

My fellow Americans, I ask you this simple question: What is our responsibility to our children? What kind of world are we creating for them? Should they expect more or less than what we, and our parents, had? I think they deserve more, much more. I solemnly believe that we have a responsibility to create, for the next generation greater opportunities for prosperity. But I must redefine properity in a more authentic way because we have only thought of it in material terms...more money, more jobs....but that is no longer enough. Because I want to insure that our children will be spiritually stronger, more grounded, and more courageous and intelligent than our current "pentode" generation, as my first act as your President I am announcing enactment of the most important piece of legislation of the twenty first century..The Federal 300B Voucher Program. I believe that the twenty first century will be America’s finest because it will be bathed in the glow of directly heated triodes. Thank you and God bless you all..even those who listen to transistor gear.

 

POLITICAL BACKDROPS

Every shrewd politician knows how important timing is to a successful campaign. We Americans can now clearly feel the rising tides of the next great American artistic renaissance because Western Electric has just started to ship their 300Bs.This is a big deal on many levels...and it is a triumph of art over bogus engineering in the audio industry. Charles Whitner and his associates have not been given enough credit for the current American triode renaissance, because few have seen the connection between the first announcement years ago that Western Electric was going back into the tube business, and the flurry of tube entrepreneurship that followed. The renaissance of Western Electric tubes has given legitimacy to what would seem, to most investors, a completely inane idea unprofitable project. Why would anyone want to invest in tube manufacturing when they are so obsolete? This is only the beginning of the thermionic revolution, and we can expect greater creativity and higher quality from Eastern Europe, Russia, China, and yes, there will be more tube manufacturing in America. Again, Charles and all your associates at Western Electric, thanks three times over.

MY FEDERAL 300 B VOUCHER PROGRAM

I know the suspense is building over my decision to run for President on the Triode Party Ticket, so let me temporarily relieve some of that tension by revealing one element of my platform IF I were running for President. The main thrust of my possible Presidential campaign will be the rejuvenation of the American male, which will require an expansion of the high end audio industry. I would seize the political high ground, and give Charles Whitner, the job of Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, because there is a sublime justice in an American 1938 directly heated triode industrial tube defining the concresence of audio coolosity for the entire world...as we stumble into the next millennia.

My FEDERAL 300B VOUCHER PROGRAM is a big deal for you, and I am sure that this program will insure that the audiomaniac community would help me get out the vote. I want every one in America to listen to his favorite music with 300Bs. Each American family will get a FEDERAL 300B VOUCHER which they can use to acquire a basic 300 B stereo amplifier and a pair of high efficiency minimonitors. It would be possible to use your voucher to get an amplifier kit and speaker kit, which would use up less of the voucher’s stated value enabling you get different pair of 300Bs. On the other hand, the voucher can be used towards the purchase price of a much higher quality 300B amplifier and speaker.

Let me also reveal this possible hot piece of gossip: EveAnna Manley, of Manley Audio, may be my running mate. This makes enormous sense because as far as I can tell she is America’s only women thermionic techno-shaman who manufacturers a 300 B amplifier. And who may be Secretary of Directly Heated Triode Single Ended Amplifiers? You guessed right. The man who lit the fire under the triode revolution in America Joe Roberts, who named his recently born son SET-H. Now that is what I call a great American. In the spirit of the great pamphleteers of the American revolution, Joe Roberts fanned the just smoldering tinder of the triode revolutions and gave form to artistic inferno that we now all enjoying.

Some would say that my voucher program is going to be a budget buster and cause inflation. Not true. By converting only one obsolete defense manufacturing facility (and for the price of one B-52) we can start mass producing audio amplifiers at a very low cost. Single-ended, push pull output transformers, interstage transformers, and chokes will be robotically manufactured by the millions and be computer tested. New high performance blends of transformer iron will also be created. And yes, Mr. Nice Guy with the sensitive ears, there will be 300B OTL amplifiers manufactured under this Federal program. I would ask Lee Iaccoca to be CEO of this company. Those wanting silver output transformers would rely on Mike Le Fevre of Magnequest Transformer who will be in charge of converting Fort Dix, in New Jersey to create the largest community of transformer artisans in the world. Dennis Had would receive the Congressional Medal of Harmonics and I would designate Cary, South Carolina, a historic site, because this was the birthplace of the triode renaissance in America. I would increase silver mining, driving down the price of silver, so that everyone could afford to silverize their sound system.

Now here is the best news of all. To celebrate the renaissance of the authentic Western Electric 300B, every family would receive free of charge one pair, and any young American man who eats all of his vegetables, and gets at least a B+ average in school, could buy a second pair for only $100. This means that Western Electric would get a government contract for millions of 300Bs, so additional automated plants could be built. And this is a great national bargain because it will create jobs, and will cost less than building one nuclear bomb. And let us not forget that thermionic devices enrich our lives while nuclear devices destroy audio systems. We will increase our imports of both Chinese and Soviet 300 Bs, which will also drop in price to around $20. But the best news is that America will become a major exporter of these 300B amplifiers, which will, because of their high quality and very low cost, appeal to music lovers world wide. America will be doing for audio amplifiers what Germany and Volkswagen did for cars in the 1960s.....and the triode revolution marches on.

Western Electric, RCA, Tung Sol, Fender, Gibson, these powerful American art forms are held in the highest esteem by music lovers world wide. America is known for its genius at thermionics, and every teeny bopper in the world will want to own, " E Pluribus Unim, 300 B Stereo Amplifier". And it will be available by mail-order from Sears Roebuck for only $299. I would also create an infomercial starring "The Juiceman" to make sure that the marketing of this program works. The Franklin Mint would also be given the rights to sell a collectible, limited edition of this amplifier. And of course my favorite audiomaniac, Cindy Crawford, will be spokesperson for my voucher program. MTV, VH1 The Nashville Network, and Reader’s Digest will be given massive advertising budgets, because my goal is to bring transcendent triode musical beauty into every American home.

If, and when I become President I create a special cabinet, "The Cabinet of Monkey Coffin Makers" which will consist of America’s most talented speaker designers, and I will convert Las Alamos Atomic Labs to speaker research including the development of a new generation of 32 ohm loudspeaker, just like my father had. While this project is under development a major tank manufacturing facility will be converted to manufacturing 16 ohm Alnico drivers. Of course this means that America will have to invade Zaire, where most of the cobalt comes from which we need to make Alnico drivers. The millions of dollars that are needed to build the molds for pressure casting minimonitor cabinets will be available through a business development grant. Why not have as a national goal of $150 a pair state of the art speakers?

Of course to compliment this TRIODE VOUCHER program there will be grants to high schools and vocational schools so that young men can learn how to build triode amplifiers and speakers. There is the big gap in the American education system. Why not teach young men what they really want to learn ?: Cars, motorcycles, stereos and the other stuff which is too x-rated for a potential Presidential candidate to talk about. The reality of America’s dysfunctional society is that young men are causing most of the crime. We are talking about young men with very powerful unfulfilled development needs and the learning facts about the Louisiana settlement is completely bogus. Which is why learning how to build beautiful audio gear would have such a positive effect on adolescent men. What could be cooler than having the best sound system on your block? Sniffing solder flux is also a mildly hallucinogenic experience, with not bad side effects, except audiomania, which is better than going to jail.

WHY WAIT, LET’S TAKE ACTION NOW

Because it may take me some time to decide if I am going to run for President, and it could be years before my TRIODE VOUCHER program goes into effect, let see if we can develop a version of it that we can launch today. I mean right now. Right now, let’s see if we can develop a very cost effective triode system that will permit everyone to artify their harmonic/space/time/ continuum in an expanded aural matrix with that special triode magic.

Let me prove to you that you can create a truly fine 300B system for under $2,000. Of course you pays more, your directly heated triode sways more

 

WHY THE 300 B?

We are now talking about the renaissance of a classic work of American art that emerged from our post-depression artistic renaissance. This 1938 Western Electric directly heated triode is the most important tube in the thermionic cosmos. It is the thermionic Phoenix. The quality of tone that is possible with 300B circuits is so compelling that it has become the "golden tone standard" for the most difficult task...the sublime midrange.

Up until this point in thermionic history we have only known the 300B in limited bandwidth amplifiers...oops, let me say that again in a more paradoxical way....in a single ended triode transformer coupled amplifier the 300B is subject to significant bandwidth limitations....but who is complaining.....if that is the price we have to pay...we gladly play. Or should I say that the beauty power of the 300B midrange makes us forget that anything else exists? But soon this will change...surprise, surprise.

That is why I keep on refering to the current directly heated triode revolution as an artistic revolution...it is raising and redefining our midrange consciousness. This also explains why it is so difficult to feel really passionate about our old lovers, the EL34 and 6550; they simply don’t have the tonal magic of directly heated triodes.

As my fellow thermionic techno-shaman Lynn Olson asserts....."the single-ended thing has been mislabled because what we are loving is the tone of directly heated triodes, and that ranges from 45s to 845s". Over and over again I sing the the marching song of The Triode Guild, BE VERY SIMPLE, BE VERY STIFF, because that is the best, and may be the only gizmological strategy for achieving the most sublime tone. If a tube is brilliant, get out of its way and let it do its natural thing. The less you do to discombobulate the circuit the purer the tone will be...if it is pure to begin with. What did Buddha say about tubes?......"I would rather have a cup of tone, than an ocean of power".

 

Once you hear an artful 300B, you are a goner, and it doesn’t seem to matter where you are living, what language you speak, or what kind of music you like to listen to. This, as you know, is not just my raving, but the opinion that is shared world wide by the doyens of audio gizmology. This classic work of American art, appreciated by the Japanese for decades, ignored until recently by America, has now become the thermionic objet d’art for the world. Yes, there are some who don’t appreciate this tube. The only possible explanations for this: (1) they rides 350cc. Honda Nighthawks (2) they are spiritual insecure and undeveloped and into a bogus power trip (3) they don’t yet put tone at the top of their artful pyramid or (4) they haven’t found the right associated equipment (especially speakers) to reveal the nascent wonder in this golden directly heated triode from the Golden Age of America, or they need new batteries for their hearing aid. Can you think of a loftier goal than to take every American family to the concresence of thermionic directly heated musical magic?

It is natural to wonder why the 300B’s tonal beauty is so addictive. The concept of the meme, which is very popular in the field of genetics and artificial intelligence offers us an insight into the power of the 300B. The 300B is a harmonic meme. I quote here from Richard Dawkins famous 1976 books on genetics, which is must ready, The Selfish Gene.

 

MEME: An idea as a living organism which can reproduce. An idea that has the capacity to be permanently imbedded in the mind and live from generation to generation.

 

Examples of memes are tunes, catch-phrases, pop fashions, ways of making a pot or of building arches. Just as genes propagate themselves in the gene pool by leaping from body to body via sperms or eggs, so memes propagate themselves in the meme pool by leaping from brain to brain via a process which, in the broad sense, can be called imitation. If a scientist hears, or reads about, a good idea, he passes it on to his colleagues and students. He mentions it in his articles and his lectures. If the idea catches on, it can be said to propagate itself, spreading from brain to brain. As my colleague N. K. Humprhey neatly summed up an earlier drafter of this chapter: memes should be regarded as living structures, not just metaphorically but technically. When you plant a fertile meme in my mind, you literally parasitize my brain, turning it into a vehicle for the meme’s propagation in just the way that a virus may parasitize the genetic mechanism of a host cell. And this isn’t just a way of talking -the meme for, say, ‘ belief in life after death’ is actually realized physically, millions of time over and over every day, as a structure in the nervous systems of individuals the world over."

 

This is the intellectually provacative thought I am asking you to embrace....The 300 B’s tone is so power.... it’s harmonics are so ecstatic and it’s tone becomes a meme of irresistible power. Go back the re-read the Dawkins quote and substitute "harmonics" for idea, or notion, i.e.

 

MEME: A harmonic, a tone as a living organism which can reproduce. A harmonic that has the capacity to be permanently imbedded in the mind and live from generation to generation.

(You continue)

 

This is one of the best explanations of how the 300B is parasitizing our musical souls. It’s tone is infecting us, and there is no known cure for it, and this sublime directly heatedtriode virus has gotten completely out of control all around the world and it is taking over. Those of you who are comfortable with an expanded gizmological metacontext will also use the concept of the meme to understand the impact that the unique American metaharmonic has had on the world, namely rock and roll music.

 

THE UNIVERSAL HARMONIC CONVERGENCE

 

.....is what I call this. In effect, the 300B has accomplished, what the United Nations dreams about : the political power to bring harmony to a chaotic world. This is the first time in the history of audio arts that there is a world wide consensus on the concresence of audio coolosity, and thank the Lord, in Her Infinite Wisdom, that it was born in America, and not Peru. It is like we all decided to go on the gold standard to bring some stability to the chaos. The 300 B has become the golden mean, because it is a golden meme, and the most potent political force in the high end audio cosmos.

 

 

 

 

 

WHAT DOES A ROSE SOUND LIKE?: THE SOUND OF THE 300B

This is going to be an exciting challenge, because I am kicking the butt of the high end audio industry demanding that we develop a more inventive vernacular to describe the art we create. This is a very difficult task, because inherently language is feeble to describe subtle musical values.

And one of the great limitation to this challenge is the English language, which unlike the French, German, Italian and Japanese language is very limited in its inclusion of subtle artistic expression. As you know I have been suggesting we more closely examine the Japanese audiomaniac cutlure, the culture, whose passion, is responsible for the renaissance of the 300B for help in this matter, and my conversation with the Japanese Master, Nobu Shishido, has been instructive, because he speaks both Japanese and English. Let me assure you that there is a very different point of view towards the artification process of the harmonic/space/time continue in an expanded aural matrix in Japan. There is more freedom, more creativity, more eccentricity, more pride in individual unque expression. It occured to me that the 300B for the Japanese audiomaniac is their Harley-Davidson, their hawgs, and I will use this analogy for a while and then get very emotional nose ....because that is what the 300B is all about.

Though the Western Electric 300B, from a technical point of view, is one of the best tubes ever made, like our hawgs, this is not about superior performance, it is about art. And while you can buy a number of brand new models from a Harley-Davidson showroom, you notice how quickly after they leave the showroom they are transformed into a completely unique personal statement. While we notice many different "showroom" models of 300B amplifiers in Japan, there are probably hundreds of thousands of completely unique artified 300Bs, created by Japanese audiomaniacs.

The current Harley-Davidson motor design is from the 1930s, and a 1946 Harley-Davidson had 60 horsepower, and a 1997 Harley-Davidson has 60 horsepower, because the feel and harmonics of this motor is much more important than power. You average Japanese 400cc motorcycle has more horsepower than a 1340cc hawg motor!

Talking about the "HD motor music" : the engineers in the design department of Harley-Davidson are very clear they are about how "the feel and harmonics" of a hawg is the fondation of its market charisma and is what makes riding HD a completely unique experience. They could design a more effecient, modern motor, but the motor music would be gone.

A rose is a rose. A Harley-Davidson is a Harley-Davidson. A 300B is a 300B. Which explains why for decades the Japanese have appreciated its beauty, while we, relatively power crazed Americans, pursued the relatively coarse sound of 6550s, El 34s and KT 88s. When Nobu Shishido talks about "the aroma of 300Bs" he is giving us insight into their special tonal beauty, because a rose never smells like posey. In Nobu’s statement is a declaration that all the subtle variations of rose aroma, still arises out of the essential immutable nature of the rose.. And there are thousands of variatons of this aromatic essence of roseness. Savvy solder slinger Japanese directly heated triode savants are rose savants because, by their choices of circuits, output transformers, chokes, and parts, they create the type of 300B aroma that expresses the subtley of their vision. Here is the emphasis is on subtley, not power, though with a high effeciency horn loudspeaker a single 300B can create enormous rock and roll music power...and I give testimony to the 300B’s totally testicular get down with the badest funk possible.

KARMIC NOTIE: I am not sure what I was in my previous lifetime. Sometimes I think I was a multi-serial murder and my heavy duty pay Karmic pay off in this life time all of my sins Karma is to be an American auidomaniac...but when I listen to rock and roll on my supertweaked Tannoy horns with 300Bs, I realize that I had to be some kind of saint...why else would I be given such rewards?

A quick scan of the Japanese audio publication reveals the enormous energy devoted to this tube and the comparable high level of options available to the music lover. It is a Japanese audiomaniac cultural truism that you can not consider yourself serious unless you have a unit of 300B in your life. The reason this is so important is because in any cultural that puts enormous energy into art, we find a reference point, a center "classic" point for judging all other art. In the West, we note the masters of painting, or in music the masters of composition, and that ranges from pop to the renaissance. Which is why the Japanese have made the 300B the Golden Standardof Tone, which in no way diminishes the acute beauty of other directly heated triodes like the 10Y, 2A3, 45 or 50, all lower powered and all posessing a powerful unique musical aroma. And what is the best way to judge the competence of large directly heated triodes, like the 211, 845, 805, et. al?

And with each new innovation in circuitry, from Nobu Shishido’s inverted interstage transformer coupled amplifier, to the creation of new types of steel laminates for output transformers, it can be said that the aroma of the 300B is evolving to new mysterious places....a 300B is a 300B and nothing else compares.

If you are a nature lover then you must be aware of the enormous difference between the forests of America and the rain forest’s of Brazil. Tropical forest with their warm temperatures and high humidity create an environment for unlimited ecosystem complexity and diversity. Japan has been the tropical rainforest ecosystem for the 300B, while America is transforming from a 300B shrub oak ecosystems to a rainforest.

 

THE 300B TRIODE TRIOLOGY

NEW HOPE FOR SPIRITUAL FULFILLMENT AND STABILITY

The Two Missing Pieces Magically Appear at Exactly the Right Time

 

Revolutions are costly in terms of human suffering and we Americans are living through a very difficult cultural and political revolution. As you know American men are suffering terribly with the highest rates of addiction, suicide, premature death from stress, and to our horror and shame, we are the most violent men in the world, committing more violence against members of our families that any other group of men in the world.

 

Is it safe to assert that we, the men of America need to get spiritually grounded, and need to heal some powerful suffering? When, and if, I am President I will use the "bully pulpit" to explain to American men the importance of getting spiritually grounded, and the only way I can do that is to explain the enrichment possible with The 300B Triode Triology in your living room:, a 300B SET, 300B push/pull, and a 300B OTL, is a happy home, and a nourishing family center.

 

Apply what you know to your speakers stands to your own life. Physics also apply to our emotional lives, and every man needs to find three points of support for maximum stability, which is why I so heartily recommend the 300B triology as a way of improving the quality of American life. You note that The Triode Guild emblem says: Mind/Body/Music.

 

Lynn Olson, who would be Secretary of Defense (defense against mediocre sound) in my new cabinet was right to point out, "With all of the hoopla that single-ended amplifiers are getting we are distorting the triode aesthetic, which is really about the magic of classic American directly heated triodes, not just about SET circuits, which have real world limitations".

 

It is not by accident that Lynn, who is a great American, was not just whining and complaining about America’s problems, he was doing something about them. Here we have the poet, warrior, statesmen, gizmologist, in the tradition of Ben Franklin, in action for your benefit, my fellow American audiomaniac.

 

Lynn has been working diligently to create a new classic low powered 300B push/pull transformer coupled amplifier that shouts, "Look at what we are missing". With the artistic ferocity that would make Schwarzeneger shiver, Lynn has created a push pull amplifier that uses six audio transformers, and because it has so many beautiful transformers it is in Lynn’s words, "Iron Enriched". Triode health freaks will love this amp.

 

As you know, over the last few years I have been asserting that the reason that push/pull amplifiers don’t have the refinement of the now popular SET amps is because (1) they don’t use directly heated triode tubes (2) a tube phase splitter is a flawed device and creates large quantum’s of aural matrix discombobularity (3) feedback is the killer of the magic show.

 

Because this is a conventional Japanese audiomaniac point of view we discover in Japan legions of different push pull amplifiers made with directly heated triodes, transformer phase-splitters or transformer inputs, and NO feedback. In the same way SET circuits came to America from Japan now is the time to introduce these ultra-refined under twenty watt 300B push pull amplifiers to America So what did the future Secretary of Defense do support the directly heated triode revolution? Mr. Smart/Sensitive/Pragmatic/Creative took this core Japanese notion on a trip to Xanadu. Lynn’s designs has six audio transformers: one output transformer, one input transformer, one interstage transformer, and three chokes. And if that weren’t enough to cause deep breathing check out the compliment of totally cool tubes. Gentlemen, we are talking about the concresence of triode coolosity here, and Lynn did all for you. Again Positive Feedback is not reporting the new, we are making the news, and hope this type of ultra-transformer coupled 300B will inspire other tube amp manufacturers. Look around gentlemen, where are the 20 Watt 300B push pull amplifiers, and how long will it be before these amps will be imported from China at under $1,000, which will create a much larger base for the 300B marketing/art pyramid?

 

Lynn’s amp is an eighteen to twenty watt amplifier, which means you will have the power to drive those speakers that you thought needed a 845 or 211 SET amplifier. This circuit, in my opinion, is comparable the first Mac Intosh Apple computer, in that it will change the course of thermionic history, and fill the big gap in the market place. All of those tube amp companies that are making cars with big fins need to wake up, and start thinking in terms of creating ultra-refined under twenty watts 300B p/p. It is hard to turn around when you are on road of power. Do you remember when IBM, the dominate force in high power main frame computer business completely discounted the home PC? Get my message about the directly heated revolution?. Revolutions usually hit hardest those who have the biggest egos and are fighting to prevent change.

 

By the time you read this, a complete kit of Lynn’s iron enriched amplifier will be available: once again proving that Positive Feedback is the place where the triode revolution goes to find power and focus. Lynn has written an article describing his pregnancy with this amplifier in this issue and it is must reading.

But you’re right in asserting that we now only have two legs to stand on, and in the storms of life two legs don’t provide stability.

 

300B OTL FIREWORKS IN WASHINGTON, DC

 

They said it couldn’t be done, and they were wrong, because when the going gets rough, the tough get going, and though many have tried, it took two future generals of the Triode Green Berets to get the job done. America, the land of the classic directly heated triode, just in the nick of time proves, once again, that we have the right stuff. Let me say that again: American breaks the 300B OTL barrier. Let’s have parade with fireworks!

 

It didn’t take much to convince Ralph Karstin, the American triode OTLologist, that the American triode frontier was calling and it was a 300B OTL amplifier, and Ralph put on his white silk scarf, and like Lindbergh and Ehrhard, flew off into the unknown, and came back victorious. Yes, my fellow American audiomaniacs, very shortly you will be listening to a Atmasphere 300B OTL amplifier, and if that weren’t a decade defining event, I also discovered that Mr. Thermionic Wizard, David Berning, was about to do the same.

In April, at the Philadelphia Audio Society, David presented his ultra-trick (meaning using his unique ultra-high frequency switching power supplies both for the B+ and the filaments..Wow) single-ended triode OTL. David was using, for economy purposes, the 811 triode, but assured me that he would make the final version of his amp with the 300B. (Picture of David’s amp). I only listened to David amp for a few minutes, but it set off my medical alert pager, because my heart went into overdrive.

Why is this a bigger deal than the opening of the Panama Canal, or landing on the moon? Well dudes, it is like awesome, because the Directly Heated Triode Messiah Triology, is finally happen and you discovered it in the pages of Positive Feedback. Now, for the first time in the history of the audio industry, all three topologies, single-ended, push/pull and OTL will be available to music lovers. If this doesn’t deserve fireworks than nothing does.

Am I being immodest to claim that this is the biggest of big deals; THE epic making thermionic event of the decade, and yours truly, a possible candidate for the President was instrumental in making it happen. And has it not occurred to you, the voters of America, that the dynamo of the revolution of the next millennia in the audio arts is volcanoing from Positive Feedback, where America’s leading thermionic techno shamans don’t just report the news...we make it happen.

At long last, and just at the right time, we can all find spiritual stability and the political vitality that flows from using the three legs of 300B art: single-ended, push/pull, and OTL. And any of you who are asking me which is best, don’t get the importance of ecstasizing with Van Gogh, Picasso, and Rembrandt...which is better. When it comes to directly heated triode art, only artistically undeveloped men ask, "Which is best". Those who know, open their arms and embrace the wonder of it all. Those who are actively involved in their own artification process know that the dialectic is the engine of musical mystery and an amplifier with six transformers can be as mysterious as one with none.

 

PLAYING THE DIRECTLY HEATED TRIODE GAME

What day is it today? Is it Western Electric, Sovtek, KR, Centron, or Golden Dragon, day? And which 6SN7s should I exercise today, my 1950 RCAs or my 1944 Western Electrics made by Sylvania? It takes less than one minute using my insulated ski glove to change tubes in my SET, and this results in a very big difference in my harmonic/space/time continuum, and therein lies the enormous joy of this game. Let your mood swings and your very refined taste in music determine which set of tubes you use for a particular selection of music. Now granted it takes about forty minutes for the output tubes to get to their optimal harmonics, but if tonight is rock and roll night at your music cave, use your fave rock and roll tube combo. Or if you are listening to German leiders use your rave fave combo for this music. This is what audiomania is all about: having complete control of the artification of our harmonic/space/time continuum in an expanded aural matrix, and what could be more fun than that?

And one more time I offer this advance: if you can use a Marchand tube crossover and two pairs of 300B amps...one for the woofer and one for the midrange/tweeter. The combination of KR 300VB on woofer and Golden Dragon the midrange/tweeter will astound you.

 

BUT FIRST A MESSAGE FROM HARLEY-DAVIDSON MANAGEMENT

The reason you buy a hawg is so that you can as quickly as possible start taking it apart and making it into a completely unique expression of your personality. The motorcycle accessory industry that caters to the artification of hawgs, is much bigger than Harley-Davidson. There are hundreds of thousands of hawgs out there and each is completely unique. Obviously, Harley-Davidson management knew this reality, but for years they resisted being a major supplier of custom accessories. Today Harley Davidson will gladly sell you everything you need to tweak and personalize your bike from different cam shafts, pistons, brakes, carburetors, wheels, etc. Here we have an industry that worships the tweaker, the motorcycle artisan, as the life blood of its creativity. This is type of artistic creativity that energizes and stimulates a male tribal activity, and is a driving force of the Japanese audio culture. For American high end audio manufactures tweakers are lepers.

Retailers have trained guard dogs that know the smell of tweakers, to insure that none enter their stores. This is the major point of digression between America and Japan. Stereo Sound, the most successful audio magazine in Japan features the most sublime home built audio systems in every issue. This is the section everyone turns to before they read the reviews. May I suggest retailer start putting big signs on their door: TWEAKERS WE LOVE YOU

For the American audio press the unspoken rule is: Let’s not confuse our readers with excitement and creativity, because we want our readers to focus on buying a new gizmo. I consider this an insult, as you should.

MALE INITIATION RITES WHICH EXPAND OUR GIFTS

Obviously my goal here is to encourage all of you to learn to solder, which is child’s play. In that way you can build your own 300B amplifier and build your very own high efficiency mini-monitors. There is no amplifier that is easier to build, and while we don’t have hundreds of different kits available here, as there are in Japan, there are a number of very high quality ones available.

Let’s stop the audio weeny-itis. If you are courageous enough to ride a motorcycle, or get married, you are courageous enough to solder a circuit together. I have never heard of anyone who got hurt from building a tube amplifier, yet I have seen people torn up in motorcycle accidents, and men who are maimed by marriage. What are you afraid of? Okay you don’t know anything about electronics. No problem. We are going to find you a teacher; a solder slinging savant who is going to guide you through the process.

The reason this is such an important process is that it is an authentic form of initiation, like climbing Mt. Everest without oxygen tanks, or killing a lion with your Swiss Army knife. The thrill of listening to your own work of art is quite special, comparable to watching your child being born, or watching your first ship being launched. Like the first time you made love, your first hand built amplifier will become a permanent part of your soul. I also want to assure you that it will expand your gift for listening. Again, the intrinsic simplicity of the single-ended triode circuit makes this great fun. And mistakes are an essential part of the artification process.

The reason this is the right time to begin this artification process, this is the golden spring of the classic directly heated triode. Western Electric has started to ship ( at $350 per) their new production of their classic just as the Russian made Sovtek 300B imported by New Sensor have started to ship these tubes at $69 each which are an amazing bargain in terms of sound quality. No, they are not real Western Electric 300Bs but they are affordable and are high quality, and you only need one per channel. I can not emphasize too strongly the importance of the new Sovtek tube, and believe it is comparable to the affordable PC, which was the engine of the digital revolution. This very affordable tube now means that everyone can play in the 300B ballpark! No more whining and complaining. According to Eric Barbour of Svetlana more and more high quality 300Bs will soon be available and they will be cheaper!

Have I convinced you that it is time to build your own custom hawg or single-ended triode push/pull amplifier? I was so impressed by the performance of the AudioNote Kit One stereo SET 300B that I built that I recommended it to everyone and Art Dudley of Listener magazine, wise thermionic techno shaman that he is, responded and built one too and made these comments, and remember Art had no previous experience building kits. (Arts comment here).

 

300 B KITS GALORE

 

Building a 300 B amplifier is a form of meditation and liberation. It is an expansion of your musical metacontext. It is your direct connection to an ancient artistic tradition and to a community of righteous soul mates. The minute you light up your soldering iron and start the artification process, you have liberated vast musical resources that were untapped, because you have shifted from the observer to the doer. Your mythological role has now changed. Now you are not just questioning God, your are wrestling with Her. From a gaggle of crude electro-mechanical parts you are going to create a magical charm. You are now permanently crossing the boundary between "the you and you the music", where, by becoming its servant you discover your mastery.

 

Kit building is the same type of activity as mountain climbing, hang-gliding, or archery; all of these activities are intended to let us experience deeper knowing that we know only exists at the perimeter of ourselves.

 

If you are afraid of building a kit, it is especially important for you to build one. Kit building is a very Zen form of meditation, which is why so many wealthy Japanese men spend more money on their 300B kits then they would on a store bought amplifier. Totems help us face our demons and conquer them. If you demon is fear of voltage or fear of failure, this fear taints your listening. Building a 300B amplifier is the surest way to substitute "triumphant/creative energy" for fear/incompetence into every moment of musical delight.

 

You will be a different man after you build your first kit. Your hearing will become richer and deeper. You will be more vulnerable and more confident. You will want to kick yourself in the ass with a large boot for not having done this much sooner. No shame, no blame. You are ready when you are ready. Build a amplifier. Celebrate its birth and your re-birth with a gala party. Send Positive Feedback a picture of your Debutante Ball and we will publish it. And be sure to sell lots of Triode Guild T-shirts at your coming out party.

 

If you ever decide to move on, never sell this amplifier. Have it bronzed, or have it molded into a large clear Lucite cube, or build a pedestal or a chapel for it. Be sure to carry a picture of it next the picture of your children. Put its picture on your refrigerator door with a magnet. Don’t be embarrassed to give this, your virgin popping experience, a lovable name, like Topsy, Poopsy, Honey Bumpkins, or whatever turns you on. You are right to be proud. You have just become an official real American thermionic techno shaman, and nothing is cooler than that.

 

THE ANGELA 91: Angela instruments is one of the best sources for parts for building 300B kits because they have a wide range of output transformers, and they distribute all of the Audionote parts. St. Steve of Angela has also created one of the coolest conundrums of audioville: a fairly exactly copy of the original Western Electric single-ended amplifier that started this revolution...............

 

CARY SE-1: According to Dennis Had, there are ..............ecstatic SE-1 kit builders out there. This elemental amplifier has tremendous truth, and when I listened to it on the 10 inch Tannoy Sterlings I simply couldn’t believe that this very small stereo amplifier was kicking butt in such a beaudacious manner. While this is the least sophisticated kit, you simply can’t loose here, with good quality mini-monitors you will be stunned by this amps competence. And yes, better tubes means more refined sound.

 

WELBOURNE LABS: This is like calling up Ferrari and ordering a kit car. You can work with Ron Welbourne on your kit needs. What is cool about all of this is that Ron’s relativity costly kits, are not more complicated, and are probably easier to build than the less expensive kits. With Ron’s kits you are getting state of the art parts, and I can not recommend too strongly the Magnequest 300B transformer, which is the same one that Gordon Rankin of Wavelength and Gizmo uses. If you want to go for the bucks the silver transformers are worth it. Perhaps, here is the place to help you develop a Japanese audiomaniac attitude towards kit building. So here goes. Buy the best possible major components, which means buy state of the art transformers, like the Magnequest. In Triodville, when you get bored with your 300B you don’t get another amplifier, you can change the driver stage, or experiment with capacitors or rectifiers or capacitors. This is one for the restless but subtle musical soul.

Ron’s kits are supremo quality, and when you are finished you will own a true state of the art 300 B single-ended amplifier that will enjoy both here and in the next lifetime.

I would be remiss not to insist that you start reading Glass Audio and Sound Practices, and try to get a copy of the Japanese magazine MJ. There is tremendous growth in the community of artistic men who creating their own amplifiers.

 

WHAT TO DO IF YOU ARE PAINTING YOUR SISTINE CHAPEL

 

Granted that there may be some of you who have committed your time to some equally noble artistic pursuit, and you have some extra coin. Here are my suggestions.

There are some truly fine stereo 300 B amplifiers under $1500 ready to ride. The Lau brothers (Solo Electronics) make the Golden Audio..........., an extremely refined stereo 300 B that uses an El-34 as a driver tube, and that is very cool. This is a beautiful amplifier and made at such a high level of quality that it is causing gas pains in other tube amp companies, who are all wondering how the Lau brothers can produce such value. There will be review of this amplifier in Positive Feedback very soon. This is amplifier that gets the award for being the ultimate triode bargain. Try pre-1950 6SN7 in this amp and then slowly over time upgrade to better tubes. The Lau brothers are the David Hafler of this generation, and that is the highest compliment I can give them.

 

AUDIONOTE KIT ONE ASSEMBLED: Did I ever tell you about my high school buddy Dick who bought a ‘47 Ford Coupe for $100 and then spent $5,000 fixing it up? Pretty soon after you listen to this amplifier you want to do something nice to thank it, like add Edison Price Beryllium binding posts or Audionote silver foil capacitors. You can buy this amplifier assembled from Angela Instruments for only $12......., and if you want to make just one change put in the Sovtek 300Bs. This amplifier has a really nice feature of a very high gain input with a volume control, so you can play your CD directly into it, or you can have it constructed for you without the volume control. In effect St. Steve of Angela will build it for you anyway you like...you sways, and you pays. This is a very classic 300B sound, and you will marvel at its refinement. This is an industrial looking, which is the perfect choice for someone who may latter get the triode itch and want to start tweaking.

 

WHY MINIMONITORS

Be careful now because I have my cattle prod charged up, and if you are going to act like an audio dunce you going to get zapped. What I am suggesting here is that there is a way to combine two very imperfect audio gizmos in such a way that they transcend their limitations. I barf every time I hear the word "perfect" used for describing an audio devices. The only people who use this expression are those who are perfectly deaf or perfectly stupid or perfectly cynical about our intelligence. Those who are still seeking perfection should spend time in therapy, or give up the adolescent task and start seeking to create profound art.

300 B Single-ended triode amplifier are inherently imperfect circuits and the most sublime midrange amplifiers. Single-ended amplifiers have a problem with the lowest octaves. They simply don’t have the control of push pull amplifiers, and it sounds like they have much too much bloom, and simply don’t get into the harmonic basement gracefully. They are also slightly soft at the highest frequencies. I call this a match made in heaven for mini-monitors with their universal dome tweeter coloration, which sounds divine with the softness of single-ended transformers. This also makes the most horrific aspect of digital recording, the high frequency harmonics, palatable. The greatest felicity is the mini-monitor bass response and the bloom of single-ended transformers. Here we have a really pleasing weight to the music that sounds completely natural.

But it is the harmonic/space/time continuum that will blow you away. Mini-monitors, because they lack real bass response, have none of that huge energy to cloud the midrange, and we therefor hear the divine clarity and quality of a triode midrange, which is the strong suit of directly heated triodes. Mini-monitor’s unique ability to get out of their own way and create enormously wide and deep sound fields have this ability extended so that you have a very expanded aural matrix. The combination of triode harmonics and the amazing spatial abilities of these micro-monkey coffins is extremely thrilling and very emotionally satisfying.

The caveat here is that you have to use mini-monitors of sufficient refinement and efficiency to mate well with these 6-10 watt amplifiers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

300B DREAM ENERGY: EXPLORING THE EDGE

(in work)

WHAT DOES A ROSE SMELL LIKE

THE MASTERS OF 300Bosity ANSWER

(IN WORK)

 

SO YOU WANT CONCRETE PROOF

If you don’t believe me and need proof, let me prove it to you. Firstly, you have to borrow a friends solid gold Rolex Oyster Perpetual watch. This is an important magic charm because when audio store owners see one of these masculine power totem they become compliant, polite, charming, and bow at the waist, offering service. At which point you will say " I want to hear the Alon Adriana mini-monitors with a truly refined singled ended 300B with Alphacore’s Triode Quartz cabling". If he resists, right there and then whip out your Samurai sword, and cut off his ears... Or... flash your Rolex in front of his face and let the gold dazzle him as you chant, "Price is no object, and I pay in cash." Give him a few days to order everything. When you go back for your listening session to show respect, bring some fine hand made cigars and some find French Cognac, circa 1890. Invite the store owner to share the experience with you. Enjoy the cigar and cognac, while your soul is liberated to fly about the room. Granted these little Alon mothers cost more than I earned last year, but we are talking about "Who Gives a Damn, I need my fix of musical magic." Before you commit to this triode strategy, check out what I am hearing in my small listening room. We all need something to strive for, and these little Alon mothers, after my horns, has given me a fresh perspective on the 300 B meme...or..... is it possible the 300B virus is growing in me and taking complete control of my brain?

Am I becoming a 300B love slave? Is it possible in 1938 a Martian space ship similar to Flash Gordon’s rocket landed and implanted a virus in the 300B? Is the 300B the way the Martians will take control of the world. Beam me up.

GIZMO’S 300B VIRUS GROWS

 

So you want to know how the 300B has infected me. Here goes. This is my personal take, but you must remember what the sign above the door says at The Triode Guild: ASCEND TO MICRO-POWER. And let me assure you that as soon as Lynn’s amplifier is available as a kit, I will build it, and yes, I will be listening to a 300B OTL, because I too need the spiritual stability that comes from the directly heated triode triology.

You know from my previous writing that I believe that in the field of directly heated triodes, that after the 300B, when you start using 845s and 211s or multiple tubes, you get more power but not more magic. Which is why I used for quite a long time two pairs of 300Bs, with my Marchand tube crossover on my hyper-tweaked Tannoy horns. And when listening to Nobu Shishido’s directly heated works of art, I preferred his 300B amplifier, though the others had some amazing qualities. In other words, like thousands of others, I too concluded that the 300B does more things right than any other directly heated triode. It is the golden mean.

When I recently sold my business, with the cathedral size listening room, and moved into an apartment and needed to create a "normal" stereo, this was my choice: the Alnico magnet Alon Adriana mini-monitors, with a 300B SET micro-Triodzilla. This 8 watt SET uses a simple 6SN7/RC/ voltage amplifier/driver, and a single 300 B which is blessed by a Magnequest output transformer. Though I am now using a Hovland Music Cap as a coupling cap I am also delighted with the Audionote silver foil/oil cap. I use a choke/oil cap to separate the input stage’s power supply from the regulated voltage for the output stage. On the output of the regulator are four large can oil caps equaling 200 mfd of oil. There are no electrolytics in this amplifier, only oil caps, because to my ears electrolytics distort triode harmonics. The power supply is a single 1963 all tube Kepco industrial regulated power supply. I use 300B at 435 volts and 60 ma ( as directed by the transformer maker, Mike Le Fevre), but I can adjust the voltage with the results that I change the harmonics of the amp. This power supply has no silicon devices in it. It has tube rectifiers and it even has those really cool neon voltage reference tubes, which were used before zener diodes were invented. My entire home system has been silverized with the new Alphacore Triode Quartz silver foil cable, developed with very little pressure by yours truly on Ulrich Poulson. Less is more also applies to cables in my triode world, but more about them latter. And yes, I am still a triode polygamist and still love OTLs, and am waiting for an ultra-refined push/pull 300B.

The transition from megalith Tannoy horns (which are now at Ambient Recording Studios) to micro-monitors is very appealing because I think it is important for the home audio artisan to periodically change our frame of reference so we can challenge our imagination, and I am pumped by the combination of a 300B single ended amplifier and a minimonitor. This is one of the most enjoyable combinations I have encountered because of the expanded music qua physical intimacy possible with a triode system in a "normal" space. This combination proves to me that even in a small room a 300B and do its magic at artifying the harmonic/space/time continuum in an expanded aural matrix. I now have a typical Japanese audiomaniac listening room, and it reminds me of my first experience of listening to the original Quads with a Futterman amplifier in 1979. You could really smell the garlic on the first violinist’s breath. Can a system have a more accurate aroma than that?

This, in a way, is a classic Japanese audiomaniac system, and does what my Japanese audiomaniac bros’ do for fun.........

 

 

 

THE AROMA OF 300Bs

"THE UNIVERSAL HARMONIC CONVERGENCE"

and a new answer to the question

WHAT DOES A 300B SOUND LIKE?

In my conversations with Nobu Shishido, when he talks about the subtlest musical values he uses the expression "aroma", i.e. the aroma of a 300B. The Japanese audiomaniacs are quite comfortable describing the unique virtues of directly heated triodes in terms of their aromas, but "normal" audio jargon can’t describe their mysterious harmonic beauty.

To facilitate an expansion of the vernacular used in our tribe to describe the ineffibles and to knock your socks off with a new development let us start with our noses.

THE NOSE KNEW BEFORE WE KNEW

We are puny scavenger/hunters with big brains and a big triode. For 99.9% of human existence the nose knew, because we did not have language or thought. We domesticated dogs because they had better noses and made us more effecient at acquiring large chunks of protein. The entire multi-billion dollar perfum industry is based on women knowing that a great aroma will arouse a man sexually and immediately turn him into brainless victim. Women buy socially acceptable aroma substitutes for the primal sexual aroma that Mother Earth gave her. She, The Mother of us all, the She who knows best how to create humans, gave women the most perfect aroma, and as you know it is detectable across a crowded room. Again, this segued into men’s senstivity to odor. Men also have a natural erotic smell that we inherited from our ape ancestors. I am sure all of you have had the common experience of being separated from the women you love, and in your loneliness picking up one of her garments and brushing it next to your face to once again be in her body’s perfume.

Because modern women are smarter then men they convinced us that we should be sanitized.... with detergent, under arm deoderant and face masques, so they would always have "the aromatic advantage". But men have their own cunning and still secretly congregate where that ancient male aroma is still alive. The point being that every important male hangout has a very strong aroma..the locker room, the engine of his car, the inside of his refrigerator, his baseball glove, the Delta of Venus, his tackle box, the locker room, the local bar, and of course his second most favorite aroma...the aroma of music. Music obviously has one of the most powerful aromas...it is androgenous...it is the aroma of primal locker room perfectly blended with the aroma of primal female love mulch. Perhaps only the Lawn Boy audiomaniacs will understand the sensation of taken a gigantic handful of just cut grass and smothering your face with it, so that each breath is a breath of essence of fresh cut grass.. Have you ever wanted to eat a grass sandwich? If something smells great you naturally want to eat it....now let’s talk about ancient longings.....like music.

 

 

 

THE SOVTEK 300B

The Proletariat Directly Heated Triode Revolution

is Alive and Well

Mike Matthews Channels Lenin©

by

Dr. Harvey "Gizmo" Rosenberg

Guildmeister, The Triode Guild

Thermionic Techno-Shaman

Dr. Gizmo 3 @ earthlink.net

CINDY CRAWFORD DOESN’T UNDERSTAND ME

By now I hope all of the readers of PF know that I am an idiot savant; I am an idiot when it comes to the opposite sex and a savant when it comes to gizmos. For example...Cindy usually comes over my house on Tuesday night for our ritual, which consists mostly of exploring the liquid midrange in all of its real and metaphoric dimension. After a gourmet dinner, which I cooked, consisting of corn dog hor d’oeurves, filet of turbot stuffed with Beluga caviar, and endive/avocado salad, and a very dry 1996 Cuvee Dr. Pepper we did heavy hi-fi. But this night was very very special for me, and I was very very hot and very emotional. Smoke was literally billowing out of my loins, and when Cindy got into bed wearing nothing more than Chanel No.5 perfume, I couldn’t help myself. I just received two of the latest copies of MJ magazines from the editor, Makoto Watanabe. As you know this magazine is the Playboy/Bible of the Japanese audiomaniac, and for a good reason. This is the finest audio artisan magazine in the world. So there I am in bed with Cindy Crawford, who is acting like a real pain in the butt by first blowing in my ear, and then tickling my triode, which prevented me from concentrating on the important stuff in MJ. The important stuff is all of the inventive directly heated triode circuits that appear in every issue of MJ.

Well one thing led to another and soon Cindy and I are having a real nasty fight and she left, which was a good thing because now I could concentrate and absorb the profound art of the Japanese audiomaniac. Every time I read MJ I feel like a poor American audiomaniac dirt farmer. I hope my service to you all is creating very positive Karma so in my next lifetime I can reincarnate in Japan.

The reason the 300B has re-emerged so quickly and powerfully is because it never died, and what never died is the primacy of tone in the audio arts. The 300B is the King of Tone. The 300B is an indigenous American harmonic virus that left America, went to Japan and infected the whole Japanese audiomaniac population, and then slowly but surely it migrated back to the American music community. This harmonic virus will not stop with the freaks, geeks, nerds, and audiophiles. No, nothing can stop the power of this harmonic virus. Soon every rock and roller in the world will be infected with the 300B virus. Fasten your safety belts, and get ready for another adventure to The Nth Dimension of Music Hyper-Space with Dr. Gizmo, PF’s Techno-Shaman of Coolosity......

 

BREAKING THROUGH THE TECHNO-TIME CONUNDRUM

The reason that revolutions are revolutions is because the old sense doesn’t make sense anymore, and it is time to make new sense, but before you can do that you have to let go of your attachment to the old process of making sense. So this article is a tool to help you change your sense of how the triode revolution is evolving and where it is heading. It is a revolutionary idea that after three decades of struggle we Americans like our Japanese bros’ are now rededicating ourselves to the primacy of tone in the audio arts...and that means directly heated triodes. It is also a way out revolutionary idea that the only acceptable way to listen to digital rock and roll is with a directly heated triodes, i.e, the 300B, et. al. Breaking through the time techno-time conundrum, just in the nick of time, the unique tonal integrity of directly heated triodes heals digital’s dysfunctional tonal discombobularity that is endemic to its demoniac soul which is more chopped up than my grandmother’s chopped liver. It takes a thermionic device from 1938 to make 1990’s digital technology edible.

 

 

BUDDHA SAYS:

I WOULD RATHER HAVE A TEA CUP OF TONE

THAN AN OCEAN OF POWER

We are now talking about the renaissance of a classic work of American art that emerged from our post-depression artistic renaissance. This 1938 Western Electric directly heated triode is the most important tube in the thermionic cosmos. It is the thermionic Phoenix. The quality of tone that is possible with 300B circuits is so compelling that it has become the "golden tone standard" for the most difficult task...the sublime midrange.

That is why I keep on referring to the current directly heated triode revolution as an artistic revolution because it a reflection of each of us raising and redefining our midrange consciousness. This also explains why it is so difficult to feel really passionate about our old high school lovers, the EL34 and 6550; they simply don’t have the tonal magic of directly heated triodes.

As my fellow thermionic techno-shaman Lynn Olson asserts....."the single-ended thing has been mislabeled because what we are really loving is the tone of directly heated triodes, and that ranges from 45s to 845s", and I agree. Over and over again I sing the marching song of The Triode Guild, BE VERY SIMPLE, BE VERY STIFF, because that is the best, and may be the only gizmological strategy for achieving the most sublime revelation of tone. If a tube is brilliant, get out of its way and let it do its natural thing. The less you do to discombobulate the signal through impressive complicated circuitry the purer the tone will be...if it is pure to begin with. What did Buddha say while he was listening to the sound of one triode clapping?......"I would rather have a tea cup of tone, than an ocean of power".

After you have popped your directly heated triode cherry; once you hear an artful 300B, like the Sovtek 300B, you are a goner and there is no going back, and it doesn’t seem to matter where you are living, what language you speak, or what kind of music you like to listen to. This, as you know, is not just my raving, but the opinion that is shared world wide by the doyens of audio gizmology. This classic work of American art, appreciated by the Japanese for decades, ignored until recently by America, has now become the thermionic superstar of the world. Yes, there are some who don’t appreciate this tube. The only possible explanations for this: (1) they rides 350cc. Honda Nighthawks (2) they are spiritual insecure and undeveloped and into a bogus power trip (3) they don’t yet put tone at the top of their artful pyramid or (4) they haven’t found the right associated equipment (especially speakers) to reveal the nascent wonder in this golden directly heated triode from the Golden Age of America, or (5) they need new batteries for their hearing aid.

 

 

THE GOLDEN MEAN IS A HARMONIC MEME

It is natural to wonder why the 300B’s tonal beauty is so addictive. The concept of the meme, which is very popular in the field of genetics and artificial intelligence, offers us an insight into the power of the 300B. The 300B is a harmonic meme. I quote here from Richard Dawkins famous 1976 books on genetics, which is must reading, The Selfish Gene.(Oxford Paperbacks, Chapter 11)

 

MEME: An idea as a living organism which can reproduce. An idea that has the capacity to be permanently imbedded in the mind and live from generation to generation.

 

Examples of memes are tunes, catch-phrases, pop fashions, ways of making a pot or of building arches. Just as genes propagate themselves in the gene pool by leaping from body to body via sperms or eggs, so memes propagate themselves in the meme pool by leaping from brain to brain via a process which, in the broad sense, can be called imitation. If a scientist hears, or reads about, a good idea, he passes it on to his colleagues and students. He mentions it in his articles and his lectures. If the idea catches on, it can be said to propagate itself, spreading from brain to brain. As my colleague N. K. Humprhey neatly summed up an earlier drafter of this chapter: memes should be regarded as living structures, not just metaphorically but technically. When you plant a fertile meme in my mind, you literally parasitize my brain, turning it into a vehicle for the meme’s propagation in just the way that a virus may parasitize the genetic mechanism of a host cell. And this isn’t just a way of talking -the meme for, say, ‘ belief in life after death’ is actually realized physically, millions of time over and over every day, as a structure in the nervous systems of individuals the world over."

 

I am asking you to embrace this intellectually provocative thought....The 300 B’s tone is so powerful.... it’s harmonics are so ecstatic that it has become a meme of irresistible power. Go back the re-read the Dawkins quote and substitute "harmonics" for idea, or notion, i.e.

 

MEME: A harmonic, a tone as a living organism which can reproduce. A harmonic that has the capacity to be permanently imbedded in the mind and live from generation to generation.

(You continue)

 

This is one of the best explanations of how the 300B is parasitizing our musical souls. It’s tone is infecting us, and there is no known cure for it, and this sublime directly heated triode virus has gotten completely out of control all around the world and it is taking over. Those of you who are comfortable with an expanded gizmological metacontext will also use the concept of the meme to understand the impact that the unique American metaharmonic has had on the world, namely rock and roll music.

 

 

 

 

WHAT DOES A ROSE SOUND LIKE?: THE SOUND OF THE 300B

This is going to be an exciting challenge, because I am kicking the butt of the high end audio industry demanding that we develop a more inventive vernacular to describe the art we create. This is a very difficult task, because inherently language is feeble to describe subtle musical values.

I was the first person to use the expression, A rose is a rose, and this expressions was immediately stolen by Gertrude Stein, so I came up with another equally pithy expression; A 300B is a 300B. Which explains why, for decades, the Japanese have worshipped its’ beauty, while we, relatively power crazed Americans, pursued the relatively coarse sound of 6550s, EL 34s and KT 88s. When Nobu Shishido talks about "the aroma of 300Bs" he is giving us insight into their special tonal beauty, because a rose never smells like a turd. In Nobu’s statement is a declaration that all the subtle variations of rose aroma, still arises out of the essential immutable nature of the rose.. ...and there are thousands of variations of this aromatic essence of roseness. Savvy solder slinging Japanese savants are "300B is a rose" savants because, by their choices of circuits, output transformers, chokes, and parts, they create their own unique 300B aroma that expresses the subtly of their vision. Here is the emphasis is on subtly, not power, though with a high efficiency horn loudspeaker a single 300B can create enormous rock and roll music power...and I personally give testimony to the 300B’s totally testicular get down with the badest funk possible.

A quick scan of the Japanese audio publication reveals the enormous energy devoted to this tube and the comparable high level of options available to the music lover. It is a Japanese audiomaniac cultural truism that you can not consider yourself serious unless you have a unit of 300B in your life. The reason this is so important is because in any cultural that puts enormous energy into art, we find a reference point, a center "classic" mean point for judging all other art. Which is why the Japanese have made the 300B the Golden Standard of Tone, which in no way diminishes the acute beauty of other directly heated triodes like the 10Y, 2A3, 45 or 50; all lower powered and all possessing a powerful unique musical aroma. And what is the best way to judge the competence of large directly heated triodes, like the 211, 845, 805, et. al?

 

THE SOVTEK 300B

DIGGING FOR ROOTS: HIPPY THAWS RED PIGS

In 1979 Mike Mathews, for just a few minutes, thawed the cold war when he rocked Moscow. He got down with his bad self and his rock band and made the thousands of Commie pigs attending the Moscow trade show pay attention to his rock and roll guitar gizmo, the Harmonic......... We all know that it was not Ronald Regan who brought Communism down, but American rock and roll, because once you get into the liberating Armericano harmonic, totalitarian despotic harmonics crumble like year old white bread. America’s ultimate weapon has always been its music and not its nuclear bombs. The Communist revolution starved to death because it did have enough rock and roll to feed its people.

Follow me comrades while I explain how the dialectic imperative of history destroyed the corruption of Lenin’s dream of social justice, The Communist Party, and how those same dialectical forces are now creating another form of social justice. The Triode Revolution is flourishing because titanic political forces are on its side, i.e. the world’s greatest thermionic super-power has joined the revolution. And like all great revolutions, a seemingly insignificant "common man" has become a major revolutionary force....and he wears T-shirts to the office, chomps on both ends of a big cigar, has a beer belly, wears tennis sneakers, and goes to the same hairdresser as Tiny Tim. Of course none of this matters, because of what Mike Matthew does, he has the beauty of Tom Cruise and Robert Redford....in a spiritual thermionic form. When you look at Mike Matthews you pause and wonder if you should lock up your virgin teenage daughter, or worry that the FBI is about to enter his office with a battering ram. This is not a critique of Mathews, but my way of reminding you of the eternal nature of the hero myth......the real hero is the outsider with enormous vision, charisma and courage. Beautiful men are too busy wrestling with their vanity to lead revolutions.

 

VIRGIN COMMIES FLASHBACK

In the 1980s I predicted that Russia was going to shift from being the world’s largest nuclear super power to being the world’s largest thermionic super power. My predication is coming true, not because I have powerful psychic powers, but because Russian never stopped being the world’s great thermionic super power. Unlike America, their military continued to use tube electronics all through the cold war while America, in the late 1950s, we had already shifted to solid state. Gigantic, high quality tube factories are still in business in Russia, with the most skillful tube manufacturing labor force on the face of the earth still devoted to the thermionic arts.

In the early 1980s there was much gnarling of teeth in the tube audio industry because tube manufacturing in America was coming to a fast stop! Everyone was working off of existing tube inventories and the quality of tubes was rapidly declining. I heard rumors that the Soviets were making great tubes, and got a lead and called Ahmtorg Trading Company in New York City, which was the official trading company for the USSR. At my lunch with one of their managers (who was very honest and preferred living in America) I was told that the USSR was still big time in the business of manufacturing tubes because the solid state revolution never happened there, i.e. consumer electronics were all tubes! There were still millions, no zillions, of tube radios that still needed tubes. No Sony Walkman’s here/hear. Television sets were also tube units though they were still a rare consumer item. It also made lots of sense for the Soviet military to use tubes because in the event of nuclear attack, as you know, your solid state amp will stop working because of the thermonuclear electromagnetic shock wave will destroy the transistor junctions. Tubes on the other hand, while you are being turned into human goo will keep on making music. Do you remember the headlines during the Vietnam war when a MIG-14 defected and it was discovered that it had tube electronics?

I called the Russian tubes that New York Audio Labs sold, VIRGIN COMMIES, and doing business with Ahmtorg Trading Company was great fun because I got an insight into Russia. I didn’t know it then, but I would, only a few years later, have another relationship with them. I discovered that Ahmtorg Trading was also the KGB front in New York City, and the KGB was investigating me to determine if I was a CIA agent. At the same time the CIA was trying to recruit me as a agent. I had convinced Gorby to reach out, and for the first time in USSR history, offer to celebrate Christmas with America.

 

A WILD RIDE ON THE THERMIONIC DIALECTICAL EXPRESS

Do you have the brain power to take a wild ride on The Thermionic Dialectical Express, while I explain why the Russian thermionic arts are going to transform and uplift proletariat America by be the gizmological force majeur of the next American rock and roll revolution? Hang on tight to your barf bags, this is going to be a turbulent ride..Splash, Kapow Swack.... Now everyone knows that the real foundation of the American rock and roll revolution is the dream energy of the millions of young American men who play in a rock band. A rock band is not a rock band unless there is an electric guitar which means a tube amp....a creator of thermionic harmonics. How many millions of rock bands are there in America? American rock and rollers are the world’s largest consumers of tubes. The rock and roll dream energy is simple, it is sublime, it is honest and it has the purity of non-self deception, to wit: When I grow up I am going to be a rock star and be a millionaire and fuck super-models. What I love about young American men is they still have the courage to be honest, simple and clear. This dream is obviously a powerful truth because it is very effective at creating the world’s best rock and roll. Again, OUR DREAMS HAVE POWER.

The electric guitar/tube amp is the foundation of the rock and roll harmonic. In other words, no tube amp, no rock and roll, and instant world implosion. Let me put this another way: thermionic devices are the foundation of THE artistic revolution that is transforming the world. American rock and roll IS THE FORCE THAT’S WITH YOU, and this art would be impossible without its single most important harmonic...the thermionic harmonic. Thermionic devices destroyed the Berlin wall! Thermionic devices destroyed the Communist political system. The delicious dialectical discombobularity is that the ex-communist system is turning out the best thermionic devices in the world and they are transforming America. A new American proletariat rock and rollers army is about to take over the music industry...a revolution made possible by the sons and daughter’s of Lenin’s revolution...who are supplying their young American comrades with the weapons they need....affordable high quality 6L6s and EL 34s....but boys grow up and become men, and real men eat directly heated triodes.

 

A DIRECTLY HEATED LOVE CHILD

The Lord in Her infinite wisdom is totally cool, because She is making sure that this triode revolution is attracting powerful women; possessors of the goddess energy. A Russian Goddess is the custodian of the Sovtek directly heated triode program. In 1979 Mike met Irush Bitokova who did the common thing for Moscow’s young intelligentsia; she earned money as an interpreter at trade fairs. Any young Russian who had mastered English had distinct advantages. Irush is definitely Mensa material. When meeting them both for the first time at Sovtek/New Sensor’s New York City office I could feel this very heavy affectionate vibe between them. I am not sure what Mike’s relationship is to Irush, an ex-heavy duty laser scientists who was magically transformed by Mike into Irush, Thermionic Goddess. When Irush was explaining to me in detail how they had perfected new techniques to meet their high quality standards I was really getting off on chewing the thermionic fat with a women. Here again the techno-time conundrum is in full force....Russian laser scientist is catalyst in 1930s directly heated triode revolution.

Mike and Irushka claim that they are just business associates and friends. But my instincts tell me that something else is happening here. I am picking up that delicious hanky-panky vibe. Of course it could be that because this project is so creatively and economically exciting that they are manifesting this heavy duty loving man/women bonding thing. Maybe it is the new mom and pop vibe I am picking up. This is a good thing because the Sovtek 300B is their baby and raising a new thermionic love child is all about love.

 

Mike Mathews using the best capitalists instincts is harnessing and focusing the vast thermionic power of Russia to raise the music quality of proletariat America...Directly Heated Triodes By The People, For The People. Let me make my goal ( as possible President) perfectly clear to all of you, which will explain the gigantitude of the economic opportunity for the "300B industry"....I want every rock and roller in America to listen to rock and roll with a 300B amplifier. That’s right...every zit pocked, grungified, heavy metallica, country, rap.......the whole ball of rock and roll ear wax. And now Mr. Chamber Music I am going to I kick some psychedelic Jimmi Hendrix sand in your face.......if you haven’t heard rock and roll with a 300B...then you are still sucking on the wrapper of candy bar, so it is time to take a bite out of the gooey stuff inside......the corpus mysticum rockandrollus....and you can not get to this gooey center unless you do the directly heated triode dance. Getting down is not, until you have had a major DHT emission. The Sovtek 300B may be the tool that saves rock and roll from loosing its soul to the digital demons.

 

 

IF IT SMELLS LIKE A 300B, AND IT LOOKS LIKE A 300B,

AND IT TASTES LIKE A 300B, IT MUST BE A ROSE.

Let’s get down, down and dirty. I mean so down and dirty that brain dead audiomaniacs will understand my message: at $69 per tube, the Sovtek 300B is the greatest fucking thermionic bargain on the face of the earth. Rich men, poor men, beggars, and savants no longer have any excuses for eating thermionic earthworms for dinner. The gourmet spread is now affordable...and will soon be available for all to savoir faire!.

The Sovtek 300B is not just the most essential artful tool for audiomaniacs. This is the thermionic devices that will parasitize every red neck, baseball throwing, four on the floor Chevy 454 dude in America.... who loves his rock and roll. I am talking about millions of beer guzzling, Playboy wanking Mr. Americas, getting much more down into MTV rock and roll. I can prove to you that the downest places of rock and roll can only be descended to on a classic 1938 All American directly heated triode......now made possible and affordable by the people who we immortalized by the bumper sticker......Kill a Commie for Christ.

Of course, we American audiomaniacs will benefit from this new wave of musically enhanced testorteronized young music men who will shortly consume millions of directly heated triodes per annum, because they will bring us along for the ride. When I am in my wheelchair sitting on the porch of The Triode Guild Directly Heated Retirement Home, I will be buying high quality 300Bs for $5. How will this be possible? The 300B competition between the ex-superpower-America/China/Russia will heat up, and the thermionic energy emanating from this competition will expand the use of 300Bs.

Again let me get your mind straight about your righteous relationship to 300Bs. Don’t bother buying different brands of custom made English shotguns. Do not have a complete set of tonkin bamboo cane salmon fishing fly rods made for you in Scotland. Don’t bother with those custom made golf clubs. And it makes no sense to buy a stable of Buggati cars. Why waste your time and your money when you will have more thrills listening to your different brands of 300Bs. The meaning of Sovtek tube is, not whether it is the best sounding 300B, though it may be, but rather the fact that it just shoved the big center section of the 300B bell shaped curve up about 80%. Most of us poor audiomaniacs have had to contend with Chinese 300Bs which, considering that you could actually afford them and use them, did an amazing job. The Sovtek 300B takes the directly heated triode ball over the center field wall for all of us shouting fans. It is a big time triode home run.

JIVING WITH THE CONCRESENCE OF COOLOSITY

Let’s try to put the whole triode ball of ear wax together. Consider this an audio weeny warning: If you are not listening to a 300B amplifier, well it is like you are listening to a Sanyo receiver. When you scan the list of all that fabulous equipment audio reviewers list to impress you...if there isn’t at least a couple of 300B amplifiers in their audio stables....discount their judgments. America, wake up. Our prodigal son has returned. Tone is once again at the concresence of audio coolosity, and we can thank our Japanese audiomaniac bros’ for waking us up from our long dark sleep.

SOVTEK: 800 633 5477

 

 

THE NOTRE DAME OF 300Bs SOLD

SOTHBEY’S GETS $500G+ FOR FAMOUS

THERMIONIC MODERN ART

ARTIST DONATES MONEY TO CHARITY

I can’t tell you how satisfying it was for me read those headlines the morning after one of my favorite thermionic creations sold for $532,000 to an anonymous Japanese gentlemen.

Because the thermionic art market is exploding all over the world, I hope what follows will inspire others to enter this market and express their unique vision of beauty. Many of you feel artisticly inhibited, and complain that you do not have an electrical engineering degree, or are uncomfortable using a soldering iron. These impediments exist in our mind because you do not understand The Way of the Triode. So let us travel together on The Way of the Triode, and discover what happens.

Whiling traveling on The Way of the Triode I found myself listening to music in cathedrals of all shapes and sizes. There was something very common about the experience, no mattere the festive or religous occasion, or if you just need to meditate and be still. Cathedrals are go places to go for mediation on our home music systems, because they...the cathedral and the home music system are connected. More detail speculations on this can be found in my book, The Search for Musical Ecstasy, Chapter. The point of sitting in cathedrals is that you can’t do that and not want to own one. I mean literally have one as our own private listening space, and that instinctive desire is not only appropriate it, it is right on.

So I have struggled for decades creating my own musical cathedral, and think I have done a fair job, but I wanted to go further with my art. I needed to express what is obvious to all; the thermionic arts are in a golden renaissance with unparallel creativity on all fronts. To me the best symbol of what I call thermionic bio-diversity is our expanding 300B choices, which is expanding faster than any other category of tubes, because mor men all over the world are using this thermionic device for build their musical cathedral than any other tube.

So it made perfect sense to build my new cathedral from 300Bs. Let me say that another way...because I am a thermionic artist, a thermionic-techno-shaman, I can dance in the thermionic metaphor and express The Way of the Triode in many forms and dimensions, and that includes metaphoric thermionic art which celebrates the sacred musical cathedral in every thermionic artist and that means you.

The reason I adopted this artistic strategy is because the other which would have involved lots of stone, steel, concrete and an enormous labor force did not appeal to me because I am very busy. And like you, I need to express my ancient mythological soul, but I would like to do it so I can go bowling and eat cheese burgers too.

In spite of its impressive beauty, you too can create your own $500K+ Notre Dame of 300Bs.

You do not have to go through the same trouble I went through in chopping down my own tree and using my Boy Scout knife to whittle a block of wood to the right dimensions, and you do not have to hand bake circuit tube sockets like I did. No all of the parts need can be order as a kit from Ron Welborne, who as you know is in the business of selling modern thermionic art. Instructions come with the kit. Warning this kit does require skill: you must be able to use a screwdriver.

You too can now create totally unique works of triode art.

THE SOUND OF ONE 300B CLAPPING

in

THE WAY OF THE TRIODE

The 300B is not the "best" triode, but without knowing it intimately you will never discover what might be beyond. Or which would you prefer..a brand new 1941 Chevrolet Woody Station Wagon or a Saburu Outback?

If Lao-Tzu were living today he, as the official poet of the Triode Guild, would also be asking, our favorite question, because as you know from his poetry all of life is a paradox. This is especially true about the audio arts, because when you get to the edge, the paradoxes are always the most intense.

By asking you to ask yourself the Triode Guild’s favorite question, I am asking you to change your mind about the audio arts. This is a completely radical idea for America, and will be practiced only by those who truly undeerstand their own internal art, and by those who are suffering with audio burn out.

I am asking you to continue your never ending search for musical ecstasy, but I am asking to search on a different path. First let me give you the context:

Some guys love Fender guitars and some love Gibsons. Some men would die for their Harleys and other risk their lives on their Yamahas. Some men are totally into Steinways and other are married to Bosendoffers. Some men are committed to 6550s and others are worshippers of 300Bs.

The point being that sooner or later we discover to get further down the path we have to narrow our focus on a very specific field of treasure so we can get the greatest rewards. This is all about finding the one tube that does the most for you and then getting very very deep into as a form of thermionic mantra.. Even in my formative years I dearly loved the EL34 and its varients the KT66 and KT77. On the other hand both Lew Johnson and Bill Johnson are madly in love with 6550s. Back then we really only had two choices, but today we have many. Don Garber of Fi I believe is a 2A3 man, and as you know, you are not a mature Japanese audiomaniac unless you have had a 300B baptism. As Lyn Olson pointed out in his review of StereoSound special edition devoted to the 300B, the Japanese use this tube in every conceivable way, in every type of circuit imaginable, and every year their 300B creativity expands.

Are you ready to get very deep. I mean are you ready to penetrate as far as you can go? Which is why the 300B is the most capable of stimulating our imagination, because it literally has no limitations...if you use it properly. Stop thinking about new, different, and improved and start getting serious. What you need can’t be unless you are getting deeper into your musical self and that requires focus, and the type of deep thermionic harmonic whole-osity that only arrive when you are fine tuning you, which is your system. I recommend directly heated triodes, and especially the 300B for exactly the same reason that I use wood and not plastic in the harpsichords I make. Shall I say this another way...the music road paved with gold is harmonically whole, and pentodes are great for power, but harmonic righteousness is not their thing. I didn’t make this up, I just read it out of the Triode Wholey Script of the Ancient Harmonics.

Are you getting my drift? In an imperfect world filled with agonizing compromises, and the artistic limitation of commercial products, we must make some brave choices, and I demand that you choose King Tone above all else. This is the black hole of the American Audio arts....pentode/push/pull tone is very cool for young men, who must go through this early development stage. I can’t blame American men who rightly love their supercharged 5.9 litre Chevy motors to want 800 horsepower tube amps. I wish the auto arts and audio arts were the same, but they are not. Those who have evolved to the higest level of artistic vulnerability simpley can not tolerate the relatively coarse tone of pentodes and ferrite magnets flowing in their musical sanctuary.

So my fascination with 300Bs is very common. I am surfing the same thermionic wave as thousands of others all over the world. This is not a fad, This about the evolution of artistic integrity.

It is the ancient vinylmaniac impulse shifted. Do you remember the good old days when you use to own various "vintages" of the same cartridge. Were you a Denon collector? How many different models of Deccas did you own? Do you remember the good old days when you had at least two turntables, six arms, eight cartridges, and four moving coil preamps, not to mention at least two different phono preamps? Personally, I think our industry is in a state of mass grieving for all of that sublime suffering we no longer share. ( Have you ever heard of grieving over dead suffering?....only audiomaniacs have the emotional complexity for this) So all we have left is swapping tubes or listening to the same tube in the different amplifiers. If a man is going to drive himself insane, then use 300Bs to flog your soul. Join the legions who know the wisdom that can not be spoken, but only danced.

This is my prescription for 300B Bliss:

My custom built 300B single-ended amp with Magnequest output transformers, and tube regulated power supply. A very charismatic 7 watts. I have about six different tube regulated power supplies that I can swap around to change the tone of these amplifiers. I use a very large amount of oil capacitors on the output of the power supplies, and I also use a choke after the regulator on the input circuit voltage rail. This combo

The Manly Retro. I just love this amplifier because I can switch back and forth between push pull and single-ended and adjust the feedback. This is gigantic 300B power with 30 watts of push pull and 18 watts of single-ended

The Berning ZOTL-300BSET-What could be cooler than a 300B single ended triode without any audio output transformer and regulated power supplies? I am listening to single-ended, push/pull and OTL 300B amplifiers and this is the first time in termionic history that such expansive thermionic knowledge has become available.

My extended article about this alien genius amplifier can be read.

Manley 300B Preamp: This preamp is so cool that I take it to parties and tell everyone its my date. Have you seen or heard a preamp that has a 300B output stage?

As you know I listening to my 300Bs with my 300B crown on, and I have a special 300B mit which I use for changing brand of tubes.

Take this advice: Start asking yourself the question. Get on the 300B path. Start with a small step. Buy the cheapest amplifier possible with even the cheapest 300Bs tubes possible. Make sure you get speakers that are high effeciency and then just start listening. I am certain of this....you will be harmonically virused, and this virus will grow and grow, and then....as you know...... there is not freedom without destiny.