Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

This is common practice; my two VOX products that use this tube also light it up artificially...

I believe this is because the current supplied to the tubes is insufficient to get the heaters to glow normally.

I know, I know--then how can the tube work?

Don't ask me--I ain't no enjunair.

Sheeeeesh.

That cracks me up. Some meeting had to occur where it went something like this:

Manager: "Right. How do we get the tube to work?"

Engineer: "Well with the budget you've given me there's no way we can get the tube up and running but if we buy tubes for show and then hook up some LCD's behind it....we'll be under budget".

Manager: "Let's do that then."

All y'all are assuming that what this ill-informed poster claims--that the tubes are strictly cosmetic--is true. In fact, they do function, just not at a level where you can see the heaters working in normal lighting conditions.

Since people expect tubes to glow yellow-orange Behringer is meeting their customer's expectations, as silly as those expectations (and their method for meeting them) are.

I wouldn't expect pre-amp stage tubes to glow (or glow all that much), only power-stage tubes but I am not a tube expert.

Actually, the preamp tubes in my integrated amps for my home stereos (one 1964 vintage, one brand new) do glow, although more faintly than either the power or rectifier tubes.

But they can still be seen in daylight.

But, yeah, Alan, they're getting dinged for a bit of creative engineering. If the tubes worked but didn't light up, people would be incensed, too. It's a case of damned if you do, damned of you don't.

Light up, that is.

I thought the whole thing with tubes was like those cheesy old commercials: "And as you can see, it glows, which means it has to be good."

It's simple. They light the tube artificially to stop the endless phone calls and e-mails asking "Shouldn't my tube be glowing when the power is on?

That said, Behringer products are OK for in-home consumer use, but I shudder every time we plug in our cheap Behringer PA head. It was a gift to our keyboard player from his wife so, we kinda have to use it. Makes me cringe. It really doesn't sound very good. Good thing we have quality speakers.

Quality speakers make a cheap amp sound better?

you can hear the "cheapness" better.

Dude, Behringer blows.
My drummer bought a Behringer headphone amp & it sounds like you're communicating with NASA. "One (static...buzz) small step for (crackle...buzz....static) man. One (squelch....feedback....buzz...howl)giant leap for...mankind."

Hard to spell as well!

I have designed and built tube circuits, and Behringer is no doubt using the tube conservativly and so they fulfill the desire to show off a glowing tube by backlighting. Big deal.

Whoever wrote the article is science/technology challenged and wrote from pure emotion. While it was open he could have traced out the socket and known if the tube was working. Why would Behringer (a budget-priced producer) waste the price of a tube in their $100 dual mic mixer?!

Ok, move on, nothing to see here!

If the filament is running that low, does it actually do it's intended job of heating up the cathode sufficiently to make the tube work at all? I have seen the so called "starved plate" use of tubes but the filament is running at full voltage (6.3 v) with the plate running at around 50 volts. This Behringer use of a tube is most suspect to me.