On Friday, 2 November 2018 00:39:41 UTC, wrote:

I posted this on the basics newsgroup yesterday. Even though this is a
repair group I hope nobody minds if this a little off topic. But who
knows? The amp I get will probably need some sort of repair soon
enough. Anyway, the post is below. Thanks for reading.
All-
I have always like exposed tube equipment. Since I was a little
kid. So I have been thinking about getting a small stereo tube amp for
the living room to replace the typical modern amp we have. That no
longer works.
All the modern small amps have outputs of several tens of watts.
But all of the small tube amps I see and remember only have outputs of
less than ten watts. Is there something sneaky about the how the
output of modern amps is rated? I know there is gonna be some puffing
up of numbers but it seems drastic. And if the modern amps have hugely
inflated numbers does that mean a tube amp rated at 5 watts is really
only a watt or so?
There are a couple amps I have some interest in and would like
opinions on them if anybody here has the time to check out the links.
Here's the first:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Stereo-6P1-...dd9b%7Ciid%3A1

Sorry about the mile long link. Does this amp look any good for the
money? Can someone even tell from looking at the description? I'd buy
an older used amp with exposed tubes if I could find one that I knew
worked and wasn't really expensive. I want something that sounds OK. I
am by no means an audiophile, my ears aren't that good and I know it.
But I can still hear hum and hiss.

Here's the second amp link:
https://www.ebay.com/p/APPJ-Assemble...10 0010.m2109

Another long link. There's probably enough info in that link to
describe the position of every particle in the universe. Anyway, I was
just interested in the power tube, the FU32. I have never seen a tube
like that. Is it actually just two tubes in one glass envelope?
Sharing some pins I assume? Anyway, are these types of tubes common?

The last thing I was wondering about was what determines the output
power of an amp. Is it just the tubes? Transformers? Or a combination
of tubes and transformers?
Thanks,
Eric

What has changed is speakers. The modern fashion is for much lower efficiency speakers, hence hifis have gone from circa 10w to several 10s, sometimes more.

Both those amps give nowhere near enough specs to make any decision on sound quality - other than to infer that it won't be great due to them not even offering specs. The 2nd one I didn't see any specs on at all!

Valves you want to stick to popular types, or as the years roll by you'll be out of luck. That double monster is anything but popular afaik.

What determines output power? PSU, valves, transformers mainly.


NT