Must be easy to blow it up, looking at how much current it can pass. Also the 0.6A anode current, at 400V, would evaporate it instantly.
IMHO valve audio amps are hugely over-rated – just a fashion, and the Russians are laughing all they way to the bank, at these “stupid Westerners” buying up their old EL84s 
I was building high power audio amps, 0.01% THD, in the late 1970s, FWIW. Same perf as the Quad 404 but 400W RMS per channel. The bottom fell out of the hifi business shortly after that, when the CD came along, and the whole business invented a ton of BS to keep selling stuff (gold plated mains plugs, etc).
The anodes are solid graphite. Of course if you put 400V on it things will go bad, but ditto for any device.
I disagree about valve amps. When I bought my London flat I auditioned loads of amps, of all kinds, and the good valve amps sound (or did then) better than the good transistor ones. THD is irrelevant (because it is low anyway), what actually matters is intermodulation distortion. Valves with their 3/2 power law transfer function are much better at avoiding that than junction transistors (exponential). FETs with a square law may be good enough these days. To tame junction transistors requires loads of feedback, which MAY explain why magic power cords and speaker cables can make some difference.
Personally I find my OTL amps sound sweeter than anything else I’ve ever heard. Of course that’s only my opinion. That’s why I still put up with their high maintenance (and insane inefficiency).
I totally agree about magic cables, antimatter speaker stands, and all the rest. But hey, just like faraday cages for wifi routers, if you can get people to part with their money for them, why not.
johnh wrote:
faraday cages for wifi routers
Say again?
Just google it. There are lots of people selling Faraday cages for wifi routers because (didn’t you know) all that radiation is bad for you, plus which it allows Bill Gates to track your whereabouts (like he cares). There are also lots of complaints from people that since they’ve installed the Faraday cages, their wifi doesn’t work very well.
Feel free to start a thread on valve amps v. transistor amps
No thanks, I’ll stick to subjects people can discuss rationally like democrats vs republicans or high wing vs low wing.
This continues to amaze me: the number of GPSs for sale, which have no database support. These are surely useless, other than to give you basic emergency land navigation
And while WAAS might work, EGNOS certainly does not. I know because I have a 196 in my emergency “ditch” bag 
Peter wrote:
This continues to amaze me: the number of GPSs for sale, which have no database support.
Are you sure the 196 has no support? I updated my 296 and 496 a couple of months ago (usually in April) without any problems.
The 196 is still supported, it is one of those indestructible tools which will star in a dystopian movie, the GPS III is even more treasured :)
RobertL18C wrote:
the GPS III is even more treasured :)
Yes, I have one of those which I do treasure, but unfortunately it can’t be updated anymore.
