OT: AOpen Tube Sound Card

[asian1]

AOpen Tube Sound Card

>AmigaOne motherboard without onboard sound

What about using this new generation of Vacuum Tube Sound Card with AmigaOne?
The card is expensive, approx US$ 200.

Is it possible to install this card inside AmigaOne?
Is there any AmigaOS 4 Driver for such card?
Who can write the driver?
What about thermal / heat / power supply problems?
Thank's.

yeah but as far as I know they are not 'cards' their tube on the board...

[Blomberg]

mips_proc wrote:
yeah but as far as I know they are not 'cards' their tube on the board...

There were PCI versions as well, don't remember the brands, though.
Found one here but it is not the one I saw some time ago. Unfortunately, I seem to have misplaced some of my bookmarks, but I'll get back to you if I find it.

[BlackMonk]

Have there been any tests on frequency response or SNR or the like?  Or even any subjective tests?

It honestly seems more like a gimmick than anything useful.

[Castellen]

@BlackMonk:
I completely agree.  It's the biggest load of crap I've read in a
while, what do they honestly hope to achieve?
If they really wanted a "softer" sound, you can very easily do it by
running your audio through an algorithm on the computer, or you can do
it using a DSP on the sound card itself.

The picture shows them using one valve in the whole card.  Presumably
they're using a pentode in the dual power output stage, meaning the
amplification from the D to A converter is obviously still done with
ICs/transistors.

The reason some guitar amplifiers use valves is due to their efficient
size to power output capacity.  Also the valves in these amplifiers
are sometimes biased to give special distortion characteristics.

So that sound card is just some weird gimmick to warrent them trying
to sell a sound card containing a $20 pentode for $200 more than what
you'd normally pay for an equivalent sound card.

Go figure...

[Castellen]

I forgot to mention, what would be cool is a whole sound card made
entirely from valves
Other than being totally pointless and a huge waste of space, time and
money, it would be amazing to see something like it in action.

Admittedly it would take up more area than your house, but
theortically it would work so long as you could get the D to A
converter running fast enough.

Well old things like flared trousers are coming back into fashion, why
not computers

[T_Bone]

Well, heck, why not just build the whole PC from tubes? I might have enough space left in the barn if I throw some junk out. Granted it would look like the manhattan project.
 :-D

I wouldnt buy that board just because it had a tube on it...IMHO it isnt worth the differance and expense.....a nice sound card is going to cost less ...and have more features...