Care and Feeding of Vacuum Tubes (Valves)

This is true; they are far more robust than modern semiconductors. Substantially less. When I was fooling around with glassfets in the '70s, I usually used B+ voltages anywhere between about 80V and 150V. Then I spoke with a guitar tech about using 12AX7s, I think it was, in guitar effects, and was wondering where they got the high voltage. He told me B+ in such circuits is, IIRC, 12V. It makes sense - power delivered is not really a consideration in such things - but it was a bit of a surprise to me.... Pretty much anything that can deliver hundreds-to-thousands of watts can be quite deadly. (Even modern computer power supplies - anything that can push 100A at 3.3V definitely deserves an energy hazard warning label! I've heard stories - first-hand, mind you, as in told by the person bearing the burn scars - of energy hazard accidents that make me wince from empathy...and make me very glad I'm not in a position to tell such stories myself. Okay, probably not truly _deadly_, but certainly pretty harsh.) /~\ The ASCII Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents-montreal.org / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B