When I first visited the link given by Keith and saw that the mobo used an 845 chipset and 4x AGP, I wondered why they used such an innovative product with such obsolete complements. Then I noticed that the review was done nearly 3 years ago. I wonder if AOpen has pursued the idea further.
Yes. it seems solid-state audio has never really managed to match vacuum tube sound. For some time I've been scrounging vacuum tubes from old electronics dealers who never got around to throwing out their old tube stocks. I've managed to collect tubes like ECC83 (12AX7), EL84, 6L6GC, etc. with the intention of building a tube amp for my own use and on custom order for local guitarists.
The biggest obstacle here is finding sockets for the tubes. This is really ironic as those sockets used to cost about one rupee each when tube-based products were still being mass-produced.
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