Tube Temptation
"I have heard the music of men and believed it was the music of angels......... In the blindness of my idolatry, I danced fearful pagan Rites with Nijinsky, I took the A-Train, I heard Salieri's pulse quicken, I heard Puccini's stop and felt the crash of Townshend's chords "
Today brethren, dark clouds are a'loomin' on the horizon. For I am aware that I have already failed in my attempts to dissuade some of you from endeavouring to construct your own valve power amplifiers. Now I hear that there are amongst you good hum-fearing people some who have strayed so far into the swamp of confusion and idolatry that you are considering constructing your own valve amplifiers.
Once again I say to you brothers and sisters. Don't do it. Valves are the serpents of hi-fi - luring we innocent hi-fi victims with their warm, cherry-red charms only to dash us to pieces with their lethal high voltages, troublesome base connections, cost and tintinnus-like microphony. Steal yourself from this temptation. Join AA (Analogues Anonymous). Sign the tube pledge. Once you let this awful vacuum into your life, you will be changed.
I have to tell you, I myself fell. And only near bankruptcy raised me up. I have known earthly rapture. I have sat in the listening-seat of iniquity. I have heard the music of men and believed it was the music of angels. I was ensnared. I thought I had glimpsed heaven but the heaven I had glimpsed was the heaven of a bottle - a line of bottles glowing red with a sheen of blue. And those bottles carried me away from the world I had known to a realm of appalling dissipation. In the blindness of my idolatry, I danced fearful pagan Rites with Nijinsky, I took the A-Train, I heard Salieri's pulse quicken, I heard Puccini's stop and felt the crash of Townshend's chords. A curtain was not so much lifted as rent in twain and I became blind to the pleas of multinational advertising, blind to the heroism of efficacy and mass-production. Blinded to that most profound truths brethren; that things always get better.
I want you always to remember chil'n that in our lives two forces are wrestling for us; valves and semiconductors. For a time it looked like old valves was a'winning. Then it seemed as if transistors was a'getting the upper hand. To and fro they fought. But history has scattered valves in the imagination of our hearts. History has put valves from their seats, and exalted them of low degree. Solid-State has filled the hungry with good things........
.......but some of us know different :)
Thanks to Richard Brice for this extract.