Vacuum Tube 5. 25 Drive Bay Oddware! Cooler Master Musketeer III
video description
Tubes compress the sound in way that is closer how the human ear itself compresses the sound, so in theory it could make long computer sessions less stressful to your hearing senses.
Games tended to have not so polished sound at the time, so this device could actually help glue things together into a more immersive experience.
Date: 2023-04-28
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Comments and reviews: 14
Michael
I know Clint intentionally doesn t put in the usual full effort on these vids as they are more one-offs, but I have to say Oddware videos are still my favorite, partially due to the extra skepticism but also because I just never encountered any of this back in the day. I was a Mac guy, and our peripherals never morphed into the competitive bloodbath that made the PC case market produce so many weird products - just to catch someone s eye as they read a magazine or walked down the aisles in Fry s Electronics. So cool to see how weird it got, just to survive in that competitive market.
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I know Clint intentionally doesn t put in the usual full effort on these vids as they are more one-offs, but I have to say Oddware videos are still my favorite, partially due to the extra skepticism but also because I just never encountered any of this back in the day. I was a Mac guy, and our peripherals never morphed into the competitive bloodbath that made the PC case market produce so many weird products - just to catch someone s eye as they read a magazine or walked down the aisles in Fry s Electronics. So cool to see how weird it got, just to survive in that competitive market.
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David
We had an old Capehart and we it would breal down, my Dad would call the local repairman, Mr. Daggett. I was intrigued with electronics even then, and he would have me test the tubes right there at home. Such a warm giving gentleman and my love of electronics has been with me all of my life since. I have been an Electronics Tech for about 50 years and still going. Just that little push from a nice old repairman fixing an old vacuum tube TV with a single digit kid is a great gift for anyone to give.
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We had an old Capehart and we it would breal down, my Dad would call the local repairman, Mr. Daggett. I was intrigued with electronics even then, and he would have me test the tubes right there at home. Such a warm giving gentleman and my love of electronics has been with me all of my life since. I have been an Electronics Tech for about 50 years and still going. Just that little push from a nice old repairman fixing an old vacuum tube TV with a single digit kid is a great gift for anyone to give.
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Evergreen
Those pops and clicks are from power surges in the system they are almost always there especially in older systems you can hear them if turn volume way up with no sound playing and is more noticeable with headphones or by putting ear near speaker. Guessing the musketeer 3 is picking them up through the power supply and lacks any sort of filtering from it I made a usb powered headphone amp from a old cd rom drive and it picks them up in a similar fashion, but musketeer still looks great.
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Those pops and clicks are from power surges in the system they are almost always there especially in older systems you can hear them if turn volume way up with no sound playing and is more noticeable with headphones or by putting ear near speaker. Guessing the musketeer 3 is picking them up through the power supply and lacks any sort of filtering from it I made a usb powered headphone amp from a old cd rom drive and it picks them up in a similar fashion, but musketeer still looks great.
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TWX1138
I listened to the audio test portion with my eyes closed, to avoid being influenced by being told when switching from native sound card output to the oddware device. I have to agree, the differences were subtle, like going from a local playback source to receiving over FM radio. Noticeable when comparing, and a little worse, but nothing dramatic.
I can see why this thing didn't take off more widely, it doesn't really offer anything besides looks, and those are highly subjective.
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I listened to the audio test portion with my eyes closed, to avoid being influenced by being told when switching from native sound card output to the oddware device. I have to agree, the differences were subtle, like going from a local playback source to receiving over FM radio. Noticeable when comparing, and a little worse, but nothing dramatic.
I can see why this thing didn't take off more widely, it doesn't really offer anything besides looks, and those are highly subjective.
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Kepe
Ah, I've heard that weird noise on multiple different machines. Even on my current work laptop you can hear the mouse movements. Whatever signals are running through the motherboard cause interference with the sound circuitry and can be heard as faint noise through the laptop speakers. I also had this exact same issue with my previous sound card, Creative Labs Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS combined with whatever my last motherboard and CPU combo was which had a PCI slot.
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Ah, I've heard that weird noise on multiple different machines. Even on my current work laptop you can hear the mouse movements. Whatever signals are running through the motherboard cause interference with the sound circuitry and can be heard as faint noise through the laptop speakers. I also had this exact same issue with my previous sound card, Creative Labs Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS combined with whatever my last motherboard and CPU combo was which had a PCI slot.
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Robert
Isn't a telltale sign that a tube is functioning its internal glow? My experience with tubes, from building a radio back in high school, tells me that if there is no glow, there is no effect whatsoever. I think the tube is just for show. The product coincides with an renewed interest in tube amps at that time, so putting one into this for the coolness effect was a no-brainer. the gullible masses would surely gobble it up! Worked on YOU, didn't it? Cheers! ;-]
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Isn't a telltale sign that a tube is functioning its internal glow? My experience with tubes, from building a radio back in high school, tells me that if there is no glow, there is no effect whatsoever. I think the tube is just for show. The product coincides with an renewed interest in tube amps at that time, so putting one into this for the coolness effect was a no-brainer. the gullible masses would surely gobble it up! Worked on YOU, didn't it? Cheers! ;-]
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lmull3
The output of the sound card by itself seems to be more dynamic and sound more. direct coupled? Not sure if that's the right word, but the tube colors the sound almost a little too much in that thing. I'm surprised they didn't put a tube shield around that 12AU7 considering all the data noise that leaks into it. Pretty cool device despite all that. Makes me wonder if that AOpen board has the same data noise issue and if tube shields would help in any way.
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The output of the sound card by itself seems to be more dynamic and sound more. direct coupled? Not sure if that's the right word, but the tube colors the sound almost a little too much in that thing. I'm surprised they didn't put a tube shield around that 12AU7 considering all the data noise that leaks into it. Pretty cool device despite all that. Makes me wonder if that AOpen board has the same data noise issue and if tube shields would help in any way.
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Need
I had the aopen motherboard that was mentioned in this video. I moved to another part of Norway for studies and such, and left the machine with the aopen motherboard with my parents. I then got a job and moved out of the country for a while. My parents wanted to fix up my old room and threw a lot of stuff away that I had stored there. The computer with the motherboards went as a well, and left me feeling surprised when I came back for a holiday.
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I had the aopen motherboard that was mentioned in this video. I moved to another part of Norway for studies and such, and left the machine with the aopen motherboard with my parents. I then got a job and moved out of the country for a while. My parents wanted to fix up my old room and threw a lot of stuff away that I had stored there. The computer with the motherboards went as a well, and left me feeling surprised when I came back for a holiday.
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Fuzzy
I busted out my Bayerdynamic DT 880's because I couldn't hear a difference, thinking that reference headphones would make it more noticeable, it didn't, I'm thinking that the tube may be purely decorative, though I'd need photos of the traces on the PCB to know for sure.
Also, the distortion you're hearing is probably radiation from the CRT, you should try moving the mouse with it turned off and see if the noise stops.
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I busted out my Bayerdynamic DT 880's because I couldn't hear a difference, thinking that reference headphones would make it more noticeable, it didn't, I'm thinking that the tube may be purely decorative, though I'd need photos of the traces on the PCB to know for sure.
Also, the distortion you're hearing is probably radiation from the CRT, you should try moving the mouse with it turned off and see if the noise stops.
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enilenis
Used to mod cases and put those VU meters in. Hook up backlight to power and the needle to hard drive LED, and get that dancing not in response to audio, but as a faux HD speed gauge. I think there were even commercial products like that, similar to this 5 25 thing. Having an external amp inside a computer without shielding - that's quite silly. No wonder, it picks up interference.
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Used to mod cases and put those VU meters in. Hook up backlight to power and the needle to hard drive LED, and get that dancing not in response to audio, but as a faux HD speed gauge. I think there were even commercial products like that, similar to this 5 25 thing. Having an external amp inside a computer without shielding - that's quite silly. No wonder, it picks up interference.
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LimaVictor
10: 45 aaah the memories. Certain sound cards pick up a ton of RF noise produced by the motherboard. Tubes have a high input impedance, and therefore often very sensitive to such stuff.
If there's no frequency range limitation (such as a capacitor between grid and capacitor) it will very happily amplify and sometimes detect (make audible) these spurious signals.
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10: 45 aaah the memories. Certain sound cards pick up a ton of RF noise produced by the motherboard. Tubes have a high input impedance, and therefore often very sensitive to such stuff.
If there's no frequency range limitation (such as a capacitor between grid and capacitor) it will very happily amplify and sometimes detect (make audible) these spurious signals.
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AkosJaccik
Frankly, sitting by my black brick PC, looking at my silver rectangle monitor, under which I store my black rectangle mobile and black pebble earbuds etc, I have nothing against a device which is - fluff aside - unapologetically there for just being awesome. I mean, I guess I could go with the flow and start duct taping RGB leds to everything, but. come on.
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Frankly, sitting by my black brick PC, looking at my silver rectangle monitor, under which I store my black rectangle mobile and black pebble earbuds etc, I have nothing against a device which is - fluff aside - unapologetically there for just being awesome. I mean, I guess I could go with the flow and start duct taping RGB leds to everything, but. come on.
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Daniel
Does nobody here realize the tube portion of the device is a fake? Tubes don t work in stereo for a single tube. This would be at best a mono device. It s fake marketing. If you actually tear it down, you ll see there s a reason why they put a light inside the tube area. That s because the tube doesn t actually do anything. It s wank marketing.
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Does nobody here realize the tube portion of the device is a fake? Tubes don t work in stereo for a single tube. This would be at best a mono device. It s fake marketing. If you actually tear it down, you ll see there s a reason why they put a light inside the tube area. That s because the tube doesn t actually do anything. It s wank marketing.
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Yackable
This is really strange because it's an analog tube and a digital circuitry system. If you look up the same thing and do research on them you'll understand the digital systems don't really give any bonus when you add an analog tube. It's more like just for the aesthetics. You need a full analog system to actually have the tubes do something.
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This is really strange because it's an analog tube and a digital circuitry system. If you look up the same thing and do research on them you'll understand the digital systems don't really give any bonus when you add an analog tube. It's more like just for the aesthetics. You need a full analog system to actually have the tubes do something.
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