Point to point wiring.

Rush, I just arrived and caught up on this thread.

I suspect Steve is teasing us. Everyone knows Ralph and I have been friends for years, we just like to give each other a lot of sh*t and I think he was joining in.

Hard time? Get it? Oh, never mind :)

On a more serious note (somehow back on topic), I don't think anyone pointed out here that point to point wiring is a much bigger deal for tube amps then transistor amps. Tubes being high impedance devices, they are affected to a much greater degree by stray capacitance then transistors. To control the variables thus introduced, point to point wiring can be an elegant solution. OTOH for transistors, for the most part, its a red herring.

Ralph, are the high voltages involved also a factor? It seems it would be trickier to maintain proper clearances on a PCB than by using wire.

There is certainly some truth to that. I have seen arc-over, due to circuit board contamination, that has heavily damaged PCBs in some tube amps I have serviced over the years. This is something that does not happen with point to point wiring.

Vacuum tube audio equipment that is point to point wired survives much longer (and is therefore preferred) in tropical climates.

Like all design methodologies, there are good point-to-point designs and bad ones. If all the wiring is done correctly, to control the current and current-return paths, the performance can easily exceed that of printed circuit boards. The dielectric in circuit boards has very high dielectric absorption compared to good cabling.

It requires good cabling, good circuit design and a knowledge of power delivery and signal path current flows to get a good result. Most tube amp and even some SS amp designers like to star-ground everything. This is good for noise abatement, but usually not good for the sound....results in a soft-sounding amp, no dynamics.