What the heck is bias anyway?


I'm getting a new tube amp that will need to be biased. The process of doing it seems fairly straight forward, but I am curious: what are you actually doing when you bias an amp? In english, for us technical Ludites.
grimace
Bias is simply the amount that the device is turned on(a % of max current) without signal(music) passing through it.
So it's basically adjusting the current to the tube to make sure the appropriate amount of juice is getting in and out of it. Not too much, and not too little. I think I have it.

Thanks Elizabeth!
Bias is the power put into a tube to push the electrons across the vacuum in the tube.

I hate to keep picking on you; but once again a technical explanation that is just too wrong to ignore. It is sort of, kind of, talking about what is happening but it is in a nutshell... wrong. I don't understand why you continue to jump in offering technical explanations about things you obviously don't completely understand.

It doesn't require a 12 page essay but it does require something that is correct, The following one sentence explanation is correct.

Bias is simply a voltage applied to a tube to control how much current flows when it is idling.

To say "power put into a tube to push the electrons across the vacuum" is flat out wrong. First of all it is not power, it is a voltage; they are not the same thing; and it is the voltage from Plate to Cathode that pushes the electrons through the vacuum not bias; bias controls how much can get through.

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Wow! Elizabeth posts a totally incorrect response - and Grimace grasps the main concept anyway.....
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