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 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.....
Severnapark19,

Wow! Elizabeth posts a totally incorrect response - and Grimace grasps the main concept anyway.....
05-18-11: Severnapark19
Heman posted after Grimace.

and Grimace grasps the main concept anyway.....
05-18-11: Severnapark19
Maybe you should reread Elizabeth's post and then reread Herman's post.