That's not that important. What is important is that if it is true that this is the first member of a new class of superconductors, a whole new family if you will and that once the principles are better understood materials scientists can go about their search in a smaller parameter space of which they have proof that at least one set yields results.

Compared to the steps that have been happening in the last decades this one would be absolutely incredible in terms of temperature range, if I understood it correctly they aren't even sure about the upper limit due to a restriction in their measuring gear.

On one hand, yes, a new family will be discovered. On the other hand, high temperature superconductors like YBCO are very brittle and it does limit the applications. Traditional liquid helium-cooled superconductors still have to be used in many places.

One of the reasons it is so brittle is because it is still very cold even though it is high temp for a superconductor. Many materials will become brittle when cooled down that far. This is one of things people hope for with higher temp superconductors: that they will be less brittle. But less brittle usually also implies that a material changes shape easier and that in turn may affect the superconductivity. For instance when a large current runs through a superconductor that leads to strong magnetic fields and those strong magnetic fields will actively push against each other trying to destroy the conductor. A non-rigid superconductor would behave in ways that are not really helpful for instance by pushing it out of its superconducting domain (which would result in some pretty spectacular fireworks because suddenly all that power is available to heat up a small segment of the no-long-superconductor). So there is some chance that all materials that exhibit (useful) superconductivity will end up being somewhat brittle, and will need to be mechanically re-inforced.

Even if it is, we can coat it in epoxy and deal with it. And even if we can't, remember the first semi-conductor was germanium. If we have a theoretical and practical reproducible RT Superconductor we will very fast find new, better ones.

And audio nerds everywhere are still lusting after germanium transistors to this day!

Hmm, superconducting inductors seem like an audiophile thing. Patent?

I've read that superconducting inductors are handy for making very high-Q filters (no parasitic resistance!) and are even used in places as prosaic as cellular towers (LN2-cooled microstrip structures).

Could you explain why? Sounds intriguing.

musicians often use them to generate distortion, which is purely an electrical phenomenon. germanium components tend to filter high frequencies and don't clip as sharply as silicon, generating tonal effects that can't really be replicated.

but mostly, a lot of early guitar pedals used germanium components, and so they are associated with prestigious historic guitar players.

here's a video demonstration. silicon first, then halfway through they flip the switches and play the same circuit with germanium components.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3F8-EAxlXA

> generating tonal effects that can't really be replicated.

Seems my headphones can replicate it judging from hearing the audio. Am I missing something?

It’s not about playing the wave form but creating the wave form.

Guitarists today still use tube amps and germanium transistors (in guitar pedals) for two reasons. The first is that most guitar amps back in the day used tubes (mostly) and the early guitar pedals used Germanium. Guitarists wanted to sound like the earlier musicians that used that technology [1] so they want to use that technology to achieve a certain tone with their instrument. The generation after them wanted to sound like them, so that means old tech for them, too! Repeat until today.

The second reason is that an electric guitar is a combination of a physical and electrical system, and the distortion that is essentially synonymous with electric guitars [2] comes from pushing an amplifier out of its “intended” linear regime [3] into the nonlinear regime where it stops amplifying and starts clipping the signal. The way this nonlinear regime varies with the choice of tubes and transistors, but in general you can’t really replicate one with the other. These unique non linearities impact both the output sound and, most importantly to me as a player, the way the amplifier responds to my physical technique (e.g., how the sound varies with how hard I hit a string). I have played solid state amps that aim to emulate tube amps, and to me the biggest difference isn’t the sound but that physical response. I haven’t played the top of the line modeling amps, but this has been my main problem with the practice amps I’ve tried. As a result, if I’m not playing in my bedroom (pushing a tube amp to distort at apartment friendly volumes is hard), I play through a tube amp. The differences between silicon and germanium transistors are similar, but more subtle and I’m someone who owns a lot of pedals and is constantly switching them out to fit my mood.

[1] an interesting counter example is that the Beatles used early solid state amps on at least some albums

[2] Plenty of people play “clean” without distortion, but if you spend time on guitar forums, you see a lot of beginners who ask a question of the form “I just got my first electric guitar, why doesn’t it sound like an electric guitar?”

[3] Early on the goal was to produce high headroom amps that didn’t distort, but this was very challenging. Rock musicians latched on to the distorted sound and then that became a design feature in later amps. However, if you try to make like a 59 Bassman distort, you have to play it loud enough to kill someone. You can also achieve distortion in other ways, e.g. clipping diodes, but that’s not really germane to this discussion.

Well, it's the creation rather than the playback that's important, but you aren't really missing anything. It's not like the various waveshaping functionality of those aren't documented, they're entirely reproducible in software.

This is why most "audiophile" stuff is redundant in my mind, a lot of people seem to act like valves have some sort of magic that we cannot profile and just reproduce in software.

But then again there's nothing wrong with people romanticising stuff as long as it's more "valves are cool because they're retro and nostalgic" over "valves are cool because they're objectively better".

There are simulators such a Kemper or neural DSP that can reproduce fairly well any amp, but it is expensive, and imperfect.

When you play on emulation it's difficult to know if it is faithful without having used the original.

Some musician appreciate them, others avoid them.

When you happen to finally get the real gear, you often realize it sounds better, and have a wider range of usage.

The convenience of real dedicate knobs, without menus is unmatched.

There is some pleasure with getting the real thing, and use it by yourself.

you're listening to a recording. a musician wants to make sound

Synthesis not sample

Also the forward operating voltage of germanium is about half of silicons (0.3V vs 0.7V)

My understanding is that it is due to the lower voltage drop across the base junction. Germanium is .3v vs Silicon .7v, so with germanium you get less "crossover distortion" when the input signal is crossing the 0 line.

edit: I understand that typically this is biased out with diodes...but the matching is not perfect and it is easier to start with half the distortion.

Never mind that any half decent amp design biases the base voltage to make sure that you're not going to have that problem.

Ge transistors clip audio signals in a "smoother" way. A softer knee, its called.

Sounds noisy...