When did tube technology hit it's peak?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Aloha
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Aloha said:
early 60's?
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Define "peak".

Tube technology in general got into a fast decline as soon as the transistor got commercially viable. That happened when TI invented and started producing the silicon transistor. That was 1954.
 
That happened when TI invented and started producing the silicon transistor. That was 1954.
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TI? Is this Texas Instruments or Telephone Industry?

I was under the impression the transistor was invented by Bell Laboratories, originally for the telephone industry.

As for when tubes hit their peak; I think they are doing that right now as many digital audio recording enthusiasts rely on tube-centric device in microphones, pre-amps and compressors to warm up their cold digital recording mediums.

As for when the mainstream consumer electronics industry gave up on the tube, I would say somewhere around the mid 60's.

Cheers! :)
 
I think if you do a little research you will find the tube is doing just fine and still used alot in the communication,s industy.

One thing that the tube is still used for and about the best thing out there is the transmission of radio signals. I dont think they can be beat when it comes to high power aplications.
 
The Ghost of FM said:
I was under the impression the transistor was invented by Bell Laboratories
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Yep. Late 40's.

SONY made then take off when they made their first Walkman during the 50's. All transistor. Others had both because companies didn't know if people would accept those things or not.
 
As well, if you look at all tube electronic applications, Computer monitors and cathode ray picture tube TV sets still enjoy a huge share of the market.

Light bulbs too, are really just simple tubes.

Tubes have legitimate applications that will be with us for a long, long time to come.

Cheers! :)
 
Outlaws said:
Yep. Late 40's.

SONY made then take off when they made their first Walkman during the 50's. All transistor. Others had both because companies didn't know if people would accept those things or not.
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This link might shed some light on when they released their first "Walkman" onto the market. According to this article, it was 1979.

http://www.sony.co.uk/aboutSony/companymilestones.asp

Cheers! :)
 
The Ghost of FM said:
TI? Is this Texas Instruments or Telephone Industry?

I was under the impression the transistor was invented by Bell Laboratories, originally for the telephone industry.
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They did, yes, but Texas Instruments invented the silicon transistor, which is when it got commercially viable, because then it was easy and cheap to manufacture.
 
Outlaws said:
Yep. Late 40's.

SONY made then take off when they made their first Walkman during the 50's. All transistor. Others had both because companies didn't know if people would accept those things or not.
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You are thinking about the Sony all-transistor radios. Which although portable and batterydriven, was not Walkmans. :)
 
regebro said:
You are thinking about the Sony all-transistor radios. Which although portable and batterydriven, was not Walkmans. :)
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Samething..............................:o




I don't wanna hear you calling tissue by the name of Kleenex then ;)
 
Don't confuse the issue.

Kleenex is a brand of tissue. Walkman is a brand of portable CASSETTE players. Not radios. ;)

And, no, I wouldn't call a tissue anything else than a tissue. Calling them "Kleenex" is an american thing. :rolleyes:
 
I don't wanna hear you calling tissue by the name of Kleenex then
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Well, some analog and vintage equipment admirers wouldn't want to see history being re-written either. ;)

Back in the day of when the lowly transistor radio was a new device, they were simply called........transistor radios!

The Walkman's original design was intended for one of the executives at Sony for his long, overseas flights where he thought it would be a good idea to be able to listen to his own music on the airplane and had the boys in the lab design him a compact, stereo cassette player, as he knew he wasn't going to pick up any radio stations in the middle of the ocean, and a compact pair of headphones to listen privately with on the airplane. It turned out that he liked the unit so much, that he had the factory turn them out as a normal product in their line up of equipment in Japan and a year latter in North America, it became known as the Walkman. ( All the above, taken from the Canadian Sony website in their history section.)

Peace.;)
 
Good story. And as with most good stories, probably completely bogus.

"Shu Ueyama of Sony cites that this invention was purely accidental. Organizational changes were taking place at Sony in 1979 and the tape recorder division was pressed to market something soon, or risk consolidation. They came up with a small cassette player capable of stereo playback. The invention was born from a tweaked Pressman (Sony's monaural portable cassette recorder) and a pair of headphones."

The stories are more unanimous on what happened afterwards. The founder of Sony, Akito Morita, really liked the product and is said to immediately have realized it's potential to reach young music lovers.

And we all know the result: A whole generation of people with tinnitus. :)
 
And we all know the result: A whole generation of people with tinnitus.
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Count me in that generation too:(

My Tinnitus is a 24/7 pain!:mad:

Maybe we should start a class action lawsuit against Sony and sue them out of their last few billion before they kick the bucket as a corporation!?
 
regebro said:
Don't confuse the issue.

Kleenex is a brand of tissue. Walkman is a brand of portable CASSETTE players. Not radios. ;)
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Well my first Sony had a radio in it too. And its not my fault that it took 20 some years to invent the cassette tape. Sony should have come up with it quicker :D
 
Let me fix my post then.......


SONY made them take off when they made the pre-curser to their Walkman during the 50's. All transistor. Others had both because companies didn't know if people would accept those things or not.
 
I don't think they've peaked yet. They are becoming all the rage in some circles for making digital HI-FI systems tolerable to listen to.

PAIA pitches their HIFI TubeHead as a solution for "...warming annoyingly sterile CD s."

http://www.paia.com/tubestuf.htm

What a concept!

:cool:
 
Beck said:
I don't think they've peaked yet. They are becoming all the rage in some circles for making digital HI-FI systems tolerable to listen to.

PAIA pitches their HIFI TubeHead as a solution for "...warming annoyingly sterile CD s."

http://www.paia.com/tubestuf.htm

What a concept!

:cool:
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I don't like companies that only show mockups of their equipment. I need real pictures. And whats with the whole bragging about how back in June of 1994 they were voted something......thats almost 10 years ago. Who cares about back then? We are talking today and for the future. Bad bad marketing. Its an amiture site. I can't speak for what they make but they are covering way to broad a range of products to take my money.

This quote did get me though....

"If you love vacuum tubes, these pre-amps have your name on them. The TubeHead is a low-cost, two-channel vacuum tube pre-amplifier with a twist; it s designed to be adjustable from crisp, solid-state transparency to an exaggerated caricature of tube amp warmth. In between these extremes, you'll find tonal coloring options that you ve never had before and sounds that mimic every tube amp you ever heard. This circuit is so versatile that you may use it in place of compressors, limiters and sustainers even though, technically, it is none of these. The rack mount kit comes complete with fully enclosed 1U rack case, 1/4" phone jack inputs and outputs on the rear case apron and wall mount power supply."

Notice the bolded part....

I wasn't aware that a preamp was able to compress/limit/sustain at the same time as doing its first job....sure if there is a bunch of gain that causted distrotion or overdrive there is a little extra but its hardy that....its tube but so what.......there a lot of other tube pres out there that don't make that claim.

Anyways.
 
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