A new tube family, Compactrons, was introduced by GE in 1961. The transition from large tube equipment to small transistor gear mainly occurred in the 1960s.īy far the largest market for tubes in the early 1960s was television sets, and most new tube models released during that decade were designed for TV use. Continuous average power for a push-pull amplifier was thus about 50 W per channel. Higher-power amps typically used 6L6GCs, which were introduced in the late 1950s. These were essentially 6V6GTs rated in design-maximum terms, giving an apparent increase in plate voltage and current capability. Low-power amps might use a push-pull pair of 7408s per channel. Most of the tubes were old standbys introduced in the 1940s, such as the 12AX7 dual triode that debuted in 1947, but some of the output tubes were newer. The power rating method varied from one manufacturer to another: some rated in “peak power”, which was about twice the average power some rated in “music power” which supposedly took into account the maximum listening level with distortion within tolerable limits, and a few rated in “RMS power”, which is a misnomer, and should be called “average power”, being the product of RMS voltage and RMS current that the amp could put out. Amplifier power for stereo systems was rated as the sum of the left and right channels, so a 20 W amplifier was what would now be called a 10-watt-per-channel amplifier. I was becoming familiar with electronic circuits and stereo equipment performance ratings through Popular Electronics magazine. My education about hi-fi had begun via the Allied Radio Electronics catalog. I was getting used to the “thinner” sound of the new Bakelite-cased GE 5-tube table radio that has replaced our old Arvin, and after going to bed at night, I listened to AM rock stations from several states distant on my new 6-transistor vest-pocket radio. In 1960, most hi-fi listeners had transitioned from mono to stereo, and the rest of the public was at least considering doing so. Having fallen in love with electrical and electronic communication through a science assignment to build a working telegraph, and seeing the walkie-talkie used by Captain Midnight on Saturday morning TV, I was aware of the confidence with which the replacement of vacuum-tube technology by transistor circuits was foretold. I was in the fifth grade, and was exposed to regular predictions of great advances in science in the 1960s, through articles in Weekly Reader, the elementary-school newspaper our schools provided for us. At the ripe age of 11, I had my first remembered experience of entering a new decade in 1960.
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