On Tue, 10 Feb 2009 14:33:23 +0000 (GMT), "Dave Plowman (News)"
wrote:

In article 49916db9.489311531@localhost,
Don Pearce (Don Pearce) wrote:
Of course solid state had huge advantages over valves - no warm-up,
staggeringly better fidelity (once the first disastrous efforts were
abandoned), longer lifetime (I well remember trips to the radio shop
to test dodgy valves). Convenience came into it too, particularly for
portable applications - no more high and low tension batteries for the
radio.

Took 'them' some time, though.

At the time of the transition, the BBC designed most of its audio gear -
with the exception of LS power amps. And early BBC transistorized gear -
type C - wasn't a patch in performance to the older type B valve stuff. Of
course it allowed great space savings so more complication.

You have summed up the problem with that word - transistorized. That
is exactly what they tried to do; design valve circuits using
transistors. So much of that early gear had driver transformers,
ultralinear output transformers and goodness only knows what other
horrors. It wasn't until people started to understand that you design
with transistors in a completely new way that things started getting
good.

d