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Old 09-05-2011, 12:54 AM
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radiotvnut radiotvnut is offline
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Location: Meridian, MS
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Average consumer radios: Solid state AC operated table radios started to become common by the mid '60's; however, there were some tube radios made at least through '69. Zenith made a cheap plastic cased AM/FM tube set for the '69 model year ("Z" line) and a friend has a rather nice '68 Zenith AM table set with a tuned RF stage. And, I've seen a few Japanese tube sets that looked like they could have been from the early '70's. I have a few ultra-cheap Japanese 5-tube AM sets that were available during the mid-to-late '60's. These usually cost under $10 when new.

Console stereos and portable record players: Most major makers had switched to fully solid state console stereo's by '65-'66. From the '63-'65 period, some companies made hybrid models that contained a tube tuner and SS amp. There were some smaller companies that offered low end tube models into the late '60's. Most portable phonographs switched to solid state by the mid '60's; however, some cheaper record players (mainly kiddie "one tube wonders") contained tubes through around 1970 and some classroom record players used tubes into the early-to-mid '70's. I have a 1970 Rheem-Califone tube type classroom record player and Newcomb made some combination record player/PA systems for school use that used tubes well into the '70's.

TV's: Most major companies offered tube color and B&W TV's at least through '74-'75; however, most of these later sets used a mix of tubes and solid state components. GE was probably the last hold out, with their porta-color sets that were basically all tube and offered at least through '77. Also, GE was still making tube-type B&W portables in the '75-'76 era. I've heard of some cheap B&W portables that contained a tube or two being made into the '80's; but, I've never seen one. I think it would be safe to say that the GE porta-color was the last major tube set. RCA discontinued their tube sets at the end of the '74 model year and Zenith made tube sets through '75.

It's interesting to note that the first solid state battery operated portable TV was the Philco Safari from '59. A couple of years later, Sony got in on the act with a SS B&W portable. Then, Motorola released it's solid state "works in a drawer" color set in '67 and RCA introduced it's solid state CTC40 in '69. I think Zenith held out until '71 for their first solid state color set and Magnavox waited until '72-'73 for their first SS color set.

The first SS color sets were rather expensive; therefore, not as many of these were sold vs. tube-type sets. By the mid '70's, it had become cheaper to produce a reliable solid state color TV and that's probably why tubes hung around in TV's for several more years after they were discontinued in radios and record players. A friend told me that he went TV shopping somewhere around '73 and he ended up buying a Zenith hybrid console. He said that the dealer had an identical looking solid state console; but, it was $100 more than the hybrid set. He said given that both TV's had the same quality of picture, he could wait a few seconds for the picture to come on and save $100.

Last edited by radiotvnut; 09-05-2011 at 01:06 AM.
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