What's old is new again

Many (geeks) know that the invention of the semiconductor transistor in 1947 sounded the death knell for the glass vacuum tube (or "valve"). The use of vacuum tubes declined over the 50s - 70s as semiconductor prices dropped and their range of uses grew. By the 80s, tubes were seemingly gone altogether, at least from the consumer marketplace.

Yet there is a element of tube aficionados (audiophiles and rockers with $$$, primarily), who continue to favor the simple and reliable devices. I was surprised to see that Western Electric, the one-time and long-time (1872-1984) manufacturing arm of AT&T is back in business. Now they are strictly manufacturing a subset of tubes, at very high prices ($1200 for a matched pair of 300B audio amplifiers).

There's something very odd about using modern computers (utilizing millions of transistors doing things at rates tubes never could) to manufacture, test, and distribute vacuum tubes.

Then again, this is America. :-)