by J-Man
This week we want to celebrate RCA’s 105th birthday and pay tribute to one of the 20th century’s preeminent audio and communications company.
Everyone knows RCA tubes. Heck, I can remember RCA tube testers at the front of the supermarket when I was a kid. We all know that RCA Tubes are considered to be some of the finest sounding tubes you can get. They are highly sought after by music creators and audio enthusiasts everywhere, especially the legendary 12AX7 and 6V6 tubes. The compact, high-gain, dual-triode design of those tubes was key in changing the sound of popular music from the late 1940s onward. A leader in the science of vacuum tube technology, tubes were also a big profit-center for RCA. Beside being the nation’s leading manufacturer of vacuum tubes, their dominance in tube patents was so strong that it gave them the power to set prices in the US market. But there’s a lot more to RCA’s history than just tubes.
RCA was founded in 1919 when, post-WW1, the Navy and General Electric® got together and, on behalf of the United States, claimed the right of eminent domain on the foreign-owned Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company of America (commonly called "American Marconi"), which was founded in 1899 and controlled most of the radio communications throughout the United States. Its name was changed and the now US-owned Radio Corporation of America, aka RCA, became the country’s largest radio communications firm. They manufactured consumer radio receivers, with help from GE®/Westinghouse and other OEM factories, during a time of huge demand and dominated the radio market from the 1920s to the 1950s. It’s worth noting that in addition to the consumer and professional broadcast products they were making, the RCA Type 44-BX and Type 77-DX ribbon microphones were at their apex as on-air and recording studio tools in the 1930s and 40s. Not just for on-air work, these mics were popular on film music scoring stages; many of the top US scoring stages still have them in rotation today.
All of this led RCA into the realm of recording. RCA acquired Victor Talking Machine Company in the late 1920s and the RCA/ Victor record company was born. They owned, at one time, JVC in Japan and EMI Records in the UK. Starting around 1957, they even operated recording studios in cities around the US, like Hollywood, NYC, Chicago, and, notably, Nashville, Tennessee, where Elvis Presley recorded some of his most enduring music. Presley was under contract to…RCA Records. Much of these studio’s complement of gear - consoles, dynamics processors, monitor amplifier systems - was built-to-order by the RCA engineers.
The BA6A Limiting Amplifier, designed and built by the RCA engineers in the 1950s, is an amazing example of a professional product that was made for the broadcast industry. It was designed to solve a problem, which was not having automatic gain control during on-air broadcasts. They wanted to alleviate needing to constantly ride the giant bake-lite knob that passed for a gain “fader” in 1951 by hand. It was designed to respond quickly and to increase its input to output ratio as the input signal rose, but the decay was moderate to slow, so it wouldn’t pump. This made it perfect for smooth on-air limiting, as well as Jimmy Page's acoustic guitar tracks (he apparently owned a pair!).
An elegant design, the original user guide boasted of the BA6A: “The use of high-quality components and the straightforwardness of design, employing only 9 tubes(!) including rectifier and voltage regulator, insure (sic) a maximum degree of reliability.”
RCA simply dominated the audio electronics sector in the US throughout most of the 20th century, both professional and consumer, and experienced a “Golden Age” along with the music business in general. However, in the late 1970s times got tough for RCA owing to some questionable business decisions coupled with greater competition from overseas manufacturers like Sony and Matsushita. In 1986 RCA was absorbed back into GE®, ending a nearly seventy year run as America’s foremost audio electronics firm.
Fortunately for us, they made a ton of tubes and we are constantly on the lookout for NOS treasures from the Golden Age of RCA. And, who knows what RCA jewel we’ll recreate next to join our homage to the BA6A, the AudioScape ASA-6A.
Happy 105th Birthday RCA!
