Audio power amplifier inside the chassis of the main product. The audio amplifier was invented around 1912 by Lee De Forest, made possible by his invention of the first practical amplifying electrical component, the triode vacuum tube (or "valve" in British English) in 1907. The triode was a three terminal device with a control grid that can modulate the flow of electrons from the filament to the plate. The triode vacuum amplifier was used to make the first AM radio. Early audio power amplifiers were based on vacuum tubes and some of these achieved notably high audio quality (e.g., the Williamson amplifier of
Vienna valve trombone The Vienna system was in common use in Germany on all kinds of instruments including trumpets up to 1850. Adolph Sax invented instruments with 6 independent valves 3 for each hand, but only the most dexterous musicians were able to play them. The valve trombone has definite advantages over the more common slide trombone, such as taking up less room in a seated orchestra. Verdi, for example, composed passages that would have been impossible on a normal slide trombone. For illustrations of a Vienna valve trombone c.1850, see: Vienna valve trombone Vienna valve trombones use Vienna Valves which were one