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 Vienna valve trombone Vienna valve trombones use Vienna Valves which were one of the earliest valve systems used in wind instruments. These valves were first publicly reported in 1815 and valved trombones were first introduced in the late 1830s. The Vienna valve was invented in Leipzig in 1821 by Sattler, predating the Perinet valve and rotary valve used in France and Germany (and in all French horns). The Vienna Valves (or Double Valves) have two short parallel pistons connected at the bottom by a bar that is moved by a long rod or linkage connected to the spring-loaded finger plate.