RCA

Centered in Harrison New Jersey on the sight of Thomas Edison's original lamp works and not too far from Menlo Park where his "invention factory" started it all, R.C.A was the backbone of the receiving tube industry in the U.S.  R.C.A. was a very well run corporation from the beginning, and was in many ways the cornerstone for tube manufacturing worldwide. I say this because they developed and (if by no other means than sheer volume), standardized most of the basing system worldwide. Consistency is an R.C.A. herald and this consistency showed in their tubes all the way from the 1920s to the 1970s! R.C.A. tubes have an accuracy that is never hard, just accurate! Tonally the mini's, 12AX7, etc. seem to be just a hair on the softer side of a Telefunken if you could give them any kind of label at all. The power tubes from the 6L6 to the 845 also have this broad balance from top to bottom with all the natural detail and sweetness of the real thing. R.C.A. never tooled up for the 6DJ8 so any such tube labeled as such was made by someone else. Unfortunately the entire R.C.A. receiving tube division was liquidated in a 12 day auction during the fall of 1976, this basically broke the back of the tube manufacturing industry (and the supporting industries) in the U.S.A.

 

Enter a world of the RCA valves