It became virtually extinct by the time Ronald Reagan ruled
the free world, but did the relatively recent reintroduction of the 7591 vacuum
tube manage to save our much loved vintage audio gear?
By: Ringo Bones
From the1966 Ampeg GS-12R electric guitar amp prized by Jazz
guitarists for its clean Jazzy timbres to the famed Fisher and Hermon Hosmer
Scott receivers from the Golden Age of Stereo, the reintroduction of the 7591
pentode output vacuum tube by Russian vacuum tube manufacturer Sovtek via their
Electro Harmonix arm had made every vintage audio gear enthusiast and Jazz
guitarist eternally grateful. The reintroduction even makes me wonder if the
1966 Ampeg GS-12 R guitar amp and the famed Fisher and H.H. Scott receivers
were even popular in Soviet era Russia and the rest of the East-Block countries
during the height of the Cold War.
Thanks to the reintroduction of the famed vacuum tube in the
form of the Electro Harmonix 7591A EH, every Fisher 500-C and HH Scott 345 and related model receiver – or
the 1966 Ampeg GS-12R guitar amp - using the tube can now be resurrected with
ease – which was very a very daunting task back during the Reagan
administration half of the 1980s where modern pentode type vacuum tube based
circuits became extinct since they were slowly being phased out by the start of
the 1970s due to the fact that every electronics engineer can more or less
replace them with solid state parts - if sound quality degradation due to increased
levels of overall negative feedback was overlooked.
Historically, the 7591 pentode vacuum tube was introduced in
1958 and registered with the EIA in 1960 after being developed and produced by
Westinghouse’s receiving tube factory in Bath, New York. Given that Dr. Harvey
C. Rentschler used to be the Director of Research for the Westinghouse Lamp
Division, one could wonder if Dr. Rentschler was instrumental in the
development of the 7591 vacuum tube. And by the way, the best NOS type of this
tube was the famed 1962 Westinghouse 7591 which has a clearer sound than the
new Electro Harmonix 7591.
4 comments:
When it originally came out at the height of the Golden Age of Stereo, McIntosh MA-230 and MC-225 power amplifiers came with Westinghouse 7591 power output vacuum tubes as standard.
The 7591A power pentode could have a musically consonant effect on The Golden Age of Stereo era American Jazz recordings like Miles Davis' Kind of Blue which explains how everyone around the world - including those behind the Iron Curtain to covet those 7591A vacuum tube equipped gear form McIntosh, Scott and Fisher.
With regards to the audio engineering genus of Avery Fisher and Hermon Hosmer Scott, the former Soviet Union and other countries used to be behind the Iron Curtain during the Cold War must have loved their 7591A power pentode equipped amps for listening to post World War II American Jazz recordings.
Legendary audio power amplifiers that use the 7591A power pentode - may there be by Fisher, McIntosh or Scott - not only plays back post World War II era American Jazz recordings with aplomb, but also the recorded works of Soviet-era Russian rocker Andrei Makarevich.
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