Lee de Forest
Inventor of the Audion
Major contribution
De Forest’s Audion supplied a key starting point for electronic amplification, enabling later practical sound-reinforcement amplifiers.
De Forest developed the Audion while investigating radio detectors. IEEE identifies his October 1906 patent application for amplifying weak electrical currents as including an early three-electrode form of the device.
The original Audion was not yet a dependable high-power audio amplifier. Subsequent development, notably by Harold Arnold and other telephone engineers, made vacuum-tube amplification robust enough for wider use; the resulting amplifier technology became a basic building block of PA.
Key work
- Audion patent application (1906)
- “The Audion: A New Receiver for Wireless Telegraphy” publication (1907)
- Audion demonstration to telephone researchers (1912)
In the chronology
Selected sources
- Lee de Forest – Audion · IEEE REACH
- Audion and Vacuum-tube Receiver Development (1907–1916) · EarlyRadioHistory.us
- The History of Live Sound – Part 1 · HARMAN Professional Solutions