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ON TRIODES, PENTODES & IRISHMEN:
With apologies to Friends and Relatives from the Emerald Isle - who will make their appearance soon enough - the humor which
follows is dedicated to the memories of Spec McAuliff and Fae (Rafael) McNally, two of the True Greats.
As their numerical references suggest, the terms Diode, Triode and Pentode indicate the number of elements within the vacuum
tube i.e. two, three or five. All tubes also require a filament or heater which is not included in the count. Its purpose is to excite elec-
trons from the cathode coating by raising the temperature such that they are able to boil out of the electron-rich coating material
and form a cloud of free electrons in the vacuum space surrounding the cathode.
Although the term filament and heater are often used interchangeably, there are specific differences: A filament is a directly heated
cathode where cathode coating is applied directly to the heating element. Examples are 5U4 twin diode rectifier and 300B triode
amplifier tubes. A heater, on the other hand, is a heating element which is separate from the cathode and is usually inserted within
the tubular cathode sleeve. Examples are 12AX7 twin triode amplifier and 6V6 or EL84 beam power pentode tubes. In all cases this
fundamental aspect of each tube’s construction is clearly visible, especially when the heating element is glowing red hot.
The cathode, then, would be considered the first numbered element because it is the source of the electrons. The word itself is
from the Greek literally meaning completely down, which implies a sense of central origin - like the center of the earth where
Tone begins. It might be said that an ecstatic audiophile experiences a positive catharsis, his soul being purified when his system
transports him to Audio Nirvana. The only trouble with taking this positive imagery too far is that the cathode is, unfortunately,
negative... at least electrically speaking. However this is easily remembered since virtually all musicians and audiophiles have also
experienced the more common negative catharsis when they emerge from the emotional rebirth kicking and screaming in rage and
frustration.
Once heated, the intrinsically negative electrons are energetic little fellows of almost no mass. Thus they may be accelerated al-
most instantaneously and will travel through a vacuum a nearly the speed of light. Being of like, negative charge, they tend to repel
one another and thus within the electron cloud surrounding the cathode, there is much jostling and elbowing as each one tries to
maintain his distance from all the others... unless there is a strong and universal attraction from an outside influence.
Visualize, if you will, a group of sub-atomic Irishmen milling about and in a repellent, negative state of mind. All are scowling and
none wants to have anything to do with the other. Now introduce a strong attraction say, a public bar, and you can easily picture an
orderly, if rapid movement of the lot in a single direction. This is what happens when a positively charged element called the anode
or plate is introduced into the vacuum.
The plate is the large metal element most prominently visible through the glass of an electron tube. It is the outermost element of
a tube’s structure and it surrounds all the others. The cathode is at the center radiating electrons outwards. As higher and higher
positive voltage is applied to the plate, the attraction for the electrons surrounding the cathode is increased and with nothing stand-
ing in the way, full uninhibited flow to the plate occurs... sort of like removing the doors and offering free drinks to the crowd of surly
Irishmen milling around outside. As electrons flow to the plate, the space charge will continually be replenished by further ‘boiling’
of the hot, electron-rich cathode as you can easily imagine other Irishmen impatiently taking up the places of those who’ve gone
inside - until the entire village is deserted.
Now, where do they come from and how do they emerge? Well, a grand and elegant lady once showed me how to revive flat cham-
pagne: She dropped a raisin into the glass. There was a dramatic and immediate increase in effervescence with the introduction of
a cathoding surface. Thousands of tiny bubbles suddenly appeared - and continued to flow from the raisin. Of course the bubbles
were made up of gas dissolved in the beverage, but the analogy makes it easy to visualize the loosely bound electrons dissolved
in the rich cathode coating as they effervesce from its heated surface.
But back to the electron flow. If the electrons are strongly attracted to a positively charged plate, then it follows that they are
strongly repelled by a negatively charged plate and they are. Thus, if an alternating current - such as comes from a transformer - is
applied to the plate, electrons will flow only during the times when the plate is positively charged. During periods of negative plate
charge, electron flow is stopped and the space charge of electrons remains compressed in the area around the cathode.