The 7199 is a

vacuum tube A vacuum tube, electron tube, valve (British usage), or tube (North America), is a device that controls electric current flow in a high vacuum between electrodes to which an electric voltage, potential difference has been applied. The type kn ...

, combining a

pentode A pentode is an electronic device having five electrodes. The term most commonly applies to a three-grid amplifying vacuum tube or thermionic valve that was invented by Gilles Holst and Bernhard D.H. Tellegen in 1926. The pentode (called a ''tripl ...

and

triode A triode is an electronic amplifying vacuum tube (or ''valve'' in British English) consisting of three electrodes inside an evacuated glass envelope: a heated filament or cathode, a grid, and a plate (anode). Developed from Lee De Forest's 19 ...

. Typically, the pentode was used for the input stage, and the triode as a phase inverter. The tube was used in a number of American guitar amplifiers; the

Gibson Guitar Corporation Gibson Brands, Inc. (formerly Gibson Guitar Corporation) is an American manufacturer of guitars, other musical instruments, and professional audio equipment from Kalamazoo, Michigan, and now based in Nashville, Tennessee. The company was forme ...

, for instance, used the 7199 in 1961's

Falcon Falcons () are birds of prey in the genus ''Falco'', which includes about 40 species. Falcons are widely distributed on all continents of the world except Antarctica, though closely related raptors did occur there in the Eocene. Adult falcons ...

for the reverb circuit.

Ampeg Ampeg is a manufacturer best known for its bass amplifiers. Originally established in 1946 in Linden, New Jersey by Everett Hull and Stanley Michaels as "Michael-Hull Electronic Labs," today Ampeg is part of the Yamaha Guitar Group. Although ...

also used the 7199 extensively. Notable is the Dynaco ST-70 stereo amplifier introduced in 1959 which used a 7199 tube in the driver section of each channel. Over the next decade more than 350,000 of these amplifiers were produced. American 7199 production ended sometime in the 1980s while the Soviet tube company Sovtek produced one until roughly 2007. As a result the tube is becoming increasingly scarce. Another tube of the same type found in far more plentiful supply is the 6U8A, which is electrically identical, but with a different pinout configuration. The 6U8A can be substituted for a 7199 using a readily available adapter, or by making a slight modification to the wiring of its tube socket.

References

{{Reflist Guitar amplification tubes