Were the old tube consoles actually manufactured by the brand names ie:Motorola,RCA etc.or were the parts made by other companys? as in todays market and if so how could you discern who actually made it?

Generalizations here....

- The parts themselves, for the most part, came from component manufactureres. This means resistors, caps, tubes, etc.

- Manufacturing of the completed units were held in house where quality and cost could be held in control better. Remember that most of these companies were relatively small and the communications and partnering required to ensure all separate subassemblies wasn't really available at the time.

Manufacturing costs was one item that directly contributed to the bottom line so it was considered essential to keep it in house.

I do remember that, by the 70s, you could find small ads in the back of some of the audio industry rags (not the consumer stuff but the ones aimed at keeping the channels of distribution up to date) offering to develop entire receivers to your spec. This meant that if I had enough up front cash and willingness to commit to literally boat loads of a model, then I could outsource the development and manufacturing of an Asian-made receiver where I could tell them where to put the dial, controls, how many switches, what the functions would do, etc. Of course, you had little or no control over quality and replacement parts would be costly as you had to provide the warranty.....

Today, though, the labor cost component of building almost anything in the US swamps out the parts cost and, hence, it is made elsewhere....to specs someone here in the US _may_ dictate. Do you think that Microsoft makes all those XBoxes? Google Flextronics to get an idea of how far we've come from the tube console days of old.

Cheers,

David