Western Electric to Make Vacuum Tubes in Rossville, Georgia

In 1983, Western Electric was the world's fifth-largest industrial corporation, with its headquarters in a Manhattan skyscraper and a storied history of technological innovation --including introducing talking motion pictures in the 1920s.
AT&T stopped using the venerable company's name in 1984, as part of the breakup of "Ma Bell" into "baby bells."
Now, Western Electric has been resurrected. Its headquarters are in Rossville, Ga., at 410 Chickamauga Ave. in a four-story, 65,000-square-foot former Wachovia bank. The once-vacant building was adorned about three weeks ago with distinctive red-lettered "Western Electric" signs on its east and west sides.
The Rossville operation will make vacuum tubes mainly for use in high-end audio components.
"It's a lost art," company president Charles G. Whitener Jr. said.
Vacuum tubes once were ubiquitous in household radios, stereos and televisions until they were supplanted by transistors.
Yet tubes still are sought by audiophiles, or enthusiasts of high-quality sound reproduction.