[Richard Crowley]

"MattC" wrote ...
This is probably a pretty basic question, but something
I havn't been able to solve through books or internet sites.
I'm wondering, are valve and tube mics the same thing,

"tube" is the American word and "valve" is the British
word for the same thing. Some of us call them
"fire-bottles". :-)

and also are they both forms of condensor mics, or in
a category of their own...

Condenser mics need some kind of active circuit to
convert the very very high impedance of the condenser
capsule into something practical to send through a
wire. Condenser mics were developed decades before
transistors, so traditionally, this was done with a tube/
valve.

About 40 years ago new developments like electret
permanent polarization and Field-effect transistors
(FET) allowed very small and inexpensive condenser
microphones to be made. These can be smaller than a
pencil eraser and sell for a few cents each in volume.
100s of millions of these are in use in cell phones, etc.
around the planet.

But many engineers still like the "sound" of the older
style tube/valve microphones, so there are many models
available using tubes/valves. Many of them are modern
reproductions of the old favorites. Alas, many of those
reproductions fall significantly short of the old standard.

Historically, all tube/valve mics were condenser, but
there is at least one (magnetic) ribbon mic of new design
that uses a tube/valve.
http://www.royerlabs.com/mics/R-122V.html