Will tubes ever go away?

I'm using Genalex Gold Lion E88CC tubes in my hybrid headphone amp. They are doing pretty well in that amp. If all good NOS tubes for that amp disappeared and I was left with the Gold Lion tubes as the good choice, I'd be OK with that. At least for this amp. However, I am getting an itch to try some NOS tubes with the amp to chase after the allure of potentially better sound. The bummer is that the amp needs four tubes. So rolling in a different set of four can get expensive. Even the Gold Lion tubes at around $50 each means it costs $200 to roll the tubes.

 

Interesting, I actually have a local dealer for this stuff.

 

No way are they going away.
Generation Y is suffering from the economy more than any generation in recent history.
But maybe that hardship has helped them to be one of the most open, curious, innovative, positive and accepting people I've met. It doesn't matter what you look like to them. The "hipster" thing and the perceived attitude is gone from the East Village (it's still not entirely gentrified), which is the harbinger of things to come. As it has been. Records are not a novelty to them. They get it. Brooklyn, not as much. They're still playing catch up with the "cool" factor.

And as they make more money, they'll spend it.

 

It may not be impossible, but some of the "secrets" apparently went with the old guard to the grave, or maybe better quality materials. Whatever the case, the new manufacture tubes have nowhere near the reliability or lifespan and ruggedness of the old school European and American tubes. Rectifier and output tubes particularly are getting more scarce and expensive and lots of ersatz in the market or even counterfeit. I will say the new tubes sound fine, but they just don't last even when derated and scare the **** out of me when they let go.

Tube gear was replaced for some good reasons, it's definitely not for everybody. It's a rewarding skill to be able to service tube equipment as well. There are quite a few guitarists though who should not, however, actually be allowed to ever work on their amps!

 

Been there, done that!
I'm a electronics engineer so for me, I would consider it to be a new challenge

 

There are very few modern versions of tubes that compete with vintage tubes in terms of sound, and those that do tend to be not nearly as robust as the old stuff and they tend to be pricey as well. I like EML meshplate 300B and 2a3s, but, they don't come near the WE versions for durability. The same appears to be the case with the Elrog tubes. I have not listened to that many current versions of EL34s because I only run those in my headphone amp, and when I did a shootout, my preference was for some vintage Telefunkens. Yes, there are some new tube types, like the 120 and 150, but I have not been that thrilled with the amps I heard running those types--the primary purpose seems to be more power and that does not interest me.

The tube types that I like and use will probably never be manufactured again, so having a supply of these means paying ever increasing prices or hording (I have, I hope, a "lifetime" supply). Fortunately, my amp does not seem to burn through these tubes (348 and 349) so I should have enough of them. Likewise, my linestage tubes seem to have a long life (310, 311). My primary phonostage tubes are 12AX7s and I am counting on the Telefunken ECC803S tubes I run there to last for a while.

Given limited supplies of certain types, if interest in tubes does not die out entirely, certain segments will certainly dwindle.

 

I am counting on tubes being available for my phono preamp. Rest of the chain is solid state.

 

Are there any certain elements that were used in making of tubes in the past that makes exact reproduction too costly or impossible for modern tubes manufacturers?

 

Labor, pretty much all tubes today are made in low labor cost markets. The cost of solvents used in cleaning parts that meet modern environmental standards. Sheer economies of scale -- once dozens of manufacturers were buying materials to make millions of tubes annually and could buy materials at lower rates, and could afford to invest in new tooling and such because the cost of the investment could be recouped and relatively quickly given the scale of the enterprise. Also there's not much competitive pressure on QC -- when everything ran on tubes and everyone from every major corporation to the armed forces of the world all were buying tubes in the thousands and tens of thousands annually, there was demand for a certain level of quality and competition if a manufacturer couldn't met it. Tubes were overbuilt. An EL34, with a nominal plate heat dissipation of 25 W, could easily handle more than that, for years at a time; today's will red plate if then get close to 25W (and my guess is that heat stress is the biggest problem with tube life). Today's audio tubes are made in something like three or four factories and are manufactured and sold in relativity small quantities to a handful of guitar and audio enthusiasts for maximum per unit margin -- with mean thinner plates and such, poorer QC (fewer rejects). A 50 year old set of Mullard EL34s might be weak and might not measure great, but by God they'll bias up and work and still dissipate all the heat you'd ever think of reasonably throwing at 'em. The best of today's KT77/EL34/6CA7 family of tubes will last a year or 18 months in regular use before they start drawing too much current or going noisy or something, and they'll still cost you $50 a tube or more.

 

I have several boxes of old tubes that came from my Dad's TV business. They are mostly horizontal, vertical, damper, etc. tubes. Lot's of NOS stuff though along with used tubes from the 40's and up. I'm wondering what to do with them.

There are probably some 6Sn7's but any well known amplifier tubes have been used up by me through the years. Me or someone would have to go through them to see what's in the boxes. Call me lazy?

 

I. Must. Have. This...

 

You're probably sitting on a goldmine... You only need one good sized nugget...

 

Stuff looks nice too, I didn't know about this stuff..hmm cool.

 

If I read the review correctly their monoboock amps are 100k a pair. Crazy

 

There have been claims made now for over 10 years that production will start up on WE 300b tubes again, but, it appears that will not happen. The prior reissues were quite good, though pricey. They were made using genuine, old, WE internal parts that had been stockpiled. Those reissues were very much like the older stuff in that the 300bs seemed to last much longer than current versions of that tube (the only quality control issue was a base that was poorly glued to the glass envelope, something that can be fixed).

As for this new venture, they may have purchased the metal parts, I don't know, but I don't think they ever sold newly manufactured tubes. As for a "new" Western Electric amp, I have not heard anything about their amps. Until there are amps actually out there to audition, would not get that excited. The circuit schematics for all of their stuff is out there, but, the key to their sound is their parts, particularly the transformers, and I have not heard a knock-off that sounded as good as a well refurbished WE amp or a clone that uses genuine WE and other vintage parts. This past weekend, I heard a pair of WE 124 clones using old parts driving a pair of Harbeth 40.2 speakers. The output tubes were 6L6s, instead of 350s, but the sound was still fantastic. Just 12 watts, but, that was enough for the Harbeths.

 

When I got into vacuum tube gear back in 1989 - thank you, McIntosh - I worried about the availability of tubes all the time. My friends hoarded a lot of the good stuff but I was a pretty poor college student so I didn't have the funds to do the same. I wish I had stocked up back in the days when output tubes were a lot cheaper.

But if you are flush with cash getting vintage tubes isn't that hard.

And there are plenty of Russian and Chinese alternatives to play with - with low, low prices.

 

It really depends on the tube. NOS tubes like EL34s -- output tube in high demand among both guitarists and audiophiles -- are hard to find in matched pairs and quads for push pull amps, from any of the great producers of the '50s, '60s and '70s. Not impossible, but you won't find too many people with access to matched pairs and quads of those at any price. (And there aren't even many Russian, Chinese or Slovakian EL34's -- true pentodes, not beam tetrodes -- even in production anymore).

Old production new and used 12ax7s -- too pick another common tube in high demand among both audiophiles and guitarists -- are available in abundance.

 

I hope not.

 

Sadly, probably not. I've come across giant boxes of tubes in antique stores before that got my heart racing with excitement, then dug through it to realize they're all TV/radio tubes, nothing with any modern audio application. It's a let down for sure.

 

1. Yes, almost every single tube amp that I've sold over the past eight years has gone to a Gen X or younger client.

2. No, there are more tubes being produced now than there were 10 or 20 years ago.

3. Not sure, I've yet to hear a convincing "audiophile" grade Class D amplifier, though I've not yet heard a Devialet.
In my mind, not quite there yet in sonic evolution versus 80+ years ohf tube evolution and 50+ years of solid state development. I've
heard some digital guitar amps that sound excellent at room volume, and totally wash out in the mix with a band.

 

I vaguely recall a rumor going around in the 90s, a few well heeled Japanese audiophiles criss-crossed the U.S. with a list of old school Radio/TV repair shops and a stack of cash and bought up every audio tube they could find. Anything Western-Electric branded has near cult status. $$$ Even solder.

 

Oh, I'm sure that happened. Another interesting anecdote is that when Leben (presumably) ran out of common NOS audio tubes, they began building the current 300f around a computer tube that wasn't built with audio in mind. I imagine this approach will become more common.

 

I don't think that tubes will ever go away. 6L6's will go on forever!
Tube production costs have already driven prices into outer space.

 

This really isn't a new thing and has been happening since the 80s. I honestly think the 90s were the vacuum tube's darkest days and they have long since past.

 

Forgot to mention, they (tubes) will still work after a nuclear war.