Will sanctions be the end of the tube resurgence?

Discussion in 'Audio Hardware' started by BayouTiger, Feb 23, 2022.

  1. Tullman

    Tullman Senior Member

    Location:
    Boston MA
    Right. That is pretty much how VPI, Wilson Audio, CAT, Audio Research, and others have stayed in business. I'm just not sure if that would work for tubes. I wonder how the WE 300b tube is doing.
     
  2. Ham Sandwich

    Ham Sandwich Senior Member

    Location:
    Sherwood, OR, USA
    Of course WE, or another manufacturer, could compete in the 6SN7 market. The affordable JJ 6SN7 is just meh. The modern production Russian made 6SN7 tubes like Electro Harmonix or Tung-Sol are just average. The Chinese 6SN7 compatible tubes are selling on audiophile bling looks (and to a lesser degree better sound than the modern production Russian tubes) and some models are selling for over $200 a pair. The trend of the Chinese 6SN7 tubes selling on looks and stupid glass shapes leaves a big opening for more competent and quality oriented tube makers to enter the 6SN7 market. The stupid balloon bottle shape and the even stupider round tennis ball bottle shape that the Chinese manufacturers have gone to for their premium tubes is just stupid. They're too big for some people to fit in their amps. And also leave the top of the tube structure unsupported which allows the tube inner structure to vibrate. The traditional 6SN7 glass shape and size works great for the NOS tubes we like. It can work great for modern production premium 6SN7 tubes. Or do the shoulder style that looks like a miniature 300b. That shape supports the top of the tube structure and looks neat. WE could make a 6SN7 that looks like a miniature 300b and tie that to their 300b marketing on looks. Of course WE, or another manufacturer, could compete. Plus when buying a Chinese tube you have to assume they are factory seconds or otherwise out of spec or of lower quality until proven otherwise. A manufacturer that is able to guarantee that every tube that comes out of their factory is quality checked and meets their high standards will have an advantage over the Chinese premium tubes.
     
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  3. Pjotr

    Pjotr Well-Known Member

    Location:
    Europe
    Most probably. Russians are going back to military corporative state owned economy. But small private enterprises owned by russian citizens are still allowed.
     
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  4. SandAndGlass

    SandAndGlass Twilight Forum Resident

    The principal problem with tube amplifiers is the quality of the tubes. It doesn't matter who builds the amp or how good the design is or how well it is built. You still are faced with using modern crappy tubes that do not sound like nor are they the quality of ordinary tubes from the 50's and 60's.

    I love the sound of KT88's, I just don't happen to love modern KT88's.

    NOS KT88's will run $1,500, if you can get them at all. My Rogue M-150 monoblocks use a quad in each power amp. That would $6k worth of NOS power tubes for each amp!

    Quality NOS tubes are everything in an audio amp. People will pay to get modern tubes that are half the price of NOS tubes.

    As things exist at present:
    "Yeah, I have this totally awesome tube amplifier but I have really crappy tubes in it".

    Until we address and fix the tube issues, tube audio is stuck firmly in neutral - forever!

    Anything half decent sounding is stupid expensive! And, they won't last one bit longer than the cheap tubes.
     
  5. SandAndGlass

    SandAndGlass Twilight Forum Resident

    The keyword here is "small". The Russian government does not have the infrastructure that the Chinese have to police and regulate small businesses.

    The Soviet economy is running on commerce. They dare not do anything that would risk this.

    You can bet that it is in Russia's best interest to see that the factories continue to produce.

    Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia still remains a big country.

    But, its GDP is only slightly larger than the State of Florida and less than Texas.
     
    RunningWithScissors and hi_watt like this.
  6. Pjotr

    Pjotr Well-Known Member

    Location:
    Europe
    Correct. Because despite Putin and soviet siloviks were on the power since early 2000`s, Russian federation remained Yeltsin orchestrated country runned by Yeltsin`s reformists and their constitution. That stayed until the years 2012-2014 when Putin was reelected as a president of state and a lot of traitors in the important ministries were removed or replaced. After 2014 and coup d`etat in former Ukrainian SSR, reforms were made to make economy self-sufficient and a lot of important enterprises from soviet times were united under one state-owned corporate umbrella (like ROSTEC, United aircraft Corporation, ROSATOM, etc.).
     
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  7. Tullman

    Tullman Senior Member

    Location:
    Boston MA
    I am not a tube expert. The KT120 is a new design and there are no NOS KT120's. There are no NOS tubes that can do what a KT120 does. Why do you think so many amp designers went away from KT88's and 6550's and instead use KT120's. I agree that new production tubes can be crappy. It is my understanding that at least 40% of the KT120's that come from the factory fail tests at CAT. CAT, Upscale Audio and some other tube retailers offer comprehensive testing including grid leakage, of the KT120. When I get KT120's from CAT I know that those tubes were thoroughly tested and broken in. The KT120's in my JL5 are supposed to last at least 6 years. Mine were installed a few years ago and have performed perfectly. Of course I had to pay a premium for those tubes.

    My problem in reference to KT120's at this time is availability. CAT, and other north American tube dealers are not getting enough KT120's to satisfy demand. I mentioned earlier that KT120's can be purchased from China. I don't think whole sale prices are being offered to businesses from China. The tubes sold from China are New Sensor Tung Sol KT120 tubes that have passed factory testing but likely will come with a 40% failure rate. That means I would have to buy 12 tubes to replace the 8 tubes in my amp. More likely I would have to buy 16 tubes to replace the 8 tubes in my amp. That means it could cost me $250 a tube to keep my CAT JL5 running. You'd think that WE could do a KT120 for that price and make a better tube.
     
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  8. Tullman

    Tullman Senior Member

    Location:
    Boston MA
    Yeah, New Sensor is still producing tubes, but it appears they can't send them to North America. They can send them to China and this is where we stand right now.
     
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  9. SandAndGlass

    SandAndGlass Twilight Forum Resident

    From what I am gathering, products from Russia are sent to other countries and then sent to the US from there.

    I was told that most of the Gillette razor blades that are manufactured in the St. Petersburg plant are produced for sale in other countries and are not sold in Russia.

    Only Sputnik and Rubie Gillette blades are actually sold in the Russian market. The other Gillette brands are exported. These particular two blades disappeared from Amazon in the fall. The other blades that are made in the PPI factory are still available on Amazon.
     
  10. TarnishedEars

    TarnishedEars Forum Resident

    Location:
    The Seattle area
    I talked to a dealer who sells tubes. He told me that they are having no problems getting new Russian tubes. They apparently just have to ship these via a countries which we don't have sanctions on.
     
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  11. SandAndGlass

    SandAndGlass Twilight Forum Resident

    That's partly true. Yes, the KT120 is a new design tube. Yes, it can handle more power. Yes, it is more linear. Yes, it has a more extended frequency range.

    If you want a bigger more powerful linear (like SS) amp, go the KT120 route.

    The Rogue M-150 monoblocks are a completely new design from their older M-120's. Both of which use KT88's. Rogue no longer produces the M-150, which has four KT88's in each 150-Watt monoblock. The last price I was aware of on the pair of was $5k.

    The Cronos Magnum uses two pairs of KT120's and produces 100-Watts per-channel on a single chassis, that sold for $2,600.

    So you are using only 4-tubes for stereo with the CM as compared to 8-tubes in the monoblocks. The two monoblocks weigh 55-lbs. each, which is what the single CM weighs.

    The CM sounds almost as good as the monoblocks, has 2/3 the power and is half the price. So the KT120's do have a definite advantage over the KT88's.

    But, owning high sensitivity Altec horn speakers, I don't need the power and the KT88's sound better.

    NOS EL34's sound better still.

    I'm sure I would prefer NOS KT88's but $10k or more for the eight tubes the monoblocks require is not an option.

    Running the KT88's in a lower power amp is better sounding.

    Exactly my point. If WE were to produce NOS quality KK88's, they would sell.

    If they were to produce a KT120 like a KT120 would have been made back in 1960, they also would sell.

    You need to have that special NOS sound quality and you need to have that NOS longevity, which new tubes do not possess.
     
    kt66brooklyn likes this.
  12. DaleClark

    DaleClark Forum Resident

    Location:
    Columbus, Ohio
    Fender is producing SS “tone master” versions of the Deluxe Reverb and Twin amps. Some positive reviews that say the amps get you very close and dound excellent. I wonder if we could see that someday with HI Fi. A “SS modeled” version of the MC275 that gets you really, really close.

    Isn’t Dodge coming out with an electric Challenger that is going to have big speakers underneath to sound like a real engine? I think it’s quite tacky….
     
  13. Ham Sandwich

    Ham Sandwich Senior Member

    Location:
    Sherwood, OR, USA
    Are the New Sensor factory operations owned by Russian citizens?
    My understanding is that the New Sensor factory in Russia is owned by Electro-Harmonix which is owned by Make Matthews who is a US citizen.

    I don't know how that relationship is working for maintaining the tube factory in Russia. Russia has just outright taken over other Western owned businesses and factories that ere located in Russia. I don't know what's going on to make the New Sensor tube factories in Russia special and immune from that sort of take-over.
     
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  14. Razakoz

    Razakoz Forum Resident

    Location:
    Utah
    Honestly price isn't too much of an issue for we 6sn7 tubes. The quality would be what you're paying for. A good, competently engineered tube I hate how all the high quality Chinese 6sn7 tubes have the gimmick shapes. Can I just get something in the normal shape that fits in my gear?
     
    SandAndGlass likes this.
  15. COBill

    COBill Forum Resident

    Location:
    Colorado, USA
    Still able to source 6550s and 6H30Ps, it's just which vendor has them in stock changes from month to month.
     
  16. Tullman

    Tullman Senior Member

    Location:
    Boston MA
    Who is this dealer?? Perhaps he can get KT 120’s where others have failed. Link please.
     
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  17. Lowrider75

    Lowrider75 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Philadelphia, PA
    I always assumed that Putin & company were receiving kickbacks from Western companies operating in Russia.
     
  18. Pjotr

    Pjotr Well-Known Member

    Location:
    Europe
    Can be. Money and patents. Even in the hardest times of soviet socialism, there were private western enterprises operating on the territory of USSR.
     
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  19. SandAndGlass

    SandAndGlass Twilight Forum Resident

    You can pretty well bet that while Russian citizens can own and operate small businesses without government intervention, that would not hold true for foreign nationals.

    In our country, someone from any country is free to purchase land in America build on that land and operate a business, just like any American.

    This is not the case in most foreign countries. Even in Mexico, an American is not free to buy land anywhere they wish, start and operate a business like in the US.

    In communist / socialist countries, there is no such thing as completely foreign owned and operated private factories. Every foreign owned manufacturing plant is owned in part by the government, which sets the rules.

    The huge PPI Gillette factory is co-owned by the Russian government. The parent company of Gillette is Proctor and Gamble.

    Gillette controls 50% of all razor blade sales in the world. P&G is a huge multinational corporation. Mike Matthew's is a single individual.
     
  20. Lowrider75

    Lowrider75 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Philadelphia, PA
    New Sensor has been operating in Russia for quite a few years. Matthews must know their law and followed it, perhaps even having a Russian partner.
     
    jonwoody likes this.
  21. Lowrider75

    Lowrider75 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Philadelphia, PA
    But he doesn't have a secure business in place anymore.
     
  22. FuzzyNightmares

    FuzzyNightmares Forum Resident

    Location:
    Oregon
    Sorry if it’s already been mentioned in here, but what would folks consider to be the safest power tube in terms of available NOS or quality new production at this time?
     
  23. SandAndGlass

    SandAndGlass Twilight Forum Resident

    Doesn't matter. Gillette has been operating in Russia longer than New Sensor. As big as they are, P&G are not calling the shots, the Russian government is.
     
  24. Encore

    Encore Forum Resident

    You have quite a bit of new-production options with 300B.
     
  25. FuzzyNightmares

    FuzzyNightmares Forum Resident

    Location:
    Oregon
    I also felt confident with 2a3, but just checked on rca blackplates as a bit of a litmus last night and those seem to have gone up $100+ a pair in the last 6-12 months for no reason other than speculators and hoarding.

    I’m also not confident in any suggestion that WE can be our tube savior. $1500 a pair for 300b’s, no matter how good the quality is, isn’t very palatable. That’s the sort of tube that a lot of people aspire to being able to afford, while making do with $300/pair options in the meantime. To suggest that you can tube an entire amplifier with WE products if made available is somewhat silly and could have you looking at $10k+ once all is said on items that have a definite shelf life.
     
    jonwoody likes this.

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