You may be overestimating the importance of vacuum tubes on the world economic stage my friend.Tubes are a weird little fringe market...if prices go up it will be someone taking advantage of acceptance of prices rising on more mainstream items.
I fortunately am not using any Russian tubes right now though I have a quad of Sovtek 2a3's as backups. Needless to say my heart goes out to the people of the Ukraine. And thank you all for keeping this thread non-political it was a train wreck, as per usual, on Audiogon.
I'm not ready to get my knickers in a twist. Tubes generally last for thousands of hours. Manley Labs has documented cases of power tubes in their amplifiers going over 60,000 hours non-stop in recording studios 24/7/, 365 days without a re-tube. I wouldn't be surprised if other tube amplification manufacturers have similar stories. Most audio retailers that deal in vacuum tube electronics buy tubes in bulk and they're constantly on buying trips looking to replenish or add their stock. That includes Jason Stoddard, Brent Jesse, Kevin Deal and Peter Qvortrup. There's plenty of new production tubes, it's just that prices will go up if people start freaking out. Those will be the consumers that some retailers (especially on eBay) will take advantage of by price gouging. I've got two sets of power tubes (300B's ) which are already expensive and the preamp and rectifier tubes I would need are plentiful and are generally Chinese sourced anyway. Western Electric has been test marketing their new 6SN7 type up in Canada and probably elsewhere. Western Electric should be close to offering those tubes soon.
Not really, they use tubes that for the most part that we don't use on audio gear. The exception being a few rectifier types and the lower power audio tubes. Your not going to see KT66, EL34 or any of the coveted tubes. Possibly a small number of 6SN7 types on earlier radios that used all octal tubes. Most TV sets used some weird worthless for the most part tubes. Ever get a tube caddy? You might get lucky and find 3 or 4 tubes out of a few hundred worth keeping. Flea market sellers of them ask hundreds for a full caddy and I laugh at them. BillWojo
Just heard from a friend who repairs tube amps that JJ has production problems because they use gas from Russia/Ukraine and have a shortage.
Just ordered a spare quad of the ECC99 that my headphone amp uses. That is a Russian tube so better safe than sorry. Of course, this is such a trivial consequence of such a heinous act...
Yea, I about spit out my coffee, China has one of the worst records on human rights and democracy. BillWojo
I believe there will always be the possibility of private shopping through ebay. Trade and products always find their way to customers.
All at the same time, not entirely appropriate for this thread, pretty clever and not just a little funny in a dark-humour kind of way.
I bought a caddy full of tubes one time from a TV repair shop that went out of business. Had 6 tubes (out of nearly 200) that were useful for audio gear. It also had a few tubes that went for good money on eBay even though I had no idea why.
I don’t think tubes are going anywhere. I do know though that because of demand and supply I’ll be buying spare sets as soon as available. I’d have done so anyway. With the present situation I think many will be stocking up. Makes sense.
I got my shipment notice from Upscale and them looked at my amp and tube life was 3123 so I guess they won’t be backup stash but need to go in right away! Might have to go again!
I don't have any audio tube gear yet but do have a caddy full of tubes I collected over the years for my guitar amps so no junk tubes. I was a sucker for good deals for NOS and ANOS vintage tubes and probably have more than I will ever use in my lifetime considering how often I play but maybe they are good investments now?
So at 3123 hours you notice a big degradation in sound? On some amps that drive the tubes hard that would be way over due but on other amps that drive the amps in a more modest fashion they may not even be half way done yet. It really depends on the design of the amplifier. BillWojo
Amazing the number of crates of NOS tubes I used to walk out of military and electronics surplus stores with back 20-40 years ago. The number of classic tubes I got were amazing and at a few bucks a pop. Water under the bridge. Wish I knew then what I do now.
Your amp has an hour counter? Wish mine did. I bought my VTL amps in 2008 and replaced the power tubes for the first time in 2016. I figure somewhere between 500 and 700 hours per year, so nominally 4,000 - 5,600 total hours.
The RCA 6V6 GTA are very good tubes. I use these in my Swissonor tube amp. If you ever want to sell them, here is a customer
