Daddy Dee Posted March 12, 2004 Share Posted March 12, 2004 While I'm sure that scarcity of certain tubes increases dramatically their market value, I am honestly skeptical as to why current manufacture tubes should not have the same magic as vintage. Tubes are after all... not wine. of course, I am willing to allow that current manufacture can be sloppy or excellent. In automobiles, who would prefer Yugo over Honda? My brother in law sold Hondas for a while and he told me that with careful inspection they could discern which factory a Honda was manufactured... US or Japan. So there seems to be something to subtle differences. I have a difficult time believing that Japanese industry could not turn out vacuum tubes every bit as excellent as any others made. What's the straight dope on this? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AnalOg Posted March 12, 2004 Share Posted March 12, 2004 DaddyDee, If you have the last issue of Vacuum Tube valley, it talks in depth as to the answer to your question. Mainly the quality of the internals of the tube along with the tooling used is a major factor. Tom Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
artto Posted March 12, 2004 Share Posted March 12, 2004 IMO vacuum tubes were never really all that consistent is quality. Its one of the reasons most manufacturers (even ones whos reputations were built on tube gear) moved to SS. And then there is this thing called a range of certainty (for those of who are more philosophically inclined see Dr. J. Bronowski, Ascent of Man, Knowledge or Certainty). Has to do with our ability to recognize the same things over time & how that relates to how those things have actually changed, but we still 'recognize' 'it'. Vacuum tubes tend to deteriorate at a faster rate than SS devices. And the differences in many circumstances are very discernable over relatively short periods of time, especially the first initial hours of use. The tube you install today will not sound the same tomorrow. I use Japanese tubes. Primarily because I have to. They are the only ones who made the driver & output tubes for my power amps. For the most part, I feel the sound of most vintage tubes is over exploited. Simply put, there were good ones and bad ones. The bad ones have probably blown out or weak enough to be discarded leaving the best ones surviving & sought after. Tubes, like guitar strings for instance, can change their sound quite appreciably during the initial hours of use. Then they tend to settle out and tone down. And the sound changes much more slowly after that. Also keep in mind tube brands dont necessarily mean anything either. At various times, many companies made OEM branded tubes for other companies. Even the country marked on the tube is often incorrect. One batch of tubes might be great. The next one might suck or have some defects. At the time (vintage), most tubes were relatively cheap, so apparently quality control eventually became an issue, especially as tubes were being phased out. Mark.....ditto Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CaptnBob Posted March 12, 2004 Share Posted March 12, 2004 Wow! Someone else who's seen "The Ascent of Man." The first time I saw "Knowledge or Certainty" the entire theater was silent after Dr. Bronoski's final line. It's a great series - if a little uneven - and I recommend it highly. Sorry, didn't mean to pirate the thread. I think part of the answer is there have always been cheap, badly made tubes - they're just mostly gone now. I'm sure if someone wanted to remanufacture Telefunken 12AX7s they could, but the price would be prohibitive. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
artto Posted March 12, 2004 Share Posted March 12, 2004 ---------------- On 3/12/2004 2:06:20 PM CaptnBob wrote: Wow! Someone else who's seen "The Ascent of Man ---------------- Ditto my friend! I feel priviledged to have the entire series on video tape. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daddy Dee Posted March 12, 2004 Author Share Posted March 12, 2004 Yep, it will be interesting to see if the economics of tubes ever picks up enough steam to make it worthwhile for manufacturers to do things really right. Just ordered the VTV issue for this discussion, as well as one back issue I noticed with a PWK interview. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jhawk92 Posted March 13, 2004 Share Posted March 13, 2004 Dee- You should have told me you were interested in the VTV interview with PWK. I bought a copy of it last year and would have, ahem, made sure you would have seen a copy. It's a good interview. I also bought a couple other VTV issues dealing with the Scott 299s. Good articles there too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tubelover Posted March 13, 2004 Share Posted March 13, 2004 The dinks. That is what. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
minn_male42 Posted March 13, 2004 Share Posted March 13, 2004 simply put.... supply and demand..... not enough demand for tubes to warrant an upgrade in manufacturing capability..... and with digital amplifiers getting better with every new model that comes out... the demand will continue to decline.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mike stehr Posted March 13, 2004 Share Posted March 13, 2004 Cool! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
leok Posted March 13, 2004 Share Posted March 13, 2004 artto, On non-repeatability of tube tooling and the move to ss: Transistors don't come close to the repeatability or close adherence to specifications that we demand of tubes. Transistors are expected to be both non-linear and unmatched. That's why their application requires high amounts of feetback, local or global. I find that the industry moved to ss because it is cheap. The fact that it requires a genius to design a decent ss amp and $10,000 to build one just means most of us will never see a decent ss amp. So we use tubes, which are essentially (in the case of triodes) little linear amplifiers. With no feedback, they are remarkably linear and repeatable. Leo Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Griffinator Posted March 13, 2004 Share Posted March 13, 2004 FWIW, the 12AX7 and 6L6 will always be in demand for one simple reason: Guitarists love their tube amps. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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