Tube takeover

Let's pray that the forces of good, if they exist in Russia, somehow put a stop to this!

I guess I didn't realize that only three companies in the world manufactured tubes. I realize that guitar tube amps or audiophile amps, preamps, etc are products used by a minority of the population, but it seems that would be an open market that could be filled by someone industrious or by an existing high end company.

whats the article say, requires a login, which i'm not willing to do.
thanxs
paul

Here's a link to a more detailed story from 6moons.com: http://www.6moons.com/industryfeatures/newsensor/newsensor.html

We need to resurrect all those talented Americanski tubemakers from the 1940s.

There are no longer the American women with the knowledge of how to make them, as evidenced by Westrex.

Get your NOS while you can; and if you care about your grandkids, lay in a supply for them.

no worries.......china will continue to pirate all our favorites anyway.

Bartokfan and others,

For those of you who can't log in to the Times site, try this link:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/16/business/worldbusiness/16cheat.html?ex=1148443200&en=7966c3c77ced0368&ei=5070&emc=eta1

The Chinese would like nothing better.

If you have compared Chinese and nos American tubes, you would be unhappy about the prospects. I do not think much of Russian made tubes either, however. Maybe the mafia will make better tubes.

In earlier discussions on tubes some people wrote that not only were all those WWII factories and equipment long gone, but the knowledge and artistry that went into making them also went extinct. Sad indeed. My hunt for WWII era VT-231s must continue.

Lessee here,

Sovtech, Sveltana, Ei, (the Chineese), Tesla-JJ, Western Electric, KR Enterprises, Philips, and the list goes on.

It would be as loss but this will not justify and attempt by toob theives, er salesmen to ramp the price up again. Toobs are already at the critical price point.

As SS catches the sound of toobs without the hassle of bias and burn-out the justification for toob usage is starting to wane. And yes I still use toobs.

loon

Here is a link to a July 15th interview of Mike Matthews discussing the current status of his tube manufacturing plant. Looks like things are now under control.

http://www.gearwire.com/matthews-russia-tube-story.html

FWIW, we had enough go-arounds in the past with New Sensor that we started sourcing our own tubes (right now none of our tubes are made in Russia). The writing was on the wall about this 2 years ago- if I were him I'd pull all the tooling and move the operation to a different country.

Jebe1,

That's great news! Very interesting video. Mike Matthews seems to be making far more headway with President Putin than is President Bush. :-)

Did you catch at the end where he mentioned "Tung-sol" and "6SN7" almost in the same breath? Can't wait to see what comes of that...