Tube or Trasistor

Tubes reflect their Neo-Victorian vintage (1904); they’re just not high precision parts. Why not? Well, to start, the tube manufacturers identify vacuum tube operating parameters only by listing “average” or “typical” characteristics.

That's funny! Obviously you've not tried to put together an amp from solid state devices or you would know they have quite a bit of variance too.

The point is that there are NOT many vacuum tube products now being manufactured.

Interesting fact: in the US, there are more manufacturers of tube-based audio products than there were in 1956....

Few musicians are rock stars, and few can pay the premium for tube equipment. Tube gear pricing is prohibitive for most consumers, and the replacement costs are endless.

 The above statement is false. The guitar amp market plays a huge role in the production of tubes worldwide. The ex-Vice prez of Fender is a personal friend...

cleeds---when I last attempted to determine the remaining manufacturers of (receiving type) vacuum tubes some 18 months ago, there were zero based in the USA. That's fact.

What is a fact is that you missed a few:
located in Nevada, RCH Labs.
(You may have also missed Korg, who has a new tube technology._
Western Electric is making tubes in Georgia. 

atmosphere--- Let's slow down here and try to work together. I could have expressed myself better on some points, so...

On tubes vs. solid state specifications: Yes, all active devices do have variances, and, having built numerous of my own preamps, power amplifiers, voltage regulated supplies, and unity gain buffers, I'm well aware of those pesky variables. But there's a critical distinction between electron tubes and solid state devices. The classic tube manufacturers (RCA/GE/Sylvania/Tung-Sol/Raytheon/Mullard/Amperex/Telefunken, et al) did not ever test or deliver their products with absolute min/max control limits. Instead, they simply stated "typical" performance criteria. Check any receiving-type tube data sheet, and you will see that no guaranteed min/max performance control is applied, other than for the usual destructive ("do not exceed") limitations.

Solid-state devices are entirely different---there are lots of guaranteed min/max limits provided for many operating parameters, and they're all listed on the related data sheet. So, in comparison, there is really an important difference between the way tubes and solid-state devices are made---and sold. Tubes come with uncontrolled performance variables, whereas solid-state devices vary, but only within specified limits. That's a real distinction.

Regarding audio products using vacuum tubes: Yes, there are now many small companies making products that use tubes. In the '50s and '60s there were many LARGE and small companies making products with tubes. Solid-state never got traction until the mid-70s. And the small companies of today that supply tube audio products import virtually all of the tubes that they need.

Re. the guitar market, yes, agreed. It represents the dominant demand for receiving type vacuum tubes. The audiophile market alone would probably be insufficient to justify viable vacuum tube business. Of course, the guitar + audiophile market in sum is just a tiny blip in the overall sphere of consumer electronics, so we'll never see the return of the big corporate tube producers like those that I reference above.

Re. domestic tube manufacturing: Hey, right! Welcome to RCH Labs. Hope that they do well! They started up in late 2016 and they're making 6L6 output tubes. Looks dicey to me. Korg doesn't actually make any conventional receiving tubes, just some experimental nuvistors, an extension of the old RCA technology. The Western Electric tube facility is actually in Kansas City rather than GA; the latter is corporate home.  My information is that there is no true commercial production ongoing at this time. I could be wrong.

There will always be common octal tubes like EL34, KT88, 6L6, and EL84.  There will also be 12A*7 tubes in ample supply.

No wonder poor old davey has'nt got back, the threads disintegrated into median wages for USA etc.

ADD anyone?

Tubes come with uncontrolled performance variables, whereas solid-state devices vary, but only within specified limits. That's a real distinction.

Not really! When you say 'solid state devices vary', you mean that they vary from completely nonfunctional out of the tape or bag or whatever they come in, to completely exceeding their specs so you can't find a match for them, right? I don't see that as particularly distinctive!

These days there are a lot of counterfeit Chinese semiconductors out there that don't meet important specs in any way, in addition if you look at all the obsolete semiconductors out there that you have to pay a premium for on ebay if you can find them at all (there are far more obsolete devices than there are that are in production), tubes can look pretty attractive; you can still find competent new 6SN7s and the like.

We're rarely had to match tubes to get them to work in our circuits, but when we involved semiconductors, we've had to build jigs to test them so as to sort out the devices that simply weren't going to work at all.

So I find this bit of your argument as simply a non-starter.

I get that for whatever reason you don't like tubes. I don't have a problem with that. We can cut with all the technical stuff since when it comes down to it, it does not matter. If you look at it from an economic standpoint, then you really see what is going on:

Tubes are still here after being 'obsolete' for longer than when they were the only game in town! Normally, when a new technology succeeds the prior art, the prior art becomes a museum piece. But apparently people want tubes and keep them going. The simple fact that the Chinese built a new factory to get into the tube game should tell you something- tubes aren't obsolete because they do things transistors so far can't (with the possible exception of the Static Induction Transistor, sorry, obsolete, n.l.a.), which is to be so linear that building a low distortion circuit with them is easy.

More to the point, tubes don't make the kinds of distortion to which our ears are finely tuned. Transistors do! This is why the tubes/transistor debate has been around far longer than the internet and won't be going away anytime soon.