Solid State vs. Tubes - What if Transistors came first?

@mckinneymike—I'm curious, who/what/where are these new vacuum tube production facilities? The Noritaki "nutube" thing is just a restricted special purpose curiosity product of virtually no use in hi-end audio, the RCH Labs startup recently died in a bankruptcy auction, and the Western Electric reissue trial is a small, limited, insider-use effort.

The existing public vacuum tube suppliers are all marginal, unmonitored profiteers located in China, Russia, and other obscure ex-Soviet block satellites, and wholly dependent on the guitar amplifier and "tube audiophile" market. There's no other receiving-type vacuum tube usage anywhere in the world, for any purpose.

Where are those "new and modernizing tube manufacturing facilities" that you cite?

“Tubes suck.” -Lee Deforest, a deathbed epiphany. 

vtvmvodtm,

It is puzzling that all that you wrote somehow escapes the reality check among enthusiasts. Again, long live tubes, but on any scale they are virtually non-existent. As a poster, I forgot who it was, noted earlier...it is just plain economy.

Tubes are a niche product with some value for those who like them to the level of idolizing, but so is my manual transmission.

M51, ever figure out how you damaged your Kef 900’s?