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Update on Production of Western Electric Tubes

In this month's issue of Stereophile , Julie Mullins stated in her Re-Tales column that Western Electric is working on tooling for specific parts , but intends on adding 12AX7, 12AT7, 12AU7, 6550 and 6L6 tubes to its lineup. Specific pricing was not mentioned, but she does quote WE President & Owner Charlie Whitener as stating that WE will not be able to meet Russian and Chinese tube prices due to the labor cost differential; and that it will likely be 9 months to a year before they are able to deliver quantity of tubes.

A degree of good news in my humble opinion

facten
bkeske's avatar
bkeske
5,593 posts
 

Agreed, nice to see domestically produced anything 👍🏼 

Hope they are serious about making ‘audiophile grade’ tubes. A good thing.

larryi
3,737 posts
 

Decent choices, even if they are not Vintage WE tube types.  I particularly like the choice of 6L6, but the WE near equivalent- 350B- would be even better.

lowrider57's avatar
lowrider57
5,396 posts
 

User reviews of the current WE 300b are very positive. There were reports of a 6SN7 to be manufactured, but maybe that was abandoned since the Chinese are making high quality tubes for audiophiles.

oddiofyl's avatar
oddiofyl
3,465 posts
 

I have gear that can use any of those tubes so that's good news.   I have a NOS pair of spare  50's era RCA 12ax7 and 12au7 to use in my preamp some day .   I would much rather not use down the road , and would definitely outfit it with WE if I could....

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