Why Can't Modern Tube Manufacturers Make a Proper Tube?

@realgoodsound 

""Perhaps you should not obsess over your tubes quite so much and get out and meet some younger folk?"""

🤣 I don't think I obsess over anything. That's funny...a bit peculiar, but funny. Thanks for the advice. I'm going to do that right now. 🙂

I imagine myself sitting in a dark machine shop stroking my tubes never stepping outside but to take parcels from the youngerish mailman then sleeking back into the shop.

Excellent tube ar being made in China - I recently picked up a set of KT88s and auditioned them against a set of Gold Lions a couple of years old,and some NOS unused Gold Lions.  The new Chinese tubes sounded better....

Of course a lot of crap gets exported too.

Here are the substantial and probable reasons why they were better constructed.

1. Maybe they weren't. Let's not create a historical story based on conjecture. We don't know the mfg and distribution processes well enough to compare accurately.

2. Tubes in pre 70s mfg were produced in greater quantities and were tested, when needed, more thoroughly before distribution.

3. The testing process wasn't exhaustive, but it was done.

4. Cost of materials to mfr tubes like those of the past, for the reasons previously noted in this thread, may be cost prohibitive.

5. The only reason why they MIGHT have been better quality...

LIFE AND DEATH

No one is dying today if their audio components fail to work or sound bad. Well, maybe some neurotic audiophile. If a rocket, battleship, airplane, or medical equipment fails, people die. Period.

That's it.

I remember going into your local drug store and there you would find a RCA tube tester and underneath it would be where they held the RCA tubes.I worked for HL Dalis back in 1970.They sold electronics equipment and parts to every tv -stereo tepair shops from NYC to NJ,Conn and all of Long Island.We sold all types of tubes and TV screen tubes and some of them were big and heavy.I was and inventory ckerk making 0ne dollar and hour ,$40 a week,lol.I was 18,lol.

Not too many years passed, I was in a conversation with a individual I met at a Forum get together where Valves are pretty much the thing and some very unfinished looking builds have Mercury Spill Kits on standby.

In a brief conversation, I was discussing Valves and the differences of impression tube rolling can create. The individual was a few streets in front of myself, they were making it known they were quite happy to detach the Manufacturers Base Pins and attach Pins of their own designs.

It was something being intimated that I should attempt to carry out.

As most of my interest in audio equipment over the past 5+years has been extending my investigations of all interfaces withing the signal path, the idea, of looking into discovering where a improvement can be found at the Valve/Valve Base Interface, should not be too far off limits.

My earliest investigations took me to a Valve Base used on my Phon', that locks onto the Valve Base Pins so tightly the removal of the Valve is quite a task, especially when assessed in comparison to a typical Valve Base Pin tightness as a connection.  

When I tube rolled this Phon' it was agreed the Valve Guards were removed for the exercise.

Using a Valve Base like the one mentioned, certainly begs the question about the quality of the solder connection of the Sleeve that covers the some of the Wire Valves  Base Pins on certain designs for a Valve.