Signal tube versus power tube, sound impact?

I think they are shooting themselves in the feet when they put JJ tubes, which consensus seems to say are lower quality, into their tube amplifiers.

Hmmm . . . I just looked at your "JJs suck" thread and counted the positives and negatives, and then I did the same on this thread, and I came up with 5 "JJs are okay or I like them" and 8 "JJs suck," is this your "consensus"? Not that it matters to me . . . just asking for my friend’s grandmother.

As far as why (most?) manufacturers don’t ship their gear with NOS or moderately used vintage tubes, my own personal theory on that is because I would think that most manufacturers buy tubes for the products that they build in bulk, and for that reason they buy affordable bulk priced tubes. If they went out and, for example, loaded up on NOS Tung Sol output tubes and NOS RCA black glass signal tubes, that would dramatically increase production costs and the cost  of the effect produced by that expensive combination would have to be passed on to the consumer, but that particular effect may not be what all consumers are looking for, so perhaps the manufacturer feels better to give the consumer a bit of a price break and let him or her do his or her own fine tuning by rolling high dollar tubes.

Or maybe not. I make no claims to being an audio or tube or electrical guru, so that is just a theory. Maybe pose the question to some manufacturers.

Amp manufacturers know that people are going to roll tubes anyway - it's part of the charm -  so why not let them do that for themselves.

That is also what I think, @bolong  .  +1. 

Manufacturers must spec a tube that is currently manufactured and readily available in bulk. In addition, with the uncertainty surrounding Russia and China trade channels, a European built tube like the JJ is both politically expedient and more reliable. Be thankful manufacturers dont go out and buy up what little remaining NOS tube stocks are in existence. If they did, then there would be multiple threads about greedy manufacturers “stockpiling” all the great tubes and driving the prices through the roof or better yet, company A has 1,000 NOS Mullards on the shelf and won’t sell me two backup quads.

And maybe if the manufacturers did a better job putting better quality tubes in the amplifiers when manufactured the demand on the industry would be to produce better tubes.

Manufacturers spend a lot of money designing their amplifiers and then screw things up by sticking a poor tube seems odd. I'll be curious to know what VAC puts in their amplifiers. I know Conrad Johnson uses NOS tubes for their pre-amplifiers.

Some tough supply chain decisions were made during the pandemic. NOS tubes are going to get harder to source every year. Hopefully CJ has a plan for that inevitability.