Why are older tubes so much sought after

I am not sure that you can get good engineers to work on tubes these days. People are what make products good or bad. If you are an EE, will you choose tube design as your career?

They did not even teach tubes when I was in the EE program, and that was a long time ago....

Again- Info on some of the precious few companies manufacturing tubes comparable to NOS quality/transparency, and the prices they are commanding: (http://www.kraudio.com click on "tubes")
(http://www.elusivedisc.com/products.asp?dept=1681)
(http://www.euroaudioteam.com The only company making quality small signal tubes now-click on EAT)
(http://www.westernelectric.com)
(http://thetubestore.com/wesel.html) I have to agree with the "economics/supply and demand" scenario as to why more aren't taking the time and effort to produce tubes as good as those(granted- the select "Grails" and certain choice others) from the 40's through the 60's.

Larryi,

I would agree with you. Manufacturers need a constant supply of reliable tubes that can be bought in bulk for a reasonable price.

I guess it is up to the individual to search and test which selection of tubes works best in whatever equipment. Though this can be tedious. I spent a lot of time and money trying out valves that were unsatisfactory. Though I felt good when I finally found the best combination.

I doubt very much that a good quality valve cannot be made today. Manufacturing techniques are far more advanced now. Unfortunately we are such a small market to cater for that it probably isnt worth tooling up for these days. Even so, we still run into the problem of which ones to remanufacture? Imagine remaking the bad sounding ones!

As someone said the laws of physics have not changed (yet! Maybe CERN will change this) so in theory performance can be copied or even bettered. Who knows? We live in the age of information. Everything we need is out there somewhere.

Wouldnt it be great if the equipment just worked at its finest performance level, rather than us wasting time listening to tubes. We could be listening to music or dealing with things of real importance like which cable sounds best? Aaagggg!

The same economic issues hold for other components as well. There are tube gear manufacturers who know how to make a better output transformer but cannot make them like they used to. That is because, with the scale of production so much smaller than it once was for transformers, the manufacturer cannot order the needed specialty steel in a large enough batch.

Larryi,
sadly its a sign that this technology has become a bit of a dinosaur with only the select few interested. Although I see a few tube docking stations for ipods!

I know many here will disagree here, but in my experience other technologies, especially in power amplifiers, have moved so far ahead in terms of what you get for your money vs performance, and without the insecurities of knowing whether you have the best tubes from the 1950s or not.

The small magical details that we obsess over like this tube or that NOS tube bringing out extra detail here or there, can be had at the flick of a button on a remote control now without even reaching for a screw driver.

I have been trying out some of these latest generation of digital and switching amps for a while now. Some amps have room correction and a host of toys built in. The various filter settings are very powerful and have similar effects to tube rolling.