Classic Hifi Care

Without getting political, I have a question for your consideration.

Current production audio tubes are mostly made in Russia. With the current situation in that part of the world and with trade between our country and Russia in limbo, what will happen with prices and availability of current production tubes, in your estimation? Sovtek, JJ, and Electro-Harmonix all come out of Russia.

JJ is produced in E Europe, not Russia, in Cadca Slovakia. It used to be called Teslovak. The factory was affected by the Bosnian war, and I think may have moved within Slovakia at one point. I have notes at home I can check when we get back to NY end of this month. Before he died Charlie K of VTV wrote a detailed monograph on the state of the world tube industry that he sent to me to edit and he died shortly thereafter, I still have it, but it was never published as was intended for the next issue, along with my history of Grommes. Of course now its 10 yrs out of date but actually the industry hasn't changed that much in recent years except to produce more tube varieties... think 7868, 7199 etc.

The Chinese ShuGuang tube factory is also a major producer, and their tubes have improved a lot in the last 5-10 years. PSVane is a much smaller newer Chinese factory. I suspect China and JJ will pick up some slack from Russia, it will be interesting to see what happens. The latest, I understand, is that all Russian made tubes have been banned from export... so buy what you need from US sellers now!! NOS US & Euro tubes will skyrocket in price. I assume all the Russian & Ukranian private tube sellers on eBay will be banned also. Glad I bought some good Russian 7189s last year. The E-H (formerly Reflector) factory in Saratov Russia is/was owned by Mike Matthews I(New Sensor) in the US who also owns many of the legacy trade names (Amperex, Mullard, Tung-Sol, Sovtek &c, the new versions are just selected E-H tubes) made in Saratov. I suspect that factory will be confiscated. Corrupt racketeers almost took it over 15 yrs ago but they beat them back somehow with appeals to the gov't from Fender, Vox and the other major buyers of tubes. It may be a long time, if ever, that we see Russian tubes here again, though it's stupid of them as they were exporting nearly 200,00- tubes a MONTH at one point, and their economy needs all the help it can get!

Holy CRAP!! I just checked AES and they are already Out of Stock of almost every audio tube... batten down the hatches!!

Evidently the Russian tube export ban went into effect on March 10 2022.

Here's what my friend Jim McShane (the H-K Citation guru and tube seller) has posted:
http://www.mcshanedesign.net/tubes.htm

Is there any chance that a US company will pick up tube production. If there were that many tubes being imported, and with the support of the guitar amp manufacturers, one would think that might now be feasible. I haven't heard many good things about Chinese tubes. I'm not necessarily in the market for any tubes at the present time, but you never know. I appreciate your input, Roger.

The information you cited about AES being out of stock on audio tubes is why I started this topic. I saw that and didn't want to start a panic. I have several NOS, used, pulls, whatever 6V6's and 6SN7's on hand. Several 12AX7's, but only test quantities of 6BQ5. I could get by if worse comes to worst, which is how it sounds may actually happen. I was going to divest myself of some of these tubes, but may stand pat for the time being.

I thought I killed a fat hog when I sold all my TV tubes at the auction. I'm wondering if TV sweep tubes and some of the triode/triode and triode/pentode TV tubes will now bring the big money. Those of us doing audio may have to take a page from the TV collectors and how they handle picture tubes now that rebuilding is no longer possible. We may have to learn to scrounge.

Chinese tubes have been vastly improved, guitars stress tubes pretty hard. I wouldn't hesitate to use some of them, and PSVane is concentrating on higher end audio tubes like 300B at very high prices I understand.

Mike Matthews bought some tooling from one of the mgr's (GE or Tung Sol In think) about 20 yrs ago but never was successful in getting into production for some reason... maybe he mothballed it and will bring it back now!

Westrex bought the rights and tooling for WE tubes such as 300B, possibly others, so if you need identical to original new 300Bs
at $700 each you're still in business!

I have a tube caddy full of all NOS US (and a few new Russian) audio tubes as spares for all my stereo stuff and 2 vintage roundie colorTVs, about 300 all told. Glad I stocked up when I did. But in the woulda-coulda department, about 10 yrs ago I got a Styrofoam flat of new Telefunken 12ax7 and 12 au7s that my uncle got a from IBM surplus. I saved about 10 of them, but sold the rest (about 50 were left) to Audio Classics at wholesale price, about $35 each.... D'oh!

There's certain US NOS TV horizontal amplifier (sweep) tubes that make excellent audio tubes. I have a bunch, hopefully they will
remain under the radar. NOS RCAs and GE available for under $10 each, various RETMA numbers that perform at 5 12 watt dissipation and have excellent audio performance. I want to built an amp using some of them sometime.

300B's and those more exotic tubes aren't really a concern for console stereo collectors. 6V6, 6BQ5 and 5U4's might be of greater concern. And 6EU7's of course. 12AX7's are a possible replacement for the 6EU7's as a practical matter. One fortunate fact for console stereo collectors is that guitar amps also share many of the tubes we use.

I was being facetious about the WE tubes, who the heck can afford them anyhow? I've seen table radios that use 2A3s,
also quite expensive, but not 300Bs, it's a good thing consoles didn't use those trendy cult tubes!
Guitar amps have kept a lot of tubes in production, but have also really driven up prices of NOS.

For 6BQ5s the Russian 6p14p is an excellent direct substitute. The military ones were pulled at fixed hourly preventive maintenance schedules by the Russian Military and sold off by private sellers on eBay. I've bought a bunch of them used/tested and they are durable with great performance, out of a few dozen maybe 1 or 2 didn't perform up to new spec. I wonder if they'll dry up now, a shame if they do, I used to get them for something like $20 - 25 for a quad, that's my kind of price.

If we ran 300Bs in a wooden stereo cabinet, it might get warm enough to set the wood on fire. I think a Concert Grand loaded with 6550's would be quite the electric heater, would it not? Might actually make the phantom "200 watts peak" Magnavox advertised for the CG amps.

I can see us using 6KT8's and 6CG7's in our stereos to replace some audio tubes. A 6KT8 is a pentode/triode, while a 6GH8A is a triode/pentode. The only equipment that used a 6KT8 to my knowledge was a Zenith color TV. I'll bet there are plenty of "worthless" TV tubes that may be pressed into audio service in a pinch.

AES used to sell TV tubes for reasonable prices, sometimes a dollar each. I don't even see them listed on their website anymore. Wonder if they got rid of all that stuff?

Checking eBay, I see the Russian 6p14p sellers have disappeared completely. Still some Ukranian sellers, but wonder how dicey that would be for both buyer and seller now! There's still sellers from Bulgaria, Romania, UK and US. I suspect both shortages and price inflation very soon!

I suspect a number of viable TV tubes will be pressed into service eventually. I hate to think about the quantity of them that have gone to the dump in past years. When I bought a big lot I'd cherry pick the audio and sell super cheap of give away the culls on CL, never could bring myself to throw any tube away unless totally dead.

According to the latest post on the EHX website, "The export restriction on Russian tubes has been resolved for now"
Shipments are supposed to resume in April. We shall see...

The JJ factory is running at max capacity according to the folks at Eurotubes in CO.

Contacted a few of my industry insider contacts including a former Svetlana-US executive.
The above most recent statement by Mike Matthews of New Sensor/EH is highly suspect.
It's incredibly unlikely NS will be able to contravene Putin's sanction reprisals, export bans.
He's had a certain "reputation" in the industry for years. I'll believe it when I see it...meanwhile:

Some GOOD (maybe amazing) news is that Westrex (WE) CEO Charlie Whitmer (used to advertise in TV) has considered
the current situation and is considering expanding production beyond 300B tubes to audio types such as EL84, 12AX7,
6V6gt, &c in their Rossville GA plant using tube production machinery they purchased a few years ago from the last
Phillips-Mullard factory, potentially US-made tubes the equal of US NOS could be made available... finally!

Go to their website and vote for your choice of tubes you'd like to see made available NOW!
!https://www.westernelectric.com/expand

That sounds optimistic! Thanks for all the work you've gone to keeping us up to date. Your efforts may stand us all in good stead before this is over.

Welcome...meantime hoard those tubes folks, looks like even NOS E-H tubes may be desirable soon !
Unless the conflict is resolved peaceably very quickly I'd bet the Saratov factory is toast.
Not likely imo.

We should all be grateful for all the knowledge and talent we have here in the membership of our little forum. I certainly am....

I wonder how profitable it is to develop a production run of a given tube. A large scale producer could conceivably saturate his own market, then the buy down would take a given time. They can be stored safely, but stored is not sold, Then your capital is in suspended animation. Making tubes must be a big plunge.

Meant to say VTV above (Vacuum Tube Valley), not TV!
They had advertisements for their newly introduced 300B.
Manufacture of tubes is a very expensive endeavor, and a number have tried and failed.
Supply can eventually catch up with demand, their WE 300B was originally $1200, now 699!

That said there's always demand for the best, just look at prices for NOS vintage 12AX7s and power tubes.
I'd be happy to pay a premium price for a new US-made tube by WE and hope we'll have that opportunity.
The best thing is that Westrex had the great foresight to buy Phillips-Mullard's tooling, a huge plus giving
them a big head start, they already make tubes to the highest standards in the world, in the US right now!

Please go to their site (link above) and vote for the tubes you'd like to see them make!
Fun video of tube production in Rossville GA too!

Right On!.... bring that work back home... we have a company that just bought a old printing company building here... and they are converting it to make semi-conductors ...I.E. car chips... and with dow semi conductor just down the road ... about 20 miles ... it is a win win for jobs around here...