May wanna start stocking up on tubes?...manufacturer may go bye bye

JeffB

JeffB

Let it B
I'm no chicken little, but if there's basically only 3 places that still make tubes for the world...and one of them goes down...uhm..that's gonna suck...

LPF Link

Gear Page Link

Should be good for Line6 though :D
 
Re: May wanna start stocking up on tubes?...manufacturer may go bye bye

JeffB said:
I'm no chicken little, but if there's basically only 3 places that still make tubes for the world...and one of them goes down...uhm..that's gonna suck...

LPF Link

Gear Page Link

Should be good for Line6 though :D
Click to expand...

We went down this very same road after the Seimens EL34s and then the Tesla EL34s went bye bye....There was a time where the best EL34s were the Chinese(bottle rockets)were it...Mesa used to tell people not to use their own Chinese EL34s or to have 2 sets of them...Then some better stuff started coming around...I currently own enough NOS EL34s,6L6,EL84,and almost enough 12AX7/12AT7 tubes that I wouldn't need to buy anymore tubes,and this doesn't include the EH,Tesla,and Svetlana,and TAD tubes I've accumulated....:) I Know I'm in the minority though,but I started collecting tubes in the late 80s when I saw what was coming..

Another reason why I've leaned towards Hybrid SS/Tube Vox and the Cyber Twin amps with my tube amps...I use my all tube amps less and less these days and pretty much use my Vox VTH full time.
 
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Re: May wanna start stocking up on tubes?...manufacturer may go bye bye

funny ... the surf industry is going thru something very simular to what we may see in the future w/ tubes.

With clark foam being shut down .. people are scrambling for blanks .. which will now come mostly from china. and the price of a board has gone thru the roof.

better for the environment .. not so cool for all the out of work americans.

http://www.sanluisobispo.com/mld/sanluisobispo/business/13411196.htm


sorry for going off topic ..
 
Re: May wanna start stocking up on tubes?...manufacturer may go bye bye

So what 12AX7's or EL34's are made at this factory?
 
Re: May wanna start stocking up on tubes?...manufacturer may go bye bye

Sovtek's and some EH's. It's owned by New Sensor Corp. I don't even have to click the link to know it's about Mike Matthews and the issue over in Russia over the factory. Read it on another forum. Somehow it'll get settled and the tubes will still be made.
 
Re: May wanna start stocking up on tubes?...manufacturer may go bye bye

Not this horse**** again. Didn't we deal with this BS in the 80's and had to deal with a litany of garbage SS amps for almost a decade over the scare?

As long as there's a demand there will always be someone who is willing to fulfill it.

If a factory goes belly-up another will take up where it left off because they see the need for it. There are enough players out there buying tubes to make it worthwhile. And if there's ever a shortage between production there's a backlog of NOS and tubes tucked away in garages and other random places to get us by.

I'm not concerned.....
 
Re: May wanna start stocking up on tubes?...manufacturer may go bye bye

As I said..I'm not gonna say the sky is falling..but if this plant does shutdown...prices are gonna go WAYYY up until someone else comes in and takes up the slack (assuming anyone can/will).

NOS is great, but impractical for amp manufacturers who by far are the biggest "users". This is where you are gonna see big reprecussions. Someone like Marshall or Fender who goes through a bazillion tubes a year is gonna start putting even worse crap in there, and raise prices. And prolly flood the market with more Valvestate type nonsense :laugh2: And the smaller guys like Splawn/Rivera, etc etc...are gonna have even bigger pirce hikes cos they just don't buy in the same volume (and hence get as good pricing).
 
Re: May wanna start stocking up on tubes?...manufacturer may go bye bye

IMO, they'll just move their facility to another one of the thousands of empty warehouses in Russia. I'd hate to see the tube prices go up, but right now would be a good time to buy some spares. I wish I'd bought up a ton of Svetlana Winged C logo EL-34's and 6L6's when I had the chance.
 
Re: May wanna start stocking up on tubes?...manufacturer may go bye bye

JeffB said:
As I said..I'm not gonna say the sky is falling..but if this plant does shutdown...prices are gonna go WAYYY up until someone else comes in and takes up the slack (assuming anyone can/will).

NOS is great, but impractical for amp manufacturers who by far are the biggest "users". This is where you are gonna see big reprecussions. Someone like Marshall or Fender who goes through a bazillion tubes a year is gonna start putting even worse crap in there, and raise prices. And prolly flood the market with more Valvestate type nonsense :laugh2: And the smaller guys like Splawn/Rivera, etc etc...are gonna have even bigger pirce hikes cos they just don't buy in the same volume (and hence get as good pricing).
Click to expand...

Guys like you and I can use NOS tubes until we die cause we aren't dealing in high volumes....SS stuff is getting scaringly close and the tube snobs will have to deal with it if tubes get crappy once again...Another reason for having alot of different gear to fool with....As long as I have enough of my own tubes for my own amps,I guess I could care less about what the tube companies do....Sounds kinda selfish but at times I feel these things happen only to drive prices up! Look how we all got bent over with this year's gas prices and the oil companies made millions of extra dollars on us....Sucks doesn't it? :13:

Sorry if I sound a bit off today,but every once in awhile I get negative about some stuff....No fault of any of you guys though..
 
Re: May wanna start stocking up on tubes?...manufacturer may go bye bye

One reason I go to expos like the Vacuum Tube Valley Expo and the LA Amp Show is so I can pick up good NOS and high quality preamp tubes. If I don't use them immediately, I keep them tucked away in my purple Crown Royal bags.
In the past year, I've rounded out a good collection of pre tubes....RCA, Amperex, Telefunken, Mullard, JJ ECC803S, and GT12AX7 C's and M's.
Since they don't wear out as fast, they'll last me years, and I'll never sell an amp with the good stuff. If I sell an amp, it gets my cheapies!

I worry less about good power tubes, since there's some new good ones out there, and there's a lot of distributors with plenty. It doesn't hurt that I'm friends with Todd (RevolutionMan). www.revolutionguitar.com
He's got a warehouse full of JJ's, GT's, EH, Svetlana, and EI.
 
Re: May wanna start stocking up on tubes?...manufacturer may go bye bye

JeffB said:
I'm no chicken little, but if there's basically only 3 places that still make tubes for the world...and one of them goes down...uhm..that's gonna suck...

LPF Link

Gear Page Link

Should be good for Line6 though :D
Click to expand...

The demand for tubes doesn't seem to be dropping so this failure would have to be management related. If anything it should make the market better for the remaining two. Sure it sucks but I don't think its time to panic. There are only handful a of string makers too after all. Big picture these are all niche markets to begin with.
 
Re: May wanna start stocking up on tubes?...manufacturer may go bye bye

If push came to shove for me and I could no long afford to use my Marshall, I'd be looking at a nice SS power amp and then build my own pre-amp. The Crate Power Block is pretty nice. Until that time comes, the Marshall will be used.
 
Re: May wanna start stocking up on tubes?...manufacturer may go bye bye

So long as there is demand there will always bu a supply. The only problem is we will probably see pretty large price increases if this happens again.
 
Re: May wanna start stocking up on tubes?...manufacturer may go bye bye

When there are no tubes left, I shall buy a POD and in 10 years time we shall forget what the hell we were emulating in the first place! :)
 
Re: May wanna start stocking up on tubes?...manufacturer may go bye bye

Heck give me 2 little 12AX7s and my Vox VTH amp and I'm pretty happy from there...I'm using this amp about 95% these days anyway,while the tube amps sit in my room and get very little use...
 
Re: May wanna start stocking up on tubes?...manufacturer may go bye bye

I think I slipped thru the cracks on this one... but who is the manufacturer that's closing-up shop, here?
 
Re: May wanna start stocking up on tubes?...manufacturer may go bye bye

Pecan said:
So long as there is demand there will always bu a supply. The only problem is we will probably see pretty large price increases if this happens again.
Click to expand...

But my question is how large and how long?

For those of us that have tube amps already replacing them happens how often?

For the length of time it would take for the prices of tubes to become unwieldy someone would step and figure out that they can make money doing this and would do exactly that.
 
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