Tube-o-philes: be afraid, be very afraid

[Mark Hammer]

http://www.newsensor.com/releases/MoscowTimes_VacuumTubes_20051208.pdf

[Connoisseur of Distortion]

wow... better start buying tubes all over the place. buy all you need for your lifetime... 

[Mike Burgundy]

While I'm not really heavily into Sovtek tubes, this is horror indeed. Let's hope these unsavoury ways of doing "business" don't hold up, without Mr. Matthews getting forced out.
Any news of a more recent date anyone?

[Ben N]

Man, that guy has a penchant for attracting the unwanted attention of thugs, doesn't he!  Well, MM has certainly got a fair-sized set of cojones on him, and if anyone can ride this out, he can.  Let's all hope for the best--for Matthews, who deserves better, and for us.  Personally, I have been happier with JJs lately, but a marketplace of one is not a good thing.

Ben N

[nelson]

The oligapoly of vacumm tubes has bugged me for a long time.


This is a further blow to price conscientious guitarists. Even the news of possible closure of one of the main manufacturers of tubes is set to push price tubes up (given the fickleness of supposed "free markets"). Personally I buy N.O.S mullards cheaply from a reliable source in Bulgaria. However the price of tube guitar amps is sure to increase from their already astronomical high (much like oil prices).
However, IF MM was to get enough cash to relocate (not likely) it would mean more production and possibly cheaper tubes (perhaps chinese factory?). I have bought sovtek tubes, aswell as EH tubes, not much difference to my ears.

The thing is with one less competitor in the market it can only mean an increase in prices for tubes. This will push contemporary aswell as vintage tube amp prices up as the manufacturers pass their production cost onto the consumer and "vintage" prices will increase accordingly "If they are asking THAT much for a current version, my purpleface croonder must be worth much more".

Bad news for manufacturers, bad news for consumers. Bad news for EH. Good news for russian monopolists.

[Peter Snowberg]

 

[zachary vex]

hmm.  i am slightly afraid.  i hope Mike gets this sorted out quickly.

[puretube]

I hope this is just a: "paper is patient" issue by then...

another serious threat is the RoHS thing...

[Steben]

I hope this is just a: "paper is patient" issue by then...

another serious threat is the RoHS thing...

really?
What would be lost? I really haven't got a view on this.

[Melanhead]

Damn! ... hope this gets fixed, I'm gonna pick some more tubes up today, just in case!

[JimRayden]

Anyone feel like building some machines and starting to produce valves? I know I do.

Is there a webpage or a book about valve production and the materials and devices needed? I'm just interested about what is involved in the process. Something like the link about germanium transistors that was posted a month or two ago. I am aware that the machines and production are extremely costful but knowledge can't hurt.

I believe that this, along with germanium transistors is a good area to learn for the future, as the ol' factories are being shut down, freeing the market for new, guitar specialised tube companies. I will be there, even if it would be as a factory slave in Ton's company.  

Hmm, if I could convince the goverment of Estonia to subsidise the building of a new factory... I'm gonna need some hostages first.

-----------
Jimbo

[petemoore]

   I believe that this, along with germanium transistors is a good area to learn for the future.
  I was wondering about the Mesa Ge's [earli production technique, soon dumped after 'planar' technology arose]. I found a batch of mesa', and they are smooth in the devices [BMP, TB, FF] in which the 7 reside.
  Found in old Rec./Amp thing, gutted for tube chassis, these 2sb176's crossreffed to NTE...'Mesa", I looked up Mesa>google> and found a really great 'history of IC's' page, pictures of earlie Ge techs were seen, looked like they were doin' 'em up on a table, Ge chip gets leads solder-attached, then the thing gets doped [I guess ITCase is synonamous with dipped?], one side in +charged Si ion bath, other in -charged Si substance.
  Looked like they had jigged-out precision cutting/tooling machinery [look on  :icon_rolleyes:bay...lol], and magnifying lenses etc.
  Whether the clean raw Germanium pieces [they were using chunks of top grade Ge...NTE's IIUC are produced from Ge, crushed to dust, purified, bound to wafer shape for base].
  Tubes, you got all kinda things to think about, such as getting that hardware inside a glass vacuum, [metal in/air out], sealing the pins, getting the raw ingredients processed, I feel pretty secure in saying had the Military found transistors first, tubes may well never have beeen discovered. There are some rather large hurdles to overcome, requiring specialized team efforts.
  If my theory is correct, guitar players and audio Hi Fi hounds are the last remaining species of tube lovers.
  Perhaps a scare such as this is enough to cause market watchers/controllers to notice a sudden rise in tube 'popularity' spurring another run of tubes production.

[Doug_H]

This story has been floating around the amp forums for a week or so. It's too bad...

I'm glad I like JJ's. I'll miss the EH EL34 though. That's a nice tube...

Doug

[AL]

I read this a few weeks ago too. I'm with Doug - I prefer JJ's - but this is still some pretty bad news. They do fill a nitch in the market and losing them would be a big blow. I also own a few Ampegs and they make the only repro 7868. Ouch !!

AL

[vanhansen]

This just sucks.  I like the EH12AX7's.  I hope it gets resolved.  With the help of the U.S. Embassy and the shareholders, I think it will.

[R.G.]

Random thoughts about tube manufacturing:

The oddity about capitalism is that if enough people want something, the market produces it.

Tubes may get expensive, but at some price, there will always be a 12AX7. Whether anyone will pay that price is up for question, but it does work that way.

I'm guessing that the tricks to improve tube life will get more popular.

It keeps striking me that producing an exact replica of a 12AX7 or 6L6 is not all that onerous. It seems difficult only because no one has mucked with that technology much in the last half century. Putting several million MOSFETs onto ten nanoacres of silicon wafer is much more difficult. What is missing is that no one will invest the capital expense into the equipment to mass produce these things. All of the tube factories that exist are leftovers.

I think that one could produce incredibly good tubes with today's better knowledge of materials and processing by stepping outside the older box of tube making. Grids, for instance, don't have to be spirals of incredibly fine wire. They could be photo etched grids of holes in a fine metal mesh. That's much more rugged mechanically, and probably less microphonic. The beam forming electrodes in power beam tubes like the 6L6 were the result of such a sideways step, avoiding the issues with a spiral grid in the standard pentode.

The real question is in the economics.

[Mark Hammer]

A few things to note, based on the article alone:

1) The pressure is not being placed on Mr. Matthews to close down tube manufacture.  Rather the pressure is to take a highly profitable and booming business an sell it, under duress, at an unreasonably low price...presumably to someone else who thinks they can corner the market on tubes and make a fortune.  If anything, the threat is to the viability of E-H in particular, and reasonably priced tubes in general.  Of course, whether any forcible takeover of the facility would result in tubes of similar standards being produced is a whole other matter.  In the history of business, lots of companies have taken over other companies and tanked quickly.  It happens.  I hope it doesn't happen here.

2) Nothing has happened YET, that we know of.  I don't have a lot of confidence in the Russian legal system and have some misgivings about the legality of some business practices in contemporary Russia, though.

3) Tube manufacture these days is confined to very few facilities.  The same way that people who buy any of a variety of television and monitors have little or no idea that all the competing brands of interest to them may have had their picture tubes fabricated in the same facility by the same producer, many of the tastes that people have in tubes may well be based on differences between sets of tubes selected and branded by a given company but MADE at this same facility.  In other words, the notion that thank-goodness-I-can-use-other-brands-besides-E-H-or-Sovtek may be a false notion.  It may well be that the "other" tubes you love are made to some spec in the same damn factory, and that any change in ownership or manufacturing quality control or output WILL affect you.

For the time being, though, don't worry about getting all nostalgic about your favourite tube.  Worry about the 830 people at the facility who might get screwed out of work by ruthless "businessmen" (obviously, I think another word should be substituted there), and worry about the many folks working for Mike in the U.S. and elsewhere if the worst case scenario costs him as much as I think it could cost him.

Incidentally, we need to keep remembering that one of the reasons why the majority of such facilities are located in the countries they are located in is because of the pitiful (though some may substitute "less restrictive") environmental controls and requirements there.  As has been articulated by many folks in recent years, if they could build a tube in the continental U.S. for what it costs them to maintain a factory overseas in the absence of strict environmental regulations, they would do so.

[Doug_H]

It may well be that the "other" tubes you love are made to some spec in the same damn factory, and that any change in ownership or manufacturing quality control or output WILL affect you.

JJ's are made in the old Tesla factory in the Slovak Republic.

For the time being, though, don't worry about getting all nostalgic about your favourite tube.  Worry about the 830 people at the facility who might get screwed out of work by ruthless "businessmen" (obviously, I think another word should be substituted there), and worry about the many folks working for Mike in the U.S. and elsewhere if the worst case scenario costs him as much as I think it could cost him.

I agree and I certainly don't mean to minimalize the impact on the employees by this kind of thuglike behavior.  It's pretty disgusting, actually. However, a lot of the reaction has come from the perspective of how it affects tube availability and price. So I was addressing that aspect.

I contend that there are other alternatives and IMO that with the demand, new avenues of production will eventually open. The sky is not falling. Yet...

Incidentally, we need to keep remembering that one of the reasons why the majority of such facilities are located in the countries they are located in is because of the pitiful (though some may substitute "less restrictive") environmental controls and requirements there.  As has been articulated by many folks in recent years, if they could build a tube in the continental U.S. for what it costs them to maintain a factory overseas in the absence of strict environmental regulations, they would do so.

Another issue is the knowledge gap. A lot of the people who used to build tubes aren't around anymore. However, I agree that environmental restrictions are probably a bigger stumbling block to starting tube manufacturing in the U.S.

Doug

[The Tone God]

They better not go after my Svetlanas (SEDs)!!!

Andrew

[vanhansen]

They better not go after my Svetlanas (SEDs)!!!

Andrew

No doubt.