Far from end. We have a great european producer - JJ from Slovakia. Chinese tubes are great too.
The end of EHX tubes - more likely.
The end of EHX tubes - more likely.
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You cannot easily produce tubes, for environmental reasons and risks in the manufacturing. Guess that's why only Chinese and Russian were doing it. See what happened at the factory in China.
"Easily" is not prohibitive, but it does have a price, and there are places where production is possible. Hard core tube fans will pay.
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JeezyMcNuggles
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It's cool, I just re tubed my V4b with tung sols, and I labeled and saved all my original JJs if those go out. I'm good for 10 - 20 years.
I’ve seen the end of tubes. They look like this...
My $0.019:
Historically, Ge (germanium) was used to make the first transistor at Bell Labs, ca. 1947. Si (Silicon) pretty quickly replaced Ge, mainly due to the native oxide / Si-SiO2 interface; also, there are some thermal stability aspects. Silicon’s main weakness is that it is an indirect band gap semiconductor; but, that mainly affects photovoltaic applications.
There have been Ge discrete transistors available and used for some applications. I’m not familiar with those; but, the lower thermal stability would make such devices ill suited for power stages. Ge is also technically an indirect semiconductor; but has a direct transition that is active. I suppose that could create some kind of dispersion character that might be useful for MI uses; but, I don’t know if that’s just snake oil. IF (BIG IF) there is some kind of connection between band gap transitions and frequency dispersions (which I highly doubt), there would be FAR better direct band gap semiconductors than Ge for such devices.
More recently, Ge is getting a second look for logic, mainly due to carrier mobility in the channel at ultra-thin/small dimensions. That is not applicable to MI devices.
I know; TL-DR. FWIW anyhow.
That is some silly clickbait. Russian tubes aren't particularly good and are by no means the whole industry. I've got about 35 tube amps and have not used any Russian or Chinese tubes in over 20 years.
NOS tubes tend to last a crazy long time, making them a better deal than they appear, except for certain types where the prices are in the stratosphere. If NOS is not an option, JJ/Tesla almost certainly makes what you need.
NOS tubes tend to last a crazy long time, making them a better deal than they appear, except for certain types where the prices are in the stratosphere. If NOS is not an option, JJ/Tesla almost certainly makes what you need.
Germanium transistors for small signal amplification are widely used in fuzz/boost pedals. They are the only way to get authentic 60s/70s guitar sounds that used those kinds of pedals - and you might be surprised how widely they were used. But yeah the bias drifts when they get too hot.
I happen to have an amp with them in the preamp (Vox 730). I've never had an issue with the transistors in it (it uses a solid state preamp and 4 x el84 power section), but it's a scarce and expensive amp that I don't use in my not-so-climate-controlled practice space.
I've never heard of germanium power amp transistors being used in music gear.
I happen to have an amp with them in the preamp (Vox 730). I've never had an issue with the transistors in it (it uses a solid state preamp and 4 x el84 power section), but it's a scarce and expensive amp that I don't use in my not-so-climate-controlled practice space.
I've never heard of germanium power amp transistors being used in music gear.
I bought a solid state amp in the 80's - it looked like tube amps were about to go out of production, so (figuring I'd have to learn to live without tubes) I found a solid state one that I "could live with". Since then I have bought a number of tube amps. As I now play only bass, and do almost all ampless gigs, however....I now actually have no tube amps. But tube amps seem more plentiful now than they did in the 80's.
I doubt they're going away any time soon.
I doubt they're going away any time soon.
Rhett Shull and his e-celeb buddies should be banned from this website.
literslly infomercial snake oil salesmen. I refuse to watch his dumb clickbait and you should too.
I don't think it's horde, stockpile (and resell for a premium (jerks!)) and freakout stages yet and maybe it won't be. However, we'll just have to wait and see what will happen for sure. It may be worth at least buying a replacement set or two right now if you can find them. I don't currently own/use any tube bass amps; however, I use a tube guitar amp and have been throwing around the idea of getting a nice solid-state amp too for a while so this may tip me over the hump into finally doing it if it does get nasty. But right now, I am in no hurry.
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You forgot JJ Electronics - made in Slovakia, Europe. Also known as Ruby, TAD and Groove Tubes ECC83 / ECC82 / ECC81
It's hard to say what their capacity is. I have read that Russian and probably most Chinese production is mostly for military/industrial applications with audio tubes as a small sideline.
The predecessor company Tesla was a high volume manufacturer in the 70s and 80s at least, but the current JJ/Tesla company apparently bought (at least some of) their equipment and only makes tubes (and capacitors and some amps) for audio.
That would suggest that they use tooling that once handled higher volume, but who knows what state it is in, or if they have the expertise or staff to increase production significantly. According to Wikipedia they grossed 8.5 million euros in 2015, so, it was not a huge operation.
If they can expand, right now looks like the perfect time.
I seriously doubt the current situation is going to be the end of tube production; as others have pointed out the Russians are no longer a major player.
Also - when the existing analog open reel tape (Ampex/Quantegy and whatever BASF became) stopped production, two companies stepped in and still make product today. The ATR stuff is supposed to be great, far better than the old tape for example.
It got really, really expensive, but it's WAY MORE of a niche market than tubes for guitar and bass amps are.
Cars have been fuel injected for a good 30+ years now but Weber still sell carburetors and tons of carburetors.
A company in the UK bought all the old stamping and production stuff for MGB and Triumph sports cars, you can now more easily get parts and body parts for say a MGB than when they were new cars.
Bear in mind too with the MGB they made 800,000 of them, but probably only 300,000 are still around and drive-able (rust took a lot of them out). Yet you can buy virtually any part for them, and 300,000 is probably fewer units than the number of SVT's out there LOL.
Analogeezer
Also - when the existing analog open reel tape (Ampex/Quantegy and whatever BASF became) stopped production, two companies stepped in and still make product today. The ATR stuff is supposed to be great, far better than the old tape for example.
It got really, really expensive, but it's WAY MORE of a niche market than tubes for guitar and bass amps are.
Cars have been fuel injected for a good 30+ years now but Weber still sell carburetors and tons of carburetors.
A company in the UK bought all the old stamping and production stuff for MGB and Triumph sports cars, you can now more easily get parts and body parts for say a MGB than when they were new cars.
Bear in mind too with the MGB they made 800,000 of them, but probably only 300,000 are still around and drive-able (rust took a lot of them out). Yet you can buy virtually any part for them, and 300,000 is probably fewer units than the number of SVT's out there LOL.
Analogeezer
PANIC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
LOUD NOISES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
LOUD NOISES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The End of Tubes
Thoughts?
I thought due to this oft-repeated question we should be ashamed of ourselves for beating that poor dead horse. Again.
Strange the timing of things. I was looking at YouTube vids of the million-watt plus short-wave stations, and a tour of the engine rooms showed these water-filled/cooled vessels holding output tubes the size of a grown man to drive these things, with transformers the size of coffee tables. Amazing.
WRMI-Radio Miami International :: Technical Facilities
Here's a vid with an interview with the couple that operates the similarly huge WBCQ up in Maine, watch the various cutaways to the technical spaces, and where he talks about the transmitter tubes costing $210,000.00 EACH.
Thoughts?
I thought due to this oft-repeated question we should be ashamed of ourselves for beating that poor dead horse. Again.
Strange the timing of things. I was looking at YouTube vids of the million-watt plus short-wave stations, and a tour of the engine rooms showed these water-filled/cooled vessels holding output tubes the size of a grown man to drive these things, with transformers the size of coffee tables. Amazing.
WRMI-Radio Miami International :: Technical Facilities
Here's a vid with an interview with the couple that operates the similarly huge WBCQ up in Maine, watch the various cutaways to the technical spaces, and where he talks about the transmitter tubes costing $210,000.00 EACH.
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