My buddy saw a press release from EH saying that they wouldn't be shipping tubes this year, maybe indefinitely.

Anyone worried about a ripple effect and a dystopia where we're all playing solid state or modeling amps?

I love tubes and tube amps but honestly, tube scarcity doesn’t even register as a concern compared to the sacrifices and horrors folks are going through right now.

(I also don’t mean to imply you’re callous or anything for bringing up this topic)

Chinese & Slovakian tubes will still be around so it shouldn't be too much of an issue.

twelvepoint wrote: Sun Mar 13, 2022 6:38 pm I love tubes and tube amps but honestly, tube scarcity doesn’t even register as a concern compared to the sacrifices and horrors folks are going through right now.

(I also don’t mean to imply you’re callous or anything for bringing up this topic)

Totally agree. No offense taken.

I'm still curious as to how it plays out in part because it's far easier to wrap my head around than the more important issues. Kind of whistling in the dark I suppose.

I think JJ power tubes are better than anything New Sensor makes anyway. I second this being pretty insignificant on the scale of problems plaguing that region

WeStartToDrift wrote: Sun Mar 13, 2022 7:10 pm Chinese & Slovakian tubes will still be around so it shouldn't be too much of an issue.

I was just about to suggest changing the title of the thread to All Tubes Unavailable.

1. There are, to my knowledge, no longer any Chinese tubes being produced

2. JJs, the Slovakian option, are great but everything is sold out everywhere. Just looked at TubeDepot and CE and about everything 6L6/5881/KT66 is gone, and what oddballs are left have a limit of 10 per customer on them. This suggests to me that over the past few days/weeks people have been buying up all they can. What's left will probably be gone by the end of the day, and then it's off to Ebay and Reverb to buy a matched pair of JJ EL34s for $300 from a gouger. It brings back fond memories of toilet paper a scant two years ago.

Honestly, I feared this day would come long ago (not that the tubes currently in amps won't be fine for quite some time) and started approaching solid state with a more open mind. Turns out they don't all sound like your first $50 practice amp (duh). And a lot of my favorite players were either already using them or not getting much 'tube sound' out of their amps anyway.

Maybe hold off the inflated set of EL34s for warm, creamy tonez right now and donate a few bucks to humanitarian aid instead.

To somewhat echo what others have said, yes, there are more pressing concerns with supply chain shortages and bigger global issues in general, and yes, it's a good idea to have or have access to a solid state amp so as not to be stranded.

I would add that with all of this shake up, if things eventually stabilize more, it will be in our country and The West's best interest to find a way to manufacture such things instead of relying on outsourcing. Would imagine tubes for amps will be far less of a priority than microprocessor chips, but if enough of a demand is there and the state of things isn't too calamitous...where there's a will, there's a way.

I have an Ampeg V6-B ready if I can't get any tubes.

Caveat that anything I post here obviously pales in comparison to what people in Ukraine are going through. I'd hope that goes w/o saying but, well, feel like I have to say it regardless.

I'm wondering if this could somewhat be alleviated by tube amps being designed/modded to allow for each tube to be individually biased in a pair/quad/sextet? That way if you won't have a new matched quad of 6L6s, but you've got three you saved from an amp that blew and another random one, you could still get them all within the same bias point. I feel like FM scott was doing this w/ his Traynors, especially YBA-3As since those use weird old tubes that are super out of production.