DaveA wrote: 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.

Well that "goll-dang libtard EPA" would probably put the kaibosh on that immediately. Apparently manufacture of tubes is a dirty business. I've heard this for years anyways but since I can't be arsed to venture outside of one page of google results I cannot verify this.

I'd sure be interested in the "why" of this though as it doesn't seem like it should be so bad? some glass...some metal...IDK

Garth wrote: Mon Mar 14, 2022 12:51 pm

DaveA wrote: 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.

Well that "goll-dang libtard EPA" would probably put the kaibosh on that immediately. Apparently manufacture of tubes is a dirty business. I've heard this for years anyways but since I can't be arsed to venture outside of one page of google results I cannot verify this.

I'd sure be interested in the "why" of this though as it doesn't seem like it should be so bad? some glass...some metal...IDK

If larger scale tube production does happen in the US (Western Electric does produce tubes here but oooh boy check those prices out), it'll likely be in Texas which...frankly I have my own concerns about spending my money on something made there too.

tallchris wrote: Mon Mar 14, 2022 12:43 pm 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.

That certainly IS possible, however it depends on one either modifying an existing amp for such an approach or getting a new one built. It also takes up some room when you have two or four bias pots (and in my case extra test jacks).

Dr Tony Balls wrote: Mon Mar 14, 2022 6:48 am

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

I can second this, heard it straight from a large manufacturer of amplifiers and offset guitars.


This reminds me of living in a smaller town in the early 2000s, I didn't know how to order tubes and music stores barely had any stock.

Good news for many is your tubes will (probably) last you a few years, bad news is even if this war drags on, the trade relations will most likely take awhile after that to normalize.

Maybe there will be new stabs at production, or heavy duty modelling attempts that really get us there. Necessity mother of invention, yadda yadda

Last year I got extras for all of my stuff out of boredom, a rare and purely accidental smart move on my part and I doubt I'll ever run out. That said they have fantastic solid state/modelling stuff now, and if you can't get a good sound out of a Quilter or whatever it ain't the amp's fault.

I think I'm actually going to start practicing with my Mesa Fathom head instead of my SVT II now and save the tubes for a special occasion.

Ha. My bass amp is a 100W 2xKT88 guy that I built. I might be a bit worried as the tubes in there have been going for awhile, but not long ago a buddy that used to play all kinds of doom rock gave me like 4 pairs of used but matched KT88s. Every time he had a tube fail in a Model T or Hiwatt 200, he replaced the quad and kept the others. I should be good for a while and if nothing else i'll switch to an Acoustic 370 or something.

Well shit. Wishing I hadn't drug my feet on replacing a couple of noisy sputtering 12AX7s. Fucking hoarders. I should have known since there is such a large cross section of guns/cars/guitars people.

Keep your eyes peeled for used organs on craigslist. You find the right one and it'll be chock full of NOS 12AX7s.

One other thing to keep in mind is that rectifier tubes for example have some solid state replacements. Yes it changes the sound, but that's at least one less tube to be concerned with.

Makes me wonder if there is a way to do drop-in solid state replacements for preamp and power amp tubes as well. If so, I would think this might be an opportunity for some company.

Overall, I envision this situation to be similar to the vinyl crisis where it may take a couple years but there will be some smaller startups looking to fill the gap.

Again, let's all assume good-faith that we all recognize that none of this discussion in any way negates or diminishes the suffering of the Ukrainian people. I can't even imagine.