There are less active tape machines in use than tube amps (not a true 1:1, one tape machine can create the demand for dozens/hundreds of reels of course) and somehow there are still companies making tape. I hope WE makes it work..

penningtron wrote: Tue Mar 29, 2022 2:47 pm There are less active tape machines in use than tube amps (not a true 1:1, one tape machine can create the demand for dozens/hundreds of reels of course) and somehow there are still companies making tape. I hope WE makes it work..

also https://spectrum.ieee.org/why-the-futur ... netic-tape

Here's a fun related story:

I really needed a couple of 12AX7 phase inverters and I kept dragging my ass on getting them. I finally decide to buy them and low and behold everyone is out of them. I came here and saw this thread. "FUCK. Why didn't I think about that before everyone started hoarding?" Okay, cool. One of the tube shippers still has some because they are limiting peoples orders. Click. Ordered. A few days go by and tracking says delivered. But they aren't here. I wait a few days, nothing. I reach out to them and am encouraged to ask my neighbors (um, I have hundreds). I wait another couple of days and ask my USPS carrier, who tells me to call their number. I do and make an inquiry. I'm given a ticket number and someone calls me back 3 days later.

Here is that conversation:
Me: Hello
USPS: Hi, I'm calling from the USPS
Me: Okay
USPS: <long pause>
Me: whatcha got?
USPS: Your package WAS delivered.
Me: Well, that's what the tracking says, but I assure you it was not delivered to my address.
USPS: <another long pause and a sigh> How well do you know your neighbors?
Me: Not very well. I don't live on a small street. But I will absolutely go knock on someone's door if that's what I have to do.
USPS: Well, it was misdelivered.
Me: I know. But do you know WHERE it was delivered?
USPS: I do. But we aren't supposed to tell you that.
Me: Uh, okay.
USPS: That's why I asked about your neighbors. How far away from you is Belmont?
Me: It's one street over. Is that where it was delivered?
USPS: That's where it was scanned.
Me: Same address? What happens if I go over there and no one answers or they tell me they didn't get it?
USPS: Yeah, same number. The Federal Government will not reimburse for a lost package.
Me: Wait, what? You just admitted that the USPS misdelivered it. Where's the responsibility?
USPS: That's why I don't generally tell people where it went. You'll have to get reimbursement from the shipper. They sent it Priority Mail.
Me: Yeah, but that had a tracking number, and you tracked it to somewhere else, where you delivered it.
USPS: The Federal Government won't reimburse for a lost package.
Me: Do you see how nuts that sounds?
USPS: Sorry.
Me: Okay. Thanks. I guess.

So, you guessed it. I walked over and the super nice lady I talked to informed me that they have gotten other items for my address before and walked it over to our porch. But not this one. She took my number and said she'd talk to the landlord who lives upstairs and didn't answer. I've not heard back, which was 4 days ago. I reached back out to the tube company who said they'd be making their own inquiry.

Garth wrote: Tue Mar 29, 2022 2:35 pm Tube amps are still the default for guitar (not including beginner kits of course) w/ thousands made every year - and there are MILLIONS of amps already made that will eventually need theirs replaced, so there is absolutely no shortage of demand. EDIT: also the hi-fi/audiophile market now seems to be highly-invested in tube tech as well and a lot of those use the same power/pre tubes as guitar amps. Further, it's been widely-reported that JJ Tesla tubes were back-ordered 6-8 months BEFORE the invasion. So I don't think demand is an issue at all. Clearly not what it was when TVs and radios needed them but still there for sure.

TylerDeadPine wrote: Tue Mar 29, 2022 2:46 pm Here's some lunchtime thinking (not concrete industry numbers):
https://www.marketwatch.com/press-relea ... 2022-01-04
"The global Guitar Amplifier market was valued at USD 119.7 million in 2019 and it is expected to reach USD 125.8 million by the end of 2026, growing at a CAGR of 0.7% during 2021-2026."

It's not a giant market - if we give tube amps %10 of the market dollar amount which I would say is pretty generous, that's only $12m, with only ~600k units sold. Let's make it generous and say that 200k tube amps were sold.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/448 ... in-the-us/, that's an average cost of $500 consumer, probably $300 cost, tubes would make up maybe, estimate:
- 12ax7 x 3, 6L6x2
- $7/12ax7
- $15/6L6

- so if we said that $50 of that amp was tubes, that's $10m for the entire possible market. Nevermind your costs. For a single small company, if there are zero competitors.. Sure that might be worth it to go after - if you can ramp up to 600k 12ax7s a year from nothing. I could see spending a couple million just on that - but an ROI of a 1-2 years.. that's not out of the question, but it's a risk, sure.

I'm just pointing out that semiconductor manufacturing and consumer electronics on the whole looks VERY different than it did in 1957.
Different definitions of "demand" as well. Niche markets, and demand due to scarcity, can't be conflated with the demand for iPhones and smart tv's.

We're all on the same page I think, and I agree in the context of guitar and hifi, there is demand.
As you both have indicated, it's definitely possible and definitely a risk. Most of the risk, I think, being on the quality end.

Garth wrote: Tue Mar 29, 2022 2:35 pm What I cannot speak to though is that if it will end up being a profitable endeavor for WE to produce them domestically & at a high-quality. The interview cited above leaves me feeling pretty optimistic about the last part of that sentence at least.

penningtron wrote: Tue Mar 29, 2022 2:47 pm There are less active tape machines in use than tube amps (not a true 1:1, one tape machine can create the demand for dozens/hundreds of reels of course) and somehow there are still companies making tape. I hope WE makes it work..

Tubes and tube amps are not going to disappear over night, and I'm definitely hopeful that Western make something happen, at least to advance the conversation.

Obviously Western Electric can rely on us PRF folks, but I think they need high level buy-in from larger companies.
Maybe they can partner with MM/EHX ? Maybe Fender and Peavey move production home and put WE tubes in everything that comes off the line?

TylerDeadPine wrote: Tue Mar 29, 2022 2:46 pm Yeah, the reality is probably more of a bummer, but it's much nicer to think and talk about the alternative.

I'm sorry to go to bummer town here, but the reality is that the quality of current tube production already sucks.
Replacement Sovtek/EHX, Tesla/JJ have been going up in price as long as I have been buying them, and I know this because I keep having to replace them.
Meanwhile the NOS Telefunken 7025's, and RCA 5U4 rectifier I payed "way too much money for" 15 years ago measure fine every time my 68 Fender gets a check up.

I'm just a little bit curious, and just a little bit skeptical. Not just about production cost and how they will compete with Russian and Chinese manufacturers.
I'm not clear how WE envisions the QC process or where they see their price-point landing. What will this actually look like?

Really trying to not be too negative, but trying to imagine how this alternative will pan out.

If Western Electric can manufacture a matched 6L6 pair; half as well as RCA did 70 years ago, made in the USA, sold at the cost of a current pair Sovteks - game changer!
If we're talking about $300 for a pair of American made 6L6s, with the equivalent build quality and reliability of a current TAD 6L6, I will happily continue being "gouged" on eBay for NOS RCAs and preamp tubes from West Germany.

When we say “tube quality” is that something that’s quantifiable in production steps? For example, are our revered NOS tubes constructed more accurately inside, with more durable welds that have closer physical tolerances? Or are the metal parts themselves not consistent? I am absolutely ignorant about this stuff, but one would think every aspect of that - which could be automated - would be better that 50 years ago.

Perhaps it’s the vacuum itself that’s inconsistent?

Like I said, I’m totally in the dark here, but there must be consistent points in modern tube manufacturing that are unreliable, and that would be a known thing among the 20 people in the world familiar with this stuff, and potentially addressable with some effort.

I have a hard time just accepting “tubes today suck and that’s just the way it is.”

twelvepoint wrote: Wed Mar 30, 2022 12:40 pm When we say “tube quality” is that something that’s quantifiable in production steps? For example, are our revered NOS tubes constructed more accurately inside, with more durable welds that have closer physical tolerances? Or are the metal parts themselves not consistent? I am absolutely ignorant about this stuff, but one would think every aspect of that - which could be automated - would be better that 50 years ago.

Perhaps it’s the vacuum itself that’s inconsistent?

Like I said, I’m totally in the dark here, but there must be consistent points in modern tube manufacturing that are unreliable, and that would be a known thing among the 20 people in the world familiar with this stuff, and potentially addressable with some effort.

I have a hard time just accepting “tubes today suck and that’s just the way it is.”

When I say quality, I'm referring to the actual quality control process, post-manufacturing.
Testing and matching, etc... which I think changes drastically with scale of production and the application of the tubes.

No doubt that the manufacturing process these days has the potential to be objectively better in every way. How that actually plays out depends on a lot of things.
I'm not an expert by any stretch but I naturally have a lot of questions, the answers to which undoubtedly impact the quality.
Will Western choose the best possible materials, the cheapest source, or somewhere in the middle?
Will they pay employees fairly? Will they utilize and license current production methods, tools and software, or develop proprietary systems?
Will they get buy-in from companies like MESA that run production on US soil?
What happens after 5 years when they are 20% under their sales projection and consultants are employed to "improve business efficiencies"?

You may have a hard time accepting that “tubes today suck and that’s just the way it is”, but tubes suck today and that's the way it's been.
You absolutely cannot rely on the specs you read for any EHX family tubes. It's pure marketing.
Negligible for the operation of a guitar tube amp, maybe, but still....

The proof is in the pudding for me.
I buy 40-60 year old American, British and West German tubes and they last me nearly 20 years. In an amp designed for a 100v power grid, no less.
I buy Chinese and Russian tubes made in the last decade, and I'm buying them every couple years.

But I'm very open to this changing for the better!

My amps with JJs have been fine for me, but I didn't mean to discount your experiences. I think what's frustrating is there's a lot of bullshit marketing from modern tube distributors and not a lot of transparency. Your questions above are all valid and as a consumer this kind of stuff would definitely sway me one way or another if I were to lay down $100 for a pair of 6L6s, or whatever Western Electric would change.

twelvepoint wrote: I am absolutely ignorant about this stuff, but one would think every aspect of that - which could be automated - would be better that 50 years ago.

Perhaps it’s the vacuum itself that’s inconsistent?

Like I said, I’m totally in the dark here, but there must be consistent points in modern tube manufacturing that are unreliable, and that would be a known thing among the 20 people in the world familiar with this stuff, and potentially addressable with some effort.

While I'm stone ignorant about the specifics of tube manufacture, I have a lot of experience with other automated manufacturing processes and you might be surprised what some of the downfalls of automation are. One of the biggest is the volume of production that isn't scrupulously watched over, leading to potential large runs of off spec product. Before super modern automation, someone was manning the various stages of the manufacturing process and adjusting (sometimes very subtly based on experience) the manufacturing process variables to keep from making piles of scrap product. Not a perfect example, but related to my business:

used to be when an automaker was making fenders (for example), they'd take a coil of steel and cut it into small pieces called blanks that would make the fenders. Someone had to tend the blanking press and they'd have eyeballs on the surface quality of the blank and the press parameters, and die lubricant and shit like that and could react right away if something went wrong. Then the blanks would go to another process to maybe punch some holes and someone tended that process to make sure the holes were clean and blanks were oriented right. Then the blanks would go to another press or two (or three) to get formed into a fender, with more people manning those processes and the output. At every stage there was opportunity to make adjustments to the process and get rid of "failed" parts. These days, coils get loaded up on a big multi-stage transfer press out the other end of which comes fenders. But what if there's a repeating defect in that coil, or a shear knife in your big press assembly has a nick in it and is leaving a ragged edge on the part? Nobody sees it until you have 12 tons of scrap fenders. You made them fenders fast and with limited human intervention due to a highly automated process, but what did it get you? Scrap. Off spec shit. And this happens in what we might consider modern advanced countries like the US and Germany and Japan. Now imagine what kind of attention to detail is being paid in less developed places like Russia and maybe you get some idea why the older processes could result in "better" quality than modern automated ones.

^^Interesting example of a large scale automation scenario.

twelvepoint wrote: Wed Mar 30, 2022 1:27 pm My amps with JJs have been fine for me, but I didn't mean to discount your experiences. I think what's frustrating is there's a lot of bullshit marketing from modern tube distributors and not a lot of transparency. Your questions above are all valid and as a consumer this kind of stuff would definitely sway me one way or another if I were to lay down $100 for a pair of 6L6s, or whatever Western Electric would change.

I didn't feel my experience was being discounted at all, and hope you didn't either.
Same as you, I get by just fine buying JJ and Sovtek 6L6s when I need to. But if priced reasonably, I buy NOS 7025's and 5U4's any chance I get.

As I said, I think for tube amp operation(while it's up and running), it's negligible. But yeah, there is a tonne of frustrating marketing practice these days, and every time Mike Matthews says "the world is running out of tubes" the cost of tubes everywhere goes up.
If I was an amp builder like some of the folks on here, I would totally incensed.