What is up with the tube game these days?

[NotThatBrightCap]

To my knowledge, tubes stateside really haven't gone full swing. I think that given the cost of business/labor/regulation in the states, US made tubes may be cost prohibitive. Many companies just rebrand tubes that come from other factories. More than likely your tube will be Russian, Slovakian, or Chinese made. Many players like to use a mash up of brands of preamp tubes. Some like a high gain Chinese in V1 and then just whatever in the V2 on sockets.

There were some issues during the pandemic with shortages but those are largely resolved and even though I'm not seeing as many new Chinese tubes. That's largely because Shuguang recently opened back up. There was a fire and they weren't able to reopen. Some of the Shuguang workers ended up at the PSVANE factory. I'm not sure I'd want to purchase the first couple batches coming out of the recently reopened Shuguang factory. I haven't heard of any issues but I'd rather someone else experiment.

There's sanctions on Russia https://www.trade.gov/russia-sanctions-and-export-controls and that will affect the acquisition of those tubes. You can get them through various channels but they may cost more.

The Slovakian tubes are readily available.

The good news is, there's so many tubes available that even when the shortage happened, people still had tubes.

TLDR- new US made guitar tubes aren't a serious player in the industry and I doubt they ever will be again.

 

[Erock]

To my knowledge, tubes stateside really haven't gone full swing. I think that given the cost of business/labor/regulation in the states, US made tubes may be cost prohibitive. Many companies just rebrand tubes that come from other factories. More than likely your tube will be Russian, Slovakian, or Chinese made. Many players like to use a mash up of brands of preamp tubes. Some like a high gain Chinese in V1 and then just whatever in the V2 on sockets.

There were some issues during the pandemic with shortages but those are largely resolved and even though I'm not seeing as many new Chinese tubes. That's largely because Shuguang recently opened back up. There was a fire and they weren't able to reopen. Some of the Shuguang workers ended up at the PSVANE factory. I'm not sure I'd want to purchase the first couple batches coming out of the recently reopened Shuguang factory. I haven't heard of any issues but I'd rather someone else experiment.

There's sanctions on Russia https://www.trade.gov/russia-sanctions-and-export-controls and that will affect the acquisition of those tubes. You can get them through various channels but they may cost more.

The Slovakian tubes are readily available.

The good news is, there's so many tubes available that even when the shortage happened, people still had tubes.

TLDR- new US made guitar tubes aren't a serious player in the industry and I doubt they ever will be again.

I'm hoping we make it 54 more days, and Mr. "The Art of the Deal" guy stops all the wars. Would love to buy Russian tubes and 7.62x39 again, along with people not dying.

 

[stephen sawall]

I would expect the price of tubes to go up with the tariffs.

I expect the USA made tubes to cost three or four times the price of the tubes from Asia.

The quality of metal like the quality of a lot of raw materials is not very good.