Western Electric USA considering expanding their tube operations due to the current global pandemic

  • Thread starter Thread starter 311splawndude
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311splawndude said:
Again, I'm no tube expert here, but I don't see how 'dual use' tubes are going to work. If they did, it would have been done already.

The tubes we use add gain, clipping and distortion.

The tubes they use don't.

Am I wrong?
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I wish I knew! The $6K Bigger Ben audiophile amp I linked to in this thread has a JJ ECC803S in their website's product pictures, which is a perfect example of what I mean. Don't know if that is common or an outlier- some audiophile or EE types with much deeper knowledge about amp topology than me would need to chime in about differences. The original production of all these tube types & specs were for military & aviation purposes,. The entire consumer electronics category (home AM/FM radios, guitar amps, PA systems, organs, etc.) used availble tubes that were already being massed produced for other purposes. Are current production "audiophile" grade 12AX7s & 6L6s being made to some totally different specs?
 
jabps said:
I think the market will adjust eventually. If JJ can get caught up and PSVANE can ramp up production, then hopefully the Shuguang factory gets back up and running that'll pretty much end the shortage and high prices IMO. And why I said W.E. would have to be competitive price wise. Again, they can offer an American made product which I would love and would pay extra for but at double the price?

Personally I hope EXH can partner with someone, the product Mike was getting out of the Reflektor plant was getting better and better. And unless Putin is gone, that avenue is not going to open back up.
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EH finding another place to produce would be great, Mike M must be exploring other options outside of Russia. Wonder if he's on good or bad terms with the ownership of WE, since they are competitors in the same space. I have visions of a miniature Bill Gates vs Steve Jobs rivalry.
 
stephen sawall said:

EHX 300B - $132​

Genalex 300B - $182
JJ 300B - $199
Western Electric 300B - $700
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If the WE tubes can come in at double the price of JJ, than I think they will do pretty well. Just thinking outloud if I have a 50Watt amp with EL34s and new production are $60 for the pair and WE are like $120-150, than that is doable in my mind. 4 times would be hard to justify though, but I bet there would be a small market even at that price.
 
Marshall has a gap-filler solution to tube shortage while WE & others work on production (happy April 1st...)

JCM 0 Marshall.jpg
 
^Oh man.

That's hilarious. Where did you find that?

I've been out of pocket a bit. Any updates from W.E.?
 
311splawndude said:
^Oh man.

That's hilarious. Where did you find that?

I've been out of pocket a bit. Any updates from W.E.?
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Marshall posted it their website on April 1st! Somebody has a good sense of humor. Nothing new from WE that I've seen, just stories commenting on their survey, rampant speculation. Who knows how long before they follow up.
 
Was poking around on the MTS Facebook page, found an interesting bit of "news" - it's very derivative, bear with me & you can chase it down to judge for yourself the reliability. (I don't even have a FB account, just peruse it occasionally to see if Bruce Egnater or any of the of old hands from the MTS forums posted something interesting).

https://m.facebook.com/groups/Egnater.MTS/
Scroll down to March 22d, where somebody posted a link the WE tube survey - look at comments below it, there's a screenshot of a really interesting post from That Pedal Show's private fan group on FB, which I attached. The poster is listed as Gordon Rankin, who (if it's really him) is the owner of Wavelength Audio in Ohio:

https://www.wavelengthaudio.com/

https://m.facebook.com/Wavelength-Audio-256166981098747/
That company makes an audiophile amp that uses the 300B, the post
says Rankin spoke to the owner of WE, Charlie Whitener for an hour - they received 16K responses to the tube survey in a week, and 12AX7/12AT7/12AU7 type preamp tubes are supposedly first in the cue for their expanded production. I'm paraphrasing, read the attachment for details - I don't know any of these people & cannot vouch for authenticity of the post, just passing along. Somebody who is on FB could dig into it & get better info, especially if you are in that private TPS group.
 

Attachments

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Was hoping they would start with power tubes, as I see those fail much more frequently than preamp tubes.
 
Wall Street Journal published a front page article today that talks about the whole tube shortage saga, references Western Electric, Mike Matthews/EH, Ukraine impact on Russian exports, hoarding, forum panic, etc. Nothing new that hasn't been discussed here & bunch of other places, amusing that this is now bubbled to the financial news so prominently- maybe that will nudge others to take a look at production. Coworker gave me a hard copy today, saw that it's posted on TGP as well, here's the online version:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/guitar...2xsvh07dpr4&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
 
I wouldn’t mind giving a new 12ax7 a try first. I wanted to buy a Tung-Sol reissue to try in the V1 spot in my Fryette GP/DI for more gain per Fryette recommendation but the tube scare squashed that.
 
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