Western Electric USA Made 12AX7 Updates

  • Thread starter Thread starter glpg80
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Color me interested if these will be super reliable. I don't really care how they will sound, I've spent plenty of playing hours enjoying lesser tubes, even JJs, so anything equal or slightly better won't be a key factor to me, as long as they will deliver quality wise, especially considering in Europe this will be very pricey for sure.
IF they end up making 12ax7s, which I guess is not guaranteed.
 
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japetus said:
"But voodoo is exactly the problem, say tube skeptics like Glenn Fricker, an engineer of 25 years who specializes in metal bands at Spectre Sound Studio in Ontario, Canada. He sometimes uses a 1966 amp with its original tubes, but he doubts expensive replacement tubes would improve the sound.

“As a kid we are led to believe there is some dark art in tubes which will inherently change the sound of your amp,” Fricker says. But when he devised an experiment using sound canceling to reveal the audible differences between tubes, all he uncovered was “a little clicking sound”—they were otherwise identical. He advises guitar slingers to skip the $1,300 vintage Telefunken “Diamond Bottom” 12AX7 online at Tube Depot for the $20 JJ brand from Slovakia. While Fricker is rooting for Western Electric, he says, “Are they going to sound any better than your dear, cheap JJs? No.”


Lmao, this fucking guy.
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What an absolute moron. People act like tubes don't sound different. Who actually listens to this guy?
 
Chubbs said:
I saw $180 mentioned in the article and hope they aren’t that high, even mint nos 12ax7’s aren’t that much. Then my other concern is if they’re going to make an American style 12ax7 or a more British type. I’d imagine the audio people want an American style tube which don’t lend themselves very well to high gain/ British amps.
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They talked about the cost on a podcast, Tone Talk maybe, where "if" Western Electric did start making these tubes, as well as others, they were going to be quite expensive?
 
dcburn said:
They talked about the cost on a podcast, Tone Talk maybe, where "if" Western Electric did start making these tubes, as well as others, they were going to be quite expensive?
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That's so stupid. They are going to go for a 'boutique' product instead of just making tubes to compete. What a let down. Definitely will have to stick with my NOS supplier! I get NOS tubes for the same cost as new production half the time so, it's an easy decision.


Not to say that NOS tubes always win, some amps sound better with modern tubes somewhere in the mix- it's what they were dialed in with.
 
GuitarGuy08 said:
That's so stupid. They are going to go for a 'boutique' product instead of just making tubes to compete. What a let down. Definitely will have to stick with my NOS supplier! I get NOS tubes for the same cost as new production half the time so, it's an easy decision.


Not to say that NOS tubes always win, some amps sound better with modern tubes somewhere in the mix- it's what they were dialed in with.
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Are you willing to share your source? Thinking of building up a NOS stash, so I‘m always looking
 
I bought a Mojotone kit that came with JJs. I was planning to put NOS in there right away, but the JJs sounded very good in it. I still have an addiction to buying NOS tubes I don't need. I would be very interested in these Western Electric tubes, if they ever hit the market at reasonable prices.
 
dcburn said:
They talked about the cost on a podcast, Tone Talk maybe, where "if" Western Electric did start making these tubes, as well as others, they were going to be quite expensive?
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This is where I got that number from, https://www.wired.com/story/one-mans-quest-to-revive-the-great-american-vacuum-tube/

Sorta related but I emailed them about manufacturing tubes the day all the stuff popped off in march of 2022 and heard back from Charles Whitener within the day which was cool, they said they were working on 12ax7 and 6L6 at the moment.

“Whitener hopes that even if international supply prices drop, customers will stick with Western Electric after having gotten a taste of the reliably durable tubes. “They are looking for a stable product they can count on,” he says. Schlett, the sound engineer, is hoping Whitener can deliver. “My advice is please, quality control, please, please, please,” he said. “I don’t want to throw out 70 percent of the $180 tubes I buy. That’s not OK.”

Edit: apparently I can’t read and $180 is not western electrics number it’s some other guys number. Looking at their 300B’s compared to overseas made stuff they look to be about double which would hopefully mean $40-50 preamp tubes not the $180 I said earlier.
 
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Racerxrated said:
If he really can't hear the differences when tube rolling, he needs to change careers. The tonal changes are obvious.

A more important issue with newer production is reliability. New tubes are a crapshoot.
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Some tubes make a huge difference. I was using JJ until Mr. Racerxrated traded me some tubes and it was incredible how much better my amp sounded and felt.

Viva la Racerxrated!!
 
Yep
I’m curious as well, haven’t heard a thing since the initial info hit us
 
Highly rec sending them an email, when I emailed them in 2022 I heard back from the ceo within 3 hours. Super friendly and willing to share info.
 
russian mafia killed them all and shut down the project. The CEO of western electric has been..."misplaced".
now i'm dead from saying too much 💀
 
I just e-mailed them about it. If I hear anything, I will post it here in this thread.
 
Dale B said:
I just e-mailed them about it. If I hear anything, I will post it here in this thread.
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I emailed them the day it was bumped and I have heard fuck nothing.

I’m going to go out on a limb and say they aren’t tooling up to do it like they insinuated.
 
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