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Vacuum Tubes will be made in USA again


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5 hours ago, KuruPrionz said:

Vacuum Tubes will be made in USA again

Article at the link.

One Man’s Quest to Revive the Great American Vacuum Tube | Wired dot com


That's been ongoing for quite some time now; still, I'm glad that it's still on the horizon, and hopefully to come to fruition... If so, the quality standard should be very high, and likely pushing the bar considerably higher than it's been for what, a good sixty years or so?

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10 hours ago, KuruPrionz said:

Yes, they made a tube for hi-fi amplifiers for a few years. 

Next up is a 12ax7, the owner realized the quantity market is guitarists. 


What I meant as having "been ongoing for quite some time now" was that specific plan by that specific tube-maker to put quality 12AX7 tubes and others into production there; it's been in the news for a couple of years or more now (at least a year or so). That's not a criticism or anything, just an observation that this has been said and allegedly moving forward for a while. I answered a survey they had asking what tube types people would like to see made available by them. It IS good to see that it's still the plan, and hasn't been canceled. 

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1 minute ago, Caevan O’Shite said:


What I meant as having "been ongoing for quite some time now" was that specific plan by that specific tube-maker to put quality 12AX7 tubes and others into production there; it's been in the news for a couple of years or more now (at least a year or so). That's not a criticism or anything, just an observation that this has been said and allegedly moving forward for a while. I answered a survey they had asking what tube types people would like to see made available by them. It IS good to see that it's still the plan, and hasn't been canceled. 

No worries and no offense taken. The article mentions the timeframe and the struggles.

So I saw this as a progress report, more or less. 

The irony is that I've more or less transitioned to solid state amps although I have a couple of amps that are hardwired by one-at-a-time builders and I may end up keeping them. One is a converted hi-fi amp (mono) that is now the top cut channel of a Vox AC 15 from the late 50's, EF86 and all. 

The other is a scratch built head chassis, a mutant Fender 5D3 Deluxe from the mid 50's with a single input jack and two different sounding volume controls that can be blended in a variety of ways. I have a head cabinet for that one, just have to mount it up. No effects in either one, just volume and tone pretty much. They have the same issue that bothers me, to get that "tone" you have to turn them up to unreasonable volumes. Sad...

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1 hour ago, BadLife said:

Well if they are going to do this they need a $20 or less per tube price range.  The other tubes they make are expensive.  They may only make the one high fi tube. Have not looked in a while.

I'd say that the quality of the tube is more important than the price. The current stuff is not consistent and I've had enough tubes die that I've migrated to solid state amps - the newer ones sound really good. If a tube cost $40 but lasted 3 times longer on average, I'd say that was well worth it. 

I have a box of vintage American and European tubes and those hold up well. I used to have amps where I almost never needed to change the tubes. 

 

I think they are going to start out with a 12ax7 and if that goes well they may expand the line. 

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1 hour ago, KuruPrionz said:

If a tube cost $40 but lasted 3 times longer on average, I'd say that was well worth it. 


Agreed.

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I RARELY do a full retube.  It isn't necessary.  I did change phase inverters  once a year when I was gigging hard.  Not sure if that really helped a lot or if I was Jedi Mind tricked into thinking it helped the power tube section sound better.  My amps are biased correctly by the man according to Boogie and Fender specs.   A lot of guitar nerds bias their amps too hot.    I replace power tubes in matched pairs.  I haven't had to buy tubes in a long time.  I'm retired so I doubt I ever do.

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30 minutes ago, CEB said:

I RARELY do a full retube.  It isn't necessary.  I did change phase inverters  once a year when I was gigging hard.  Not sure if that really helped a lot or if I was Jedi Mind tricked into thinking it helped the power tube section sound better.  My amps are biased correctly by the man according to Boogie and Fender specs.   A lot of guitar nerds bias their amps too hot.    I replace power tubes in matched pairs.  I haven't had to buy tubes in a long time.  I'm retired so I doubt I ever do.

I agree. The tubes that may need replaced are usually V1 (first preamp tube), the phase splitter, the output tubes and the rectifier tube (if the amp has one).

I think tube amp owners are better off owning a tube tester if possible and spares for the above. 

Mesa amps do not have any simple way to bias them, you can replace components if they fail with identical components but Randall Smith decided from the get-go that selling tubes that were matched to his amp circuits was the way to go and that's what Mesa has always done. So if somebody is charging you for biasing a Mesa amp, he's skimming. 

https://store.mesaboogie.com/blog/why-should-you-only-use-mesaboogie-tubes-in-mesa-amps/

FWIW, I owned 8 different Mesa amps and 9 amps total since I had 2 Mesa Subway Blues at one time or another. 

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3 hours ago, KuruPrionz said:

Mesa amps do not have any simple way to bias them, you can replace components if they fail with identical components but Randall Smith decided from the get-go that selling tubes that were matched to his amp circuits was the way to go and that's what Mesa has always done. So if somebody is charging you for biasing a Mesa amp, he's skimming. 

https://store.mesaboogie.com/blog/why-should-you-only-use-mesaboogie-tubes-in-mesa-amps/


Truth.

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According to Mike Bendanelli, Randy went to fixed bias amps because they were a small company and when they first started they were spending too much time handling service issues caused my customers screwing up the bias on the early amps. 
 

The only thing I’m low on is 6L6s. My 65 Twin has very few hours on it since the rebuild. It is too loud after the rebuild because it’s working right so I quit using it.   I have a Mace with 6 6L6CGs. I would need a 2nd mortgage to retube it.  Good thing I like to play steel through those lightweight Katana 100s.  When I play through amps I’ve taken a liking to smaller EL84 based amps and I have a small stockpile of Boogie tubes. 

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I know what forum this thread is in, but there are keyboard players who sometimes need tubes, too. Both my Hammond A-100 and Leslie have a bunch of them. I'm glad to see this guy & company is trying to do this, it's always good to have another source, whether or not different brands actually sound different or not. I'm sorry that I just missed they heyday of tubes, but I remember seeing tube testers in stores when I was a kid and wanting to play with them. It's good this industry isn't completely dead.

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3 hours ago, CEB said:

According to Mike Bendanelli, Randy went to fixed bias amps because they were a small company and when they first started they were spending too much time handling service issues caused my customers screwing up the bias on the early amps. 
 

The only thing I’m low on is 6L6s. My 65 Twin has very few hours on it since the rebuild. It is too loud after the rebuild because it’s working right so I quit using it.   I have a Mace with 6 6L6CGs. I would need a 2nd mortgage to retube it.  Good thing I like to play steel through those lightweight Katana 100s.  When I play through amps I’ve taken a liking to smaller EL84 based amps and I have a small stockpile of Boogie tubes. 

My first Boogie was a MkIII simul-class head with reverb and eq. I bought it new. One day, it died, no sound. The local shop I where it was purchased tried replacing tubes. Still silent. I was in Fresno and I called Mesa in Petaluma and drove up there with the amp. While Mike was back at his bench In the shop, the gentleman out front told me they could give me another brand new MKIII head if mine couldn't be fixed. I said I'd wait. It was fun to look at the gigantic PA head that Randall Smith built for Country Joe and The Fish and the smashed Schecter Tele that Pete Townshend gave them. There were other museum-worthy artifacts too, pretty cool. 

 

After having out in the showroom/museum for a good while, Mike Bennadelli invited me back to his bench in the shop. He'd been trying to figure out what was wrong and finally found a cold solder joint on one of the output tubes. He had already fixed it when he brought me back, he wanted to show me that the trace on the oscilloscope was solid and he also performed "the hammer test" that every Mesa amp got at that point. That was kind of terrifying the my amp passed with flying colors. 

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