i am new here...

[nanana]

hello,
my name is jc and have just subcribed to your BB. i have been building and working in the audio business for some time. my area of expertise is concerning vacuum tubes and their applications. i am currently the senior engineer at new sensor corp. which is now the world's largest manufacturer of commercial vacuum tubes. i can probably answer a few questions about how they work and how they're made. but, i hope to enjoy myself here and have nothing to say about my company or any business matters at all (please don't ask, so i don't have to be impolite). i am interested in what folks are making and doing with tubes...
thanks for having me!
jc

[peranders]

Very welcome! I'll hope you will enjoy this forum.

[SY]

Delighted to see you participate. There are a lot of tube enthusiasts (I'm one) doing all sorts of interesting things here. You won't be bored.

And I promise not to ask about business things, but don't hesitate to respond to questions on the tech end of things if you feel comfortable doing so. We've got a lot of industry participants who by and large do an excellent job of not mixing business with pleasure.

[Cal Weldon]

OK, no talk about work, but can you get us a deal on tubes?

Cal

[nanana]

like i said... no business. i am very fortunately completely uninvolved with sales and cannot make any arrangements. i do engineering, analysis and design stuff there... if you want to get a group of people together to do a group wholesale purchase, i'll be happy to hook you up with the appropriate salesperson to discuss it. but i can't get you any tubes. on the other hand, if you keep blowing up your pricy 6550s or 2A3s in your homebrew amp and think its the tubes, i'll be happy to try and help you figure out what you're doing wrong...
jc

[Cal Weldon]

Hi nanana,

If you'll note the winking emoticon, I was teasing you.
I don't even own any tube equipment.
Glad to have you aboard

Cal

[nanana]

hey man,
sorry for the lack of humor... i get the squeeze for stuff all the time and my reaction is like a reflex at this point. and i am not so with it when it comes to smilies and abbreviated email-speak. it took me a few years to figure out LOL and FWIW, and AFAIK... on the other hand, you have no tube gear at all! well, that is something that might need to be looked at my dear...
your,
jc

[planet10]

Welcome jc. Good to see more Joe's

Originally posted by Cal Weldon
I don't even own any tube equipment.

Cal... don't you mean yet?

Maybe a nice little SE amp to drive those alnico 4"

dave

[richwalters]

Originally posted by nanana
i am currently the senior engineer at new sensor corp. which is now the world's largest manufacturer of commercial vacuum tubes.]

Hang on......the largest uummmmm ?
can you elaborate the range of commercial vacuum tubes you claim ? Note... some of us' been using vacuum tubes for a very long time and we naturally get very inquisitive and mighty curious to such new info coming through.....as we love our tubes so much. I thought the Chinese now were the largest manu's.

rich

[nanana]

hey rich,
new sensor corp., which is owned by mike matthews, owns five businesses. sovtek (a brand), svetlana (a brand), electroharmonix (a brand), expopul, (a russian import/export), and a majority share in a tube factory in central Russia called Reflektor (it used to make mirror glass). there was once 6 big tube factories in the former USSR but now there is barely 3. the reflektor factory specialized in smaller military and industrial tubes. SED in st. petersburg (used to make cigarettes), specialized in big tubes and military RF/radar stuff. And Kaluga, which made commercial tubes. all of these factories make a fraction of what they once did but reflektor produces much much more than the other two. new sensor corp. has 42 different tubes in current production (it pays for all tooling and materials costs as well as labor). it also buys surplus on the open market. the total number of tubes produced last year was in the 600,000 range. new sensor probably has about 60-65% of the world tube market at this point, although the chinese are trying to make a comeback and probably will eat some of that up if they can produce a cheap reliable 12AX7 and 6L6GC again, they could give russia a beating. the standard of living in russia is climbing and the cost of making tubes will go only up there.

shuguang almost went out of the tube business about 7 years ago and much of the tooling actually wound up sitting outdoors. they had about 30% at one point, new sensor had about 30% and eveyone else made up the rest. mismanagement and the asian banking crisis almost killed them. the only other big factory that had been a player, SED, is in trouble now and i will be impressed if they survive the next few years. this is unfortunate for the whole business as the competition between all these factories improved the quality over the last 10 years. the yugoslavian war/crisis killed EI, the asian collapse really hurt shuguang's tube business (they make many other things), and the breakup of the USSR really changed everything that made it an industrial power.

please remember that the primary business for commercial tubes today is not the hifi business. its the musical instrument business. i don't know the exact numbers, but i would be surprised if the total world hifi consumption of tubes is 10% of the business. i think its more like 6%. if you don't make a cheap quiet high gain 12AX7 (neither distortion specs or life span matter), you aren't really in the tube business. you are a boutique operator. 6L6's and EL-34's are next, and then 6550's. those tubes make up almost the entire tube industry at this point. this may be sad but it is also true.

anyway, that new sensor is biggest, is not an exaggeration at all... and it is primarily only because it is the only large player left on the field. it may be that as the cost of doing business increases in russia, the primary tubes will be priced out of existence there? leaving china probably the last large scale home of tube manufacture until tubes fade away altogether. EI is in big trouble but staggering along. JJ is doing OK. they do not produce anything near the quantity or the range of different tube types as reflektor. new sensor does make tubes for specialty markets... there is a EF806 and a 6386 in development for the pro audio world (mics and compressors). it already makes 2A3s and 300Bs, good ones i might add, for the hifi market. the complete 12A_7 range. the 7591 and KT-90 were made to cover ampeg amp owners (of which there are more than dynaco owners) and manley. not really for hifi, although they are sold to both markets. and there are 6922, 6SN7 and 6CG7 and soon even a 6AQ8. there are also the cool russian tubes like 6C45P and 6H30, both reflektor tubes, not SED. (the 6N1P was made at SED...). rectifiers 5U4, 5AR4, 6CA4, 5Y3, 5Y4, all in CURRENT production. there isn't any other company in a position to do this. there may be one day again? but not at the moment.
jc