Back in June it was decided that Tubelab Inc would cease operations at the end of 2023. My wife Sherri who is half of Tubelab the corporation is still strongly in favor of the dissolution of Tubelab Inc. The long term operational fate of Tubelab Inc. is still undecided, however for the time being board sales have resumed. In order to meet the requirements of being a Florida Corporation, I now have to rent a Florida business address where a person is present during "normal business hours." A friend whose address I had been using closed down his operations at the end of 2023 leaving Tubelab Inc "homeless" so I found a suitable reasonable cost solution for 2024. The Florida Corporate status has been renewed. We will see how it works out.
I have received several inquiries about board sales in the past two weeks. I still have reordered a small supply of each board except for the UNSET Beta Board which doesn't draw much interest. There is now an UNSET Power Head board which is just the power amp portion of the UNSET Beta board, no driver, screen regulator, or power supply. Drive one with a Universal Driver Board and feed it with a suitable power supply for a killer push pull amp. I drove a parallel pair of UPH boards filled with 26HU5's to 525 watts without any fireworks. A suitable thread will appear when I have time to make it.
The current inventory list is included. I will try to update it weekly if needed, but board sales are really slow now:
BOARD NAME STOCK QTY
SSE 19
TSE-II 18
SPP 18
UD 12
UPH 27
UNSET Beta 0
George
I have received several inquiries about board sales in the past two weeks. I still have reordered a small supply of each board except for the UNSET Beta Board which doesn't draw much interest. There is now an UNSET Power Head board which is just the power amp portion of the UNSET Beta board, no driver, screen regulator, or power supply. Drive one with a Universal Driver Board and feed it with a suitable power supply for a killer push pull amp. I drove a parallel pair of UPH boards filled with 26HU5's to 525 watts without any fireworks. A suitable thread will appear when I have time to make it.
The current inventory list is included. I will try to update it weekly if needed, but board sales are really slow now:
BOARD NAME STOCK QTY
SSE 19
TSE-II 18
SPP 18
UD 12
UPH 27
UNSET Beta 0
George
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George, you were an inspiration to me when I first started my business. Thank you for that. I've always appreciated your down-to-earth approach. I've referred quite a few people to you after I chose to shut down the tube side of my business. I'm sorry to see you close up shop, but life happens. I wish you the best of luck in life going forward. I hope you'll still share your stories here. You're an amazing story teller and I always enjoy reading your stories.
Sadly the market for DIY tube amp boards is tiny and dwindling fast. In my last few years of selling tube circuits I sold, maybe, 10-12 boards per year. Each build required individualized support to deal with output transformers, power transformers, sockets, etc. I enjoy providing support, but it would be impossible for me to scale that up to, say, 200 boards/year and still find time for product development and everything else that's involved in running a business. From your stories here it sounds like the past 5-10 years have been rough for you so I would imagine it would have been even harder in your case.
For the archival question, my suggestion is to go with a low-cost web host. Siteground offers pretty amazing Wordpress hosting for $3/month. This even includes a basic Cloudflare CDN service so the site will load reliably. The domain registration is probably $20/year, so you're looking at less than $100/year ($8/month). If you add a PayPal donation button at the top of every page that has a schematic along with a short blurb about why you're soliciting donations, I bet you'll collect that pretty easily maybe even with some beer money left over. I'm happy to help you set that up but I won't be able to be the site admin.
On the other hand I also understand if you're done-done and want a completely hands-off approach. In that case the web pages could be printed to a .pdf and uploaded to Github with schematics, Gerber files, build guides, and whatnot. Github is free. I'm happy to set that up for you as well. Or maybe you can talk @Jason into keeping the content live in a sticky thread in this forum. Like I said to start, your work was an inspiration to me and I would like to see that legacy continue.
Best of luck.
Tom
Sadly the market for DIY tube amp boards is tiny and dwindling fast. In my last few years of selling tube circuits I sold, maybe, 10-12 boards per year. Each build required individualized support to deal with output transformers, power transformers, sockets, etc. I enjoy providing support, but it would be impossible for me to scale that up to, say, 200 boards/year and still find time for product development and everything else that's involved in running a business. From your stories here it sounds like the past 5-10 years have been rough for you so I would imagine it would have been even harder in your case.
For the archival question, my suggestion is to go with a low-cost web host. Siteground offers pretty amazing Wordpress hosting for $3/month. This even includes a basic Cloudflare CDN service so the site will load reliably. The domain registration is probably $20/year, so you're looking at less than $100/year ($8/month). If you add a PayPal donation button at the top of every page that has a schematic along with a short blurb about why you're soliciting donations, I bet you'll collect that pretty easily maybe even with some beer money left over. I'm happy to help you set that up but I won't be able to be the site admin.
On the other hand I also understand if you're done-done and want a completely hands-off approach. In that case the web pages could be printed to a .pdf and uploaded to Github with schematics, Gerber files, build guides, and whatnot. Github is free. I'm happy to set that up for you as well. Or maybe you can talk @Jason into keeping the content live in a sticky thread in this forum. Like I said to start, your work was an inspiration to me and I would like to see that legacy continue.
Best of luck.
Tom
I am sorry when I read that you are disappearing from the DIY world. You have constructed the best el 84 pp I have listened to. Have made five copies of various other constructions, but your el 84 pp has soul! , and are the one with the best sound. Hope you show up in the DIY audio forum and don't get lost for us!
Well George, I turned 73 in March.
I announced my retirement this week. Same as you, my design consultancy client has been shrinking steadily.
You have been a HUGE inspiration to me over the years, both for your creative technical abilities and your amazing attitude and sense of humor.
I have one suggestion now: ENJOY THIS NEW PHASE OF YOUR LIFE, AND PLAY YOUR GUITAR A LOT!
I announced my retirement this week. Same as you, my design consultancy client has been shrinking steadily.
You have been a HUGE inspiration to me over the years, both for your creative technical abilities and your amazing attitude and sense of humor.
I have one suggestion now: ENJOY THIS NEW PHASE OF YOUR LIFE, AND PLAY YOUR GUITAR A LOT!
You're going to uhhh, continue SOA confirmation testing though, right?
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Just to wish you a happy retirement and closure.
May we all hope that you'll keep an eye out for DIY Valve posts and threads, your input will be most valuable and appreciated by many.
As for your 'design files for the current boards and several other useful boards that never turned into Tubelab products'.
If you do decide to release them into public domain or one of the board sharing sites, i'm sure it would enlighten interests from many, especially if you might consider releasing the whereabouts if and when done?
Best wishes.
May we all hope that you'll keep an eye out for DIY Valve posts and threads, your input will be most valuable and appreciated by many.
As for your 'design files for the current boards and several other useful boards that never turned into Tubelab products'.
If you do decide to release them into public domain or one of the board sharing sites, i'm sure it would enlighten interests from many, especially if you might consider releasing the whereabouts if and when done?
Best wishes.
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George,
I am sorry to hear this, but I totally understand.
Take me for instance, I buy one of your boards, and due to my ignorance, I end up asking for hours of free support.
The kit business is not viable in today’s world, where liability lawsuits and ignorant customers exist side-by-side.
I would still encourage you to relaunch something based on the Decware model.
These guys print money right now, with a 9-month waiting list for products selling for more than $2K a piece.
George, sad to see you have to pull the plug on tubelab but I understand if it's losing money. Inflation is out of hand. People are struggling to make ends meet. Tubes and transformers have doubled or tripled in price. I plan on buying a couple of more boards from you for future projects when things hopefully get better. I would like to thank you for the education and the entertainment. 99 percent of what I know about tubes is from reading your website and following your threads on here. And of course building one of your amps! Good luck wherever the future may take you!
Matt
Matt
