more tube industry news

[Firedome]

Current scuttlebutt from the industry:
>Westrex is taking the future prospects of Russian factory closure seriously enough that they may well expand their US production, please vote on their website for the tubes you'd like to see them produce!
>There's speculation ShuGuang may restart production to take up the slack as well, and PSVane (a much smaller spinoff) may expand also beyond super premium tubes.
>JJ (which are the initials of the guy who bought Teslovak after the Bosnian war) in Slovakia was overextended even before the current situation and is hard pressed to catch up with existing orders, who knows if they'll expand.
>EIMAC, who still makes specialized high power tubes for the Military and Industry in the US, could potentially re-enter the consumer business they abandoned in the '90s.
>Japanese legacy makers like Matsushita, Toshiba, Hitachi, who made some good and underrated tubes, may have some tooling still, given their QC that'd be a welcome addition.

As for New Sensor and Mile Matthews, who knows, I'd be willing to bet that the Saratov factory will either be confiscated, closed for good, or if ever able to export again, product prices will skyrocket.

SO all may or may not be lost, depending on what actually pans out, but one thing is fore sure, it' won't be back to normal, and it'll take time, luck, and some brave entrepreneurs to come through.

For those who need a supply or spares of 6BQ5s so commonly used in console, the Russian 6p14p is still available from US, Romanian, Bulgarian sources on eBay. I ordered a few to bolster my current reserve of US NOS &c.. just in case. They sure won't be likely to go down in value. I've had excellent luck with them in the past, but those came from Russian and Ukranian seller, no longer an option.

[back-2-mono]

Thanks for the up-date.
I voted!

[Firedome]

Thanks for that... the more the merrier!

[Motorola minion]

Ill vote and pass along to my musician friends

[Firedome]

Great thanks Dave!
I'd love to be able to buy new WE 6BQ5s if prices are sane!

[Hi-Fi-Mogul]

I voted and added tubes, including rectifiers.

I hope Western Electric can do the expansion.
We can always tell Wall Street, this company is working to
improve the "grid".

[Firedome]

I added 5AR4 (GZ34) and 7189 as well.