Extremely Expensive Tubes

[brewboy73]

Hi,
I've been playing guitar for over 24 years, but dont consider myself an expert on tubes. I always keep Mesa tubes in all of my Mesas. In my 5150 though, I have been very happy with JJ/Teslas. A little cheaper than Mesas, but great tubes. Its been time for me to re-tube some amps and I have been looking into other tubes. I came across a website that specializes in tubes and I found some tubes that were extremely expensive. RCA Black Plate 6L6's. Some of these tubes were in excess of $200 a piece!

My question is this.....What makes a tube that expensive? Does it last longer? Does it create better sound? It seems that all of the tubes that I looked at that were really expensive had black plates. Dont know that that means either. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks

 

[knotts]

I don't consider myself an expert but I'll take a crack at the question and will differ to anyone who tells me I'm wrong.

My understanding is that tube technology was at it's peak prior to the invention of the transistor circuitry (e.g. the transistor radio). TV's, radios and guitar amplifiers all used tube technology because it was state of the art technology for the time. As the transistor revolutionized some of these products, by reducing power consumption and making them more reliable, it became more cost efficient to produce and often the preferred technology. It worked great for everything except maybe mono guitar amplifiers.

Since the technology was at is peak many years ago, so were the manufacturing techniques and facilities. There was an attention to quality back then because if you made a quality tube, the device you plugged it into was by default more reliable. The big names at the time like GE, RCA were awarded government contracts to produce military grade quality tubes to go in all of the high tech radio equipment of the times. The quality was second to none These tubes were often times plugged into the tube amps of everyone's favorite guitar legends and some speculate that they are in part responsible for the magic of their tone. (there were other Russian manufacturers of tubes with the same reputation)

As years have past, the tubes manufactured during these times have dwindled and anything branded NOS has soared in value based on the manufactures reputation. The end result is low supply and high demand which equals high prices. Even in our current times of technological advancement, new tubes are mass produced and lack the quality of yesteryear. Many are designed off of these legendary tubes, however the materials, the technique and the attention to quality are all but gone. Everyone wants the old tubes just like everyone wants a vintage Les Paul, SG or Stratocaster.

I think these tubes are much like dumble amps. Maybe they are magical. Maybe it's all just hype. Everyone is entitled to their opinions, but I'm willing to bet the people who are crazy enough to shell out $1,000 to retube their amp will tell you it's worth every penny because otherwise they would have to come to terms that they just wasted about $800.

Like I said, I'm not expert but I've read up on tubes and made some inferences and interjected some opinion. Sound for thought at the very least.

 

[stephen sawall]

Supply & demand .... I have many expensive tubes in my collection. I started collecting tubes 42 years ago. The ones worth $ I got when they were cheap. :idea:

 

[elvis]

To add a little to Knotts's post:

Volume. Once upon a time there were many millions of tubes sold. There was enough economy of scale to make quality tubes at a price that would allow some profit.

Currently tubes are a niche market, so they are expensive to make, but not worth much money to the people buying them. To keep the factories open, they are made as cheaply as possible.

Tubes that are not in use last almost forever. So NOS tubes are worth considerable money, as they are almost certainly much higher quality than new tubes.

HOWEVER. If you put a lot of hours on your amp, you will go through many tubes. It will not be economical to keep retubing with NOS, and it will not help much, as the tubes will wear quickly and lose their magic anyway. The best market for NOS are occasional players. They may get a set of tubes to last decades in an amp. For that, $2k to retube is probably reasonable.

 

[MrMarkIII]

Yes, they were made better back then (no EPA regs), materials were better, QC was better, so NOS that are taken care of will sound better longer. The main reason you need to replace tubes more often today is simple: today's tubes are crap, for reasons stated above. I have the original tubes in my well-used but well-taken-care-of 1989 Mark III that sound just fine, thank you. Warm 'em up, use your stand-by switch, and don't drop the amp, and your tubes will last. The big problem is most guys forget to treat a tube amp like a box of glass bottles.

 

[brewboy73]

No doubt. I had a Mark III that I never re-tubed. Sounded amazing. Had it for years and bought it used. My Mark IV screamed like a banshee until I swapped out the first 12ax7 for a 12at7. I'm an occasional player now maybe down the line, I will try out some higher end NOS tubes. Boogies and JJs sound fine for right now. Thanks for the info.