Quote:Posted by: Gilf Posted on: Today at 17:20:04
...I do have a soft spot for old tubes...
I do too. Although it is at as much a case of actively disliking current production, and even a lot of "late cycle" NOS like Philips ECG. My (limited) experience with modern tubes is so bad, both in terms of sonics and reliability, that I just won't buy them. Except for 300B tubes, I bought both Chinese and Japanese, because NOS isn't realistic.
Quote:...It seems the latest popularity of tubes has driven up prices where quality NOS rivals the cost of the Cryotones, which are easier to acquire...
It seems like a lot of NOS, at least "heritage" NOS is considerably more expensive than Cryotone. I'm pretty lucky in that I've been into tubes for a long time and am it bit of a
hoarder collector. So I had a lot of tubes going into the pandemic and was lucky to find and stock up on some relatively undiscovered types when prices of e.g. 6SN7s, E88CCs and GZ34s were going through the roof. So I have enough tubes for this life and most of the next, but I feel for people who are just now getting into tube audio.