Western Electric Gauging Interest Expanding Tube Product Line

[facten]

I sent an email to WE a few days ago to inquire where they stand with bringing other tube types to market but haven't heard back as yet. Wondering in the interim if anyone may have any insights on the status?

 

[sparkie]

Survey filled out with requested tubes... now hopefully we have expanded manufacturing!

One tube that they need to make is a 6386 tube. Because there is only one current manufacturer and its not as good as some of the Nos tubes and people hiked the price up on them since its one of the few specialized tubes used for pro audio processing. That some in the pro audio world use DSP plugin equivalents and ditched the equipment because the $10 tube is now $300.

 

[Ampexed]

One tube that they need to make is a 6386 tube. Because there is only one current manufacturer and its not as good as some of the Nos tubes and people hiked the price up on them since its one of the few specialized tubes used for pro audio processing. That some in the pro audio world use DSP plugin equivalents and ditched the equipment because the $10 tube is now $300.

Funny you mention that tube since I have a whole bunch of them NOS. I use them for my audio limiters/compressors. I had no idea they were so expensive now.

 

[sparkie]

Funny you mention that tube since I have a whole bunch of them NOS. I use them for my audio limiters/compressors. I had no idea they were so expensive now.

I really don't understand it other than some know it only tube that works in a couple of expensive tube dinosaurs in more famous mastering labs that do nothing now these days because they replace using them with DSP hardware. They only did a few decent ratios well so they would have to do several passes and it always caused some signal degradation. Now they just set up a chain of them inside a DAW program with some UAD dsp plugins. The one thing I always found interesting is the things people want to get out of tube gear in pro audio is different than what people wanted in reproduction.

There is only a few who uses that tube and there are other tubes that can do the function but you would have to alter so much of the circuit to make them work so it ends up being more cost effective to just make a new unit with cheap $5 TV tuner tubes and have a better compressor because you used a better AGC tube that was widely used.

 

[Rensselaer]

The 275A they used to make sounded quite good as well.

 

[facten]

I didn't get a response to my July 25 email to them about where they stand with producing tubes aside from the 300B. I just sent a follow-up, maybe asking a 2nd time will be a charm

 

[Audiohertz2]

Maybe they switching over to Class D like
Atmasphere , after all Ralph did say his classD sounded as good as toobs ...

 

[facten]

Below is their (info@western electric.com) response to my email to them this morning.

"We are currently working to expand tube production. To receive the latest updates, direct from the manufacturer, we encourage you visit westernelectric.com/expand and submit your thoughts and email address."

Given the above I'll take it that they are still at ground zero deciding on which tubes beyond the 300B they may produce and scaling up accordingly.