No more Groove Tubes

[Enzo]

Kinda like, here's a Ferrari, kid, now you are a race driver.

[Diablo]

The GT 6L6GE tubes were some of the most unreliable I've ever used. The acquisition of GE's old machinery was only one part of the formula. Tube making is part science, part black art, part artisan. You need to have all of those factors in place and aligned to make it happen.

Yeah, but I bet they were nicely matched, with fancy labels and pretty boxes....

All of this lost technical skill and manufacturing capability for tubes in the US makes me sad.

[jbltwin1]

Groove tubes

Yeah, and they probably looked real nice when they cherried up and went up in smoke. They are probably the WORST tubes to depend on that I EVER installed. I think they relabled all the Radio Shack leftovers!

[bnwitt]

It is my understanding that though GT did in fact buy the old GE machines for making 6L6 power tubes, that they never went into production in the U.S. due to restrictive California EPA laws associated with the nasty stuff generated by the tube making process. The story I heard was that the 6L6 tubes were subsequently manufactured in China.

[drewl]

To their credit they were providing tube services and information when there wasn't alot of it out there.
With the internet and message boards people like me can access information and help from people with many years experience with tube equipment.
They sure didn't teach it in school! Just some theory of how they worked and that was it.
The GT tube amp book was a handy guide with some helpful information when there was little to be found.
Of course now you can find out any minute detail at the click of a finger.

[pila]

I had a couple of catastrophic failures of Groove tubes, 6V6s, which came apart internally with big-time shorts. I do have some 6L6s which are still working though. I haven't bought any more from them for a long while. Fender is not the outfit it used to be, so Groove tubes will fit right in.