SED Winged C Prices Way Up

[rf7]

What happened? I just noticed that the prices for the SED tubes just went through the roof.

[Pedro Vecino]

A distributor told me a week ago: exists a high demand and the same production capacity.
44,60€/unit across TAD. It's crazy

[rf7]

Yeah, it's crazy. I hope the rest of the manufacturers don't follow suit and raise their pricing as well.

[jrfrond]

Damned Russions. Probably need the money to build another nuclear submarine that will sink a month after it's launched.

Totally uncalled for dude.

[Zer09]

It's funny because I was just thinking they might be coming back down a bit just based on what I've seen on ebay. I've seen 2 different sellers with prices on new quads of 6l6's for under $100 in the past couple weeks I just picked up a pair of their El34's for $35, although that was just a guy selling a lot of NOS tubes that he has (also got a pair of Siemens EL34's for $50 from the same guy). I've never actually tried their 6l6's because I have a ton of NOS. I owned a pair that I bought years ago for $25 but never used them and sold them for $50 last year.

[streamz1]

Best pre-amp tubes new production I've found so far are Tad. JJ are good but tad mullard re-issue was much better. I use Russian NOS el84"s 6P14P-EV with great sound and reliability. Just have to find pair that match and your good. Check out this place. Groove Tubes - Tube Amp Doctor

[jmaf]

I don't think TAD is making any tubes. They're selected from chinese and others. Not sure, though, because Groove Tubes did make some tubes in the USA, EL34 last time I heard.

[streamz1]

Designed in Germany and produced in China to TAD's high standards. Lots of good reviews on TAD tubes. When I took JJ ECC83-S gold pin out of V2 and put in TAD 7025 s mullard style. Whoa, what a difference. sonic overtones followed notes nicely. I use a EH 12AY in V1 to work the 6P14P-EV's a little harder. By the way, I ordered 2 EH 12AY's and one was good and one bad. That's the problem with new production tubes, hit or miss. I also just got Tad highgrade 7025 for V1 but have not put it in yet. Sounds so good right now. Found very low noise Chinese bugera 12ax7b in drawer and tested triodes matched, using in PI. No more hit or miss with new tubes for me. Hopefully.

[km6xz]

Svetlana, the real one, is hardly making receiving tubes now and focusing on their other 21 divisions. The high power tubes are still in active production however.
A couple months ago I contacted them about distributing their tubes in Eastern Europe since there is almost no tubes available here in the same city where they are made. The run around I got, and the clueless answers for weeks, such as they could not give me a price because they had no price list, a new one would be made in a few weeks. Repeated calls across town finally got an answer....the pricing had changed so all tubes, quantity one or 1,000 were the same price, but it did not matter because they had no EL34(which I was primarily after), and only a couple 6L6 style tubes. Their sales manager seemed to known nothing about either the products or the market. The new prices, as of January, were much higher than before and they were not even interested in wholesale lots, and they would not ship them. They would give them to me if I came to pick them up from the factory.
They still make the best tubes and about the only real vacuum tube design center still in existence, but apparently a management shift has redirected their resources to other products.
I found a hi-fi store in Moscow which said they had the EL34's in stock or would be getting them in a day or two at a reasonable price. I asked several questions to make sure they were selling real Svetlana's not New Sensor fakes and they assured me they were the real deal. I received them after a 2 week wait and sure enough they are the New Sensor junk.
All that is too bad, Svetlana has the production capacity and technology but it seems to be not currently directed towards hi-fi and guitar amps. They are not even interested in distribution. They would rather sell a few dozen 4CX20,000's a week than thousands of EL34's. For a very long time they were the world's largest light bulb producer and vacuum tube manufacturer, dating back to the later half of the 19th century.

[jmaf]

Well it seems to me like it'd be a great investment if you bought their EL34's there straight from the St. Petersburg factory and sold them to the west via EBay....