Northern Electric Tubes

[guitician]

Nobody will tool up for a custom tube unless they expect to sell, say, 200000 units in the first 3 or 4 years.
Raw economics.

Why then didn't they tool up right from the start? I guess nobody told them what to shoot for?? Let's just see if we can make a working 12ax7 first, and go from there....
All wasted money....for crap that nobody wants.....

[J M Fahey]

Why then didn't they tool up right from the start? I guess nobody told them what to shoot for?? Let's just see if we can make a working 12ax7 first, and go from there....
All wasted money....for crap that nobody wants.....

Sorry but don't get who do you refer to as "they", what "tool up right" means , and which the "crap" tube which "nobody wants" would be.
Thanks.

[km6xz]

No one tools up for tubes nowadays. They order tubes with custom adaptations, such as gold plated pins, from the 3-4 companies making receiving tubes. The tweaky hi-fi tubes made for those who are dying to spend buckets of money for bragging rights, get some of the same tubes that guitar amp companies buy in bulk but with new silkscreened logos on them. Hi-end hi-fi is not about tooling up or research but entirely about marketing. Guitar amp tweakers are getting somewhat the same infection of insanity.
200,000 initial production goals would be pretty ambitious since the whole world market for tubes is only a few million a year.
I even "created" my own brand to sell here, and did not have to re-brand them myself, orders of 2000, branding was free from the largest Chinese maker. As it turns out, I am not really that interested in establishing a distribution network now, and just sell them direct via the internet in Russia until they are all gone. I set up to test each tube with printouts of its characteristic curves taken from a curve tracer. I assumed some people would be interested but even the builders only want promises of some magic tone properties and not worry about technical aspects of what the tubes really are.
The comment about the "Canadian" company starting with 12AU7 and 12AX7 really is not due to a need for or an actual reproduction of 12AU7s, they get branded as 12AU7 when their 12AX7's gain is so low they can't sell them as 12AX7s
The marketing ploy of calling their tubes the Ferrari of tubes is pretty sickening and enough to make me want to suggest never to buy their over-priced tubes.
Northern Electric was a wholly owned subsidiary of Western Electric, never did produce 12AX7s but they made a some specialized tubes for teleco and RF applications and some power tubes used in power supplies and installed sound systems in theaters and stadiums. One tube they were known for was the 417a, a very low noise triode used as am instrumentation and RF preamplifier mostly. All real WE tubes had their own tube nomenclature. I used their 417a as the second preamp in a UHF receiver I used in moon bounce tests when I was 16-17 in contact with Cornell University's(at that time) 1000 foot spherical dish in Puerto Rico Arecibo observatory. The first stage was another rarer Western Electric tube, a forced air cooled 416B, a metal tube the size of a fat acorn. The noise figure for 432Mhz at the time was spectacular considering it was entirely home made and by a kid in high school. That station was the 8th ever to bounce radio signals off the moon for two way communications. I got the tubes from a neighbors father who worked at the phone company where the long haul gear was made by Western Electric. They were pull outs, replaced automatically at 5,000 hours of operation. So, my own memory and remote connection with Northern Electric and Western Electric makes me rather skeptical about the claims of this sales company treading on the good name of those two companies. Western Electric, by the way did supply 12AX7s but they were made by Ericsson in Sweden.

[Chuck H]

Well, Radio Shack sold RCA 12ax7's for $2.55 ea in 1960.......These old catalog archives are great to look up old equipment retail prices....
1960 Radio Shack Catalog Low-res page 171 of 318
And from an online inflation calculator...."What cost $2.55 in 1960 would cost $18.56 in 2010. " The calc wouldn't go to 2012.
So tubes are priced about that I guess....

Are any of the New Sensor or Shuguang 12ax7's on par with the RCA 12ax7's of 1960?!? If so then the price seems reasonable. If not then were being given cheese food product and bologna for the same money that use to buy cheddar and steak.

[guitician]

Why then didn't they tool up right from the start? I guess nobody told them what to shoot for?? Let's just see if we can make a working 12ax7 first, and go from there....
All wasted money....for crap that nobody wants.....

Don't mind my rant JM...I wasn't commenting what you were saying, more like adding to it. "they" Being tube Mfg's. "tool up right" being made right the first time, and the "crap" being the stuff that is weeded out of wholesale lots of purchased 12ax7's.

[J M Fahey]

Dear guitician, sorry.
I understood from your post that there was a "new" Tube Factory, selling them like hotcakes, which everybody but me was aware of .
Now if we are talking of rebranding only ... no news

[km6xz]

I wish I had more tubes to test of the same type but from what I have been able to test, the Shuguang tubes that work are more consistent in the center of a bell curve but some do not work at all. I am pretty sure they worked when they left the factory, Chinese production is big on testing and salvaging what can be before it goes out. The New Sensor tubes, again, which I have tested have a broader based bell curve but fewer dead tubes out of the box. That might be due to being 4,000 miles closer by shipping from those two production areas. The best tubes for microphonics have been Shuguang and at a cost of about $5 after import duties and shipping, that is a pretty good deal. I know that Tom, Magic Parts, Ruby Tubes set up his own factory in China and has gotten some good 12AX7s, 6V6 and GZ34 but most of his branded 12AX7 tubes are from another Chinese producer. I always had good luck with his tubes primarily because they were tested post arrival in the US better than the bigger names. Groove Tube was really poor consistency, from my experience before moving to Russia.
When they are available, the Wing C, Svetlana tubes are well build but pricy and they are not actively competing in the small glass tube market. They run a series of their very good 6550's or KT88s only occasionally. Their business is elsewhere, semiconductors, high power vacuum tubes, etc with 17 divisions. I can ride my bicycle to the factory complex, which used to be the biggest producer of tubes and light bulbs in the world, and beg for a couple tubes but no one seems to care if they sell a few or not. It is a very Soviet style company(not a political statement, a philosophical statement). IF they got some new blood in there, it could take over the market. They have the technology, history, engineers, and vast unused facilities just rotting from disuse. The Chinese have an advantage in that they want to deal, sales in in their blood and they want your business. They have engineers also, and capital but only a history of quality in their largest power tubes for industrial and RF use. Many of their big RF designs are shared technology designs from the Soviet era before the split in spheres of influence during the late Mao era. If you are a buyer, they want to be your supplier even if they have to build a plant to do it, in any field. It is very different dealing with them, but they are still unit oriented rather than system oriented.

Edit, My GF was reading over my shoulder and said my comments sounded racist as if grouping all Chinese as sellers. I was writing about specific companies and the nature of business culture, not the people as human traits. I think most people reading this from a technical tube perspective understood what I meant.

[J M Fahey]

Your defining Svetlana as "Soviet" and Chinese companies as "sellers ... to the point of building a new factory to supply you" are accurate , useful descriptions.
They are used within a context.
Being obsessed with political correctness (whatever that means) 100% of the time, can result in very confusing and useless statements.
Say "Hi" to your GF, tell her I congratulate her on her *excellent* tact and education, but sometimes certain words need to be used, in the interest of clarity.

[guitician]

Are any of the New Sensor or Shuguang 12ax7's on par with the RCA 12ax7's of 1960?!? If so then the price seems reasonable. If not then were being given cheese food product and bologna for the same money that use to buy cheddar and steak.

Maybe....if RCA were to sell everything that failed inspection regardless....
I remember in 1984 buying bulk Hungarian Tungsram 12ax7's for $1 ea. Now I find out that they are "The Best" and going for $40+ per tube. Out of the 20 or so I bought they are all still working fine...although the audio equipment only gets around 40hrs use a year...maybe.

You would think that with all the new technologies we have today, like robotics, lasers, mass spectroscopy etc., that they would make stuff better today then in the '50's.
I guess it's just easier to sell the easiest thing to make and reap what ever profits you can....

[km6xz]

Sure, you can make highly repeatable mechanical devices but when the whole market tiny, who is going to invest $5,000,000 for one robot line? Electronics using high speed high accuracy robots are cheap because using these modern assembly techniques have a whole industry infrastructure system in place to support it and drive prices per device down. The robot pc production volume of a line to be cost effect is very high, more than any single product in most cases so the beauty of robots is a line can produce computer boards one shift and TV pc boards on the next shift, and some other high volume product that shares a lot of similarities to each other. Purely mechanical assemblies like a tube do not have the volume or related products to make a robot line pay for itself.

[Chuck H]

Yupper. If I'm not mistaken, most tubes are made with old machines from the hey day of tubes that have beed bought cheap or salvaged. Robotics cost A LOT. Even panty hose gets robots. Tubes have too tiny a market.

But on the subject of cost vs. quality... I haven't had a complaint about how the Chinese preamp tubes sound in any of my amps. And I do think that overall they probably sound better and more consistent than those from other places. I'd even say on par with many good NOS tubes. But they don't seem to last as long as NOS tubes. I don't know why. The cathode coating or other materials specific wear issues? Since we pay about as much for a new tube now as we did back when RCA 12ax7's cost $2.50, and the new tubes don't last as long, perform as consistently out of the box or provide the same numbers of high grade (or even warranty worthy) tubes per batch, I'd say we're being hosed. EXCEPT!!! it comes down to market again. There is certainly far less demand for tubes now than there was when it was the only amplifier technology known. So that smaller demand also influences the price. So if tubes now last even half as long as tubes then, we're paying double for the same product. That seems reasonable all things considered.

[J M Fahey]

Dear Chuck, I *guess* (may be wrong) that we pay *here* $15/20 per Chinese/Russian run of the mill tube .... but they cost around $ 2 each, in bulk, at the Chinese factory door.
Nobody (well, Fender/Marshall/GT probably do) buys straight there by the container, and they pass through *many* hands in the middle.
So we are actually comparing a $20 (corrected price) RCA or any other old USA glory to an actually $2 (or, say, $4/6 retail) tube.
They just can't be the same.
jm2c

[Chuck H]

Well, if Radio Shack sold the RCA for $2.55 then that IS the adjusted price for the RCA. I'm pretty sure Radio Shack made a tidy profit on the sale. And I'm not Mesa or Fender so I'm not going to get new tubes for $2.00. I'm going to pay $18.00. I figure it for apples to apples.

[km6xz]

All valid points, but note that most amp companies buy from rebranders, they do not go directly to the factory that produced them. Being an importer just complicates things, requiring a testing facility, etc when the re-branders compete on price and a warranty. The main thing a rebrander is in business as is an importer. Their business model does not matter what industry, their skills are logistics and dealing with the complex aspects of being a legal importer/distributor, not the technical field of electronics.
Peavey for example buys their OEM tubes from Ruby, Fender gets them from more than one but includes Ruby and New Sensor.
Regarding Chinese tubes, there are several factories and hundreds or thousands of brokers who market as if they are the factory so it is hard to class all in the same way. But yes, I have had no problem with sound quality or character with the tubes either. I find that newer tubes develop microphonics sooner in combos than say, Wing-C but people change out their tubes way too prematurely as a rule. When hobbyists think they have a problem with an amp, they stick in a new set of tubes including preamps thinking they wear out. A 9 pin tube, operated within its designed operating limiting should last 20 years or longer, unless in a combo where vibration will cause V1 to fall apart sooner. Until I moved here and gave away a warehouse full of test gear, I still had an old Tektronix 512 scope that was built in 1949 that still worked and 3/4s of the tubes were original. I had a couple 545's which were 100% original tubes and met specs. There was an HP200A audio generator with all original tubes and still working fine.
I estimate that most small tubes replaced in amps are still good and represents a significant sales boon to the re-branders. By minor mods or forethought in the case of builders, microphonic preamp tubes would be less of a problem if floating sockets were used and damping shields like almost all ruggedized gear in the past had.

My comments about Chinese factories eager to make what one wants to buy in large quantity, the reason tubes now are not rugged and are not optimized is simple: none of their customers are requesting it and are willing to pay for the extra production precision. If the whole price when up to $5 for a tube that lasts twice as long, what is the incentive for re-branders? The factories are building tubes to the price the market will bear. It is not like any company now with good engineers and capital to invest in production equipment is incapable of making great tubes, its that there are no customers willing to commit to 500,000 tubes a year at the higher price. Remember that the re-branders are not tech companies or engineering companies with competent application engineers on staff. They are import companies and marketing companies which would do as well selling watches or bath back scrubbers. They build a brand name by making promises only a salesman would promise, and developing a following. Their only real asset is the brand name and logo. Do you think even one of them has a curve tracer or a test engineer to verify what they are even selling?

[Steve Conner]

I can vouch for the long life of some tubes at least. I built all my DIY amps with used old stock tubes, mostly salvaged from unwanted lab equipment, or old mono record players or the like. Of the 9 pin tubes, I rejected some because they were very noisy or hummy, but the remaining good ones have kept on going for years. I think I saw one Brimar 12AT7 wear out once.

The same seems to be true of the old power tubes. I've got a pile of old, frazzled looking EL84s, EL34s, KT88s and so on, that still make their rated output power and sound great.