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Tubes Asylum Questions about tubes and gear that glows. FAQ |
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Tubes Asylum Questions about tubes and gear that glows. FAQ |
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In Reply to: What is Next Big Thing? posted by Paully on April 23, 2006 at 19:12:36:
Musicians & audiophiles buy tubes. The days of easy to find $2 to $3 tubes that appreciated in value 5 to 10 times or more are long gone. The bargains are in old tube inventories that are held by private persons such as retired TV & organ repair persons plus some ham radio operators. These stocks are too small for tube dealers to search out, but not for an individual. I still find large lots of tubes a fair amount to this day. Large lots being 1000 to 5000+ tubes. BTW- Most TV & radio stations inventories are long gone. As crazy as it sounds, many persons with the most simple electronic background somewhat know the value of audio tubes.One can find low cost NOS stocks with a wanted ad in your area newspaper. Hopefully, it costs the common $5 per weekend ad in your area. Another somewhat possible source is to send 'wanted' post cards to Ham Radio persons who do not want to advertise tubes for sale on the internet. Some do not own a computer. Some do not want to sell their tubes to local hams in their community either. Remember, many hams are 'careful' & know the value of tubes. An enterprising ham person will buy tubes for cheap and resell them for profit for new or better radio gear. The local older ham may prefer a non-local private sale that does not favor one local ham over another. Older hams do not want any controversy in their backyard either.
BTW- A phrase that has followed ham radio persons for years is 'hams are cheap'. (Just ask Dennis Had of Cary Audio). Another example of 'careful hams' is in the ham radio internet swap sites. The tubes advertised there are more expensive than ebay most of the time. The hams are kind of fishing so to speak for a 'big bite'. I have not placed tube wanted ads on ham radio internet swap sites for about five years.
One way to find these older US ham radio operators is to purchase a Ham Radio 'Call Book'. It lists names & addresses of hams plus by the type of call sign, that is, by the arrangement of their call numbers & letters one can to some degree seperate the younger 'solid-state' type hams from the older hams that used tube type gear. Call signs are date coded. Yes, some older hams have updated to newer call signs. Many have not updated as it is more desireable to have older call signs. Some older call signs from 'silent keys' have been reissued to younger hams that are not a good source for tubes.
Just about every ham now owns solid-state gear with very few still using tube gear. Most high power amplifiers use tubes, but these RF amp tubes are not desired for audio. I would venture to say older hams still hold a few million of dollars of tubes collecting dust in their inventories. The idea is to find these tubes before the estate sale or simply curb side disposal of NOS tubes. Many older hams were given free tubes & tube based equipment from the US Gov't during the days of phone patching overseas communications via transmitters to the US telephone system to save soldiers money. That system was called MARS (Military Amateur Radio Service).
In the future I will guess another value of older & desired tubes will be in trading tube stocks. As NOS tubes become 'unobtainium', trading tubes directly will surface. It is all ready being performed by audiophiles that know & trust one another. Trading will eventually expand. Many US tube dealers that specialize in NOS audio tubes have not near the inventory of 10 years ago. US military tube stocks up for sale are about finished. I understand the last few larger 'hold outs' of NOS tubes are in Asia from the 1960s.
As for new manufacture tubes providing great sonics, the tubes are improving. I believe more so in power tubes over the preamp tubes. Reliability is also improving. However, for new manufacture tubes to completely replace NOS tube sonics will not happen untill all NOS tubes are used up.
My main interest in finding older tube stocks is more circulation than profit. But, I do not light up cigars with dollars bills either.
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Follow Ups
- Fun Subject - Jimmy 06:56:22 04/24/06 (0)
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