Much of the original fabrication equipment is gone along with many of the
folks who knew how to use it . . .

I don't know what constitutes state of the art now-a-days. SOTA may be one
thing in Russia and another elsewhere.

I'm sure there are good modern production tubes. I try to keep an open mind
about those things. However, I've had current Sovtek 9 pin tubes that have
lost their emissivity in short order; Chinese 5AR4s that flashed over, and
7189s that couldn't stand the original plate voltages. And we're not even
talking about how they "sound" yet -

- jon





in article , Roland at
wrote on 7/19/04 8:59 PM:

Hello,

I wonder if the state-of-art stopped evolving or even deteriorated since
the old days. Are those NOS tubes genuinely better? Or do they just give
flavors liked by people?

Thanks.

Roland