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Western Electric alive and well

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jwrosenthal said:
This may be old news to some but I just saw this. I can’t afford $600 tubes, but this is inspiring that someone in the US is taking us seriously.

http://www.audioxpress.com/news/western-electric-to-reintroduce-famous-300b-electron-tube
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The last time that there was actually 300B tubes made with Western Electric markings and I believe on the same jigs, was by Richardson Electronics, if my memory serves. But that was nigh 20 years ago , and when the tubes came out, people complained about the price and also that they did not sound as good as the originals, and so much whiny beyutches killed the operation after maybe a year. Now , those tubes go for 2 times the original price and all them whiny's have all the tubes. In other words ,, who knows if they will ever get going but if not enough people support it the same result will happen.
 
I wasn’t particularly impressed with the WE room, either.

The room was pretty crowded when I was here, so I didn’t ask pricing; $1k per tube? I thought I had read $1.2k per pair. Trying to justify spending that much for twice for a PP amp is hard enough.
 
botrytis said:
No - they are not.

97a.jpg


These do not look like WE of old.

97a-interior.jpg


This is a company using an old name to evoke the ideals of the older company - totally different.
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You are correct, I had the Line Magnetics in mind.
Otherwise, more like an update on vintage technology than an advance of modern era technology.
 
primosounds said:
The last time that there was actually 300B tubes made with Western Electric markings and I believe on the same jigs, was by Richardson Electronics, if my memory serves.
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The Richardson tubes were branded Citron, manufactured near where I live. They were durable but not very good. The WE repros from 20-odd years ago were made in Kansas City IIRC, at an old WE plant with former WE employees. They had a batch with defective filaments (insert whining here), then got kicked out of the building when AT&T (or the Baby Bell) sold the property. Lots of noise for years but no production start-up until now.


botrytis said:
They are hand making the tubes, so expect them to be expensive.
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Of course. They're 'primitive' enough to not lend themselves well to post-war production line improvements of "modern" tubes, and it's all US labor. Plus audiophile tax.

The last repros weren't as good as the originals, but so much better than everything else (I haven't heard current Elrog, EML, etc).



What makes me sick - before I was into tubes, where I worked was lunchtime walking distance from where AT&T would sell you NOS for something like twelve bucks a tube.
 
bean_counter said:
What makes me sick - before I was into tubes, where I worked was lunchtime walking distance from where AT&T would sell you NOS for something like twelve bucks a tube.
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You must consider inflation in your nostalgia!

If this was 1970, that twelve dollars was equivalent to about $120 in today's money. In 1960, that was about $240. A very nice house in 1960 was $25,000. Try getting the same house today for under $750,000. Salaries have remained stagnant since the 1970s, not keeping pace with inflation. So purchasing power has declined.

People always forget about inflation and the pernicious effects it has. They, instead, wax rhapsodic about how if only they'd known back in the day, they'd have laid in a stock of a thousand tubes and been rich today, when the fact is that nobody had this kind of money just lying around.

So twelve dollars was a lot of money. It wasn't today's pocket change.
 
Retrovert is right about that insidious thief known as inflation, but that's a story for another time and another website.
 
New radio tubes were ca $5.00 in the mid 1920s, average industrial wage ca $2.00/ day.
 
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You were personally able to buy tubes at an AT&T outlet?

Must have been different in IL because of Long Lines.

I worked for AT&T in NJ at that same time and tubes and equipment were never directly sold to employees at any counter. Never done at any of the four locations where I visited. Just not done. That would have been deemed to be in competition with local business and a violation of the consent decree.

Such sales would have required collection of sales tax, a retail store, etc. Not enough money involved to make it work.

Edit: fixed typo pointed out to me.
 
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Also, as you know, those tubes were also very poor vacuum and had short lifespan. So it's like paying even more...
 
Retrovert said:
Also, as you know, those tubes were also very poor vacuum and had short lifespan. So it's like paying even more...
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There's probably an average price scale for consumer tubes by years from the earliest days somewhere. I wonder what the original WE 101 repeater tubes cost ca 1914?
 
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