[Ripper2860]

Waiting For Columbus is likely the best sounding live album in my collection.

+1 I hated all live albums until I bought WFC. Ranks as my fav and best recorded live concert album, IMHO.

 

[Ableza]

For many years my favorite live album was Steppenwolf Live. Not because it was so well recorded or technically challenging but because it KICKS ASSS.

 

[Ripper2860]

Deep Purple's 'Made in Japan' is another live album that I love. Well recorded and also kicks ass, IMHO.

 

[bcowen]

Waiting For Columbus is likely the best sounding live album in my collection.

Yes, totally awesome recording, eclipsed only by Dire Straits On the Night in my collection (another 2-LP set).

 

[Jason Stoddard]

Hey all,

A couple of things real fast:

1. Someone asked about Tyr this month. The answer is: most likely yes! Still "most likely" because, although we have boards and metal, we're still building, pre-testing, etc, and being super-careful about this new launch.
2. I'll be announcing the SchiitrMeet for this month next. We've missed a couple due to all the production craziness. t'll be good to talk to everyone!
3. I'll also be posting a new chapter--very topical--right after that.

Three posts in a row! Well, maybe. If no-one else posts in-between anyway.

All the best,
Jason

 

[Jason Stoddard]

Virtual SchiitrMeet, March 2022
It's Good To Be Back!

Hey guys,

I know, we've missed a couple of these Schiitrmeets, and I'm sorry about that. It's just that the seemingly-every-week oh-crap-we're-gonna-be-short-on-some-critical-part thing hasn't really let up. In fact, the next chapter will be all about that. So I've been focused on making sure we can make products, rather than blathering.

The good news is, I'm back! I'll be coming to you from Texas this time. If there's a theme, consider it to be the same as the following chapter: The End of Tube World As We Know It? Please note both the play on words and the question mark—I'm afraid I don't have all the answers.

That said, consider this an AMA. Ask whatever you'd like, from when the next latest greatest thing is shipping (answer: I don't know) to Texas vs NC BBQ (answer: I haven't had all TX or NC BBQ, so why take my opinion?)

And for those who are pining for actual in-person Schiitrmeets, it looks like we're finally getting to the point where we can do them again. How about one next month in California? Just throwing that out there.

Questions go to denise@schiit.com

Virtual SchiitrMeet March
Wednesday, March 16, 2022
4PM CDT, 2PM PDT

Please join us on Facebook or YouTube:

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZqCWt2_qqB-UD0-pcPpxCw
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Schiit/

All the best,
Jason

 

[Jason Stoddard]

2022, Chapter 4
The End of Tube World As We Know It?

Did you catch the play on words in the title? If not, I’ll forgive you—the world is in an profoundly weird place right now, and sometimes it can seem if anything can happen.

If you didn’t catch it, here it is again, bolded for emphasis: the end of TUBE world as we know it?

Now, did you catch the question mark?

If not, again, I’ll forgive you. Lots of people aren’t very precise with their writing. But decades of English-majoring, copywriting, and fiction writing have made me, ah…extremely specific.

So there’s a question mark because I don’t know.

But, after I received this via email today…

…I figured it might be good to talk to you about what to expect with our tube products, both now and in the future.


Brief Public Service Announcement

Okay, let’s make this clear: this can descend into politics realllllllllll fast. Let’s not do that. This is just about what the current tube availability problems might mean for tube gear. That’s it.

Oh, you want to talk about the—

NOPE. NO POLITICS.

Or the—

AGAIN, NO!

But you really think you should correlate—

GUYS, YOU KNOW HEAD-FI MODERATES THIS THREAD, RIGHT?

Do you want it to continue to exist? If so, lay off the politics.

Got it? Cool.

Back to the scheduled programming.


Tubes Already Sucked

Even before the latest craziness, tubes were already a pain in the ass. At least in terms of availability. We’ve been having a helluva time getting good tubes for a long time.

Now, someone’s gonna argue. “Well, hell, I can get NOS RCAs all day long!” they say.

Yeah.

You can get one of them.

Or 4 of them.

When you’re looking at 4,000 of them, that’s a different ballgame.And for us, 4,000 isn’t really that much. We’d much rather be looking at tubes in 5-figure terms. Which causes, ah, a bit of a case of the vapors for tube manufacturers. Or at least the ones we can talk to. More on that in a sec.

Aside: Yes, you read that right: even before the export ban, new production tube manufacturers could not meet our demand.​

But, before I get deep into woe-is-us mode, I should explain the various sources of tubes we have today, and their whys, wherefores, advantages, and disadvantages.

• Russian (new). New tubes are being made in Russia, and were available in decent quantities—not quite enough for us, but hey, we take what we can get. Electro-Harmonix and Tung-Sol are a couple of the brands you may recognize. Until recently, we used both Electro-Harmonix and Tung-Sol tubes. They are good tubes. We have some stock, and, if you order a Freya+ now, it may ship with either Electro-Harmonix or Tung-Sol.
• Russian (NOS). NOS stands for New Old Stock. These tubes were made in the days of the USSR. There are still large stocks of 6N1P, 6N6P, 6N8S, 6N9S, 6N3P, and others. Over the years, we have built up large stocks of these tubes. 6N1P and 6N6P are used in Valhalla and the upcoming Folkvangr. The good news is we have good stock of these, enough for several years. The bad news is if you don’t want Russian tubes, you’re kinda outta luck.
• Slovak Republic (new). JJ tubes are made in the Slovak republic, and they make some excellent tubes. We frequently shipped Freya+, Saga+, and Lyr+ with JJs. As with Electro-Harmonix and Tung-Sol, we were never able to get quite enough of them, but they were an important part of our tube supply. We have standing orders with JJ, but I expect that with the disappearance of Russian tubes, they’re gonna get slammed—and our supply situation will get worse than it ever was.
• Chinese (new). China is producing some very nice tubes. Unfortunately, we never successfully got a Chinese tube manufacturer to talk to us. I doubt if the quantities were an issue. Maybe there’s another limitation we don’t know about, or maybe we’re just not that important of a customer. Ah well; for whatever reason, China was never a viable source of tubes for us.
• Georgian (new). As in, Georgia, USA. Western Electric is rumored to be making a 6SN7. Unfortunately, it hasn’t been released yet. Also unfortunately, it’s probably going to be (a) blindingly expensive, and (b) in limited supply. How expensive? I suspect if you wanted Freya to be a $5K product, this is one way we’d get there. Hopefully I’m wrong on that.
• NOS (domestic). In addition to Russian NOS tubes, there are also domestic NOS tubes from a wide variety of suppliers—RCA, Raytheon, GE, etc. We have used tons of these tubes in Lyr and Vali 2/2+…enough that we have apparently used all the 6BZ7s available. This is pretty amazing, because the 6BZ7 is a television tube that was made by the ton back in the day. The problem with NOS tubes is (a) they are not being made anymore, (b) there aren’t that many good ones available, and (c) they’re really better for someone looking for a matched quad, rather than 40,000 pieces. So NOS can’t save us.

“Sooooo…your tubes came from Russia and the Slovak Republic, mainly,” says someone who’s been following the story. “Russian tubes are now a no-go and JJ is probably crapping sideways trying to keep up with orders. That means you’re mega-boned, right?”

Weeeeeeeeeelllllll…not so fast.

Remember how I said that tube supply was already iffy, even before the latest blow?

And remember how we have a tendency to look forward, and try to address problems that might impede our production (either by buying tons of stock, or designing something different, like with AKM)?

Yeah. So let’s talk what we’re doing.


Tubes, 2022 Style

Now, while this may be the end of tube world as we know it, it doesn’t mean there’s nothing we can do. So let’s talk strategies, and pros and cons, before we get to the specifics.

And yeah, I know, you’re skipping to the specifics. But know that:

• For some people, strategy is interesting
• I won’t be giving all the specifics

Okay? Ready? Let’s talk strategy. Here’s what we can do:

Limit production. We could simply limit production to the tubes we can get. That is usually accompanied by price increases to keep demand somewhat in-control. That’s not us. We’d like to continue to provide great value, and we don’t do that by limiting production. Plus, to be frank, we don’t know if we’re getting any tubes, yet.

Sell with no tubes. We already have this option on Freya+; it could be extended to other products. However, we’re not thrilled with this idea—we’d much rather give you something you can use right away, rather than looking around for NOS tubes.

Wait for new suppliers. This is related to the “limit production” strategy. Here, we’d limit production, and/or Kevork tube products for a while, and wait for new tube suppliers to show up. Logically, if there’s a market for something, new suppliers will eventually show. The problem with this strategy is you don’t know when new tube manufacturers will come on the scene, or how good the tubes will be when they arrive. So this is super-chancy. Not us.

Stockpiling. We’ve already done this for several tube types. As a result, Valhalla is safe for a while, and we can make some Folkvangrs. We also have some other tube types we’ve stockpiled, which may or may not make their way into new products. And no, I’m not trying to be mysterious…some of these tubes are, well, kinda microphonic, so we may not want to make any product based on them…but then again, maybe we can manage it somehow. We don’t have any hard answers yet.

Go all NOS. Start buying all NOS tubes we can. Ahhhh…no. First of all, the quantities of good NOS tubes are lower than you think. Second, to get enough tubes to sustain our production, you’d be looking at dedicating one or more staff to doing this full-time. Seriously. So that’s not viable.

Bring back LISST. Although LISST was difficult to make and not super-popular, it would give us a viable tube replacement and allow us to ship something as a tube-optional product. Like I said, it’s a lot easier for you to find 1-4 of your favorite tubes than for us to find 4000. So yeah, this is on the burner. We’ll see when we can convince someone to make them…with all of our assemblers slammed, this may be a while.

Redesign. In some cases, we could redesign for more “gettable” tubes—gettable as in already stockpiled. This is not a long-term strategy, but it’s better than nothing. And if you have a lot of some kinds of tubes—which, in some cases, we do—this starts looking more interesting. Beyond that, you can start playing with a pie-in-the-sky seamlessly-switchable tube/solid-state “fusion” design, but that ain’t gonna be easy or quick to market.

Start our own tube factory. Ahhhhhhh...no. That's, ah...kinda bonkers. And even if we did have a line on an old tube factory, complete with fixtures, that's not going to be a real solution in 3-6 months. Maybe 36 months. Maybe.

And now, what you’ve probably been scrolling for…

…what’s gonna happen with current products?

Freya+. Since Freya+ uses 4 6SN7 tubes, it’s the biggest tube hog in our line. It’s the one that always puts us in tube backorder. And now, with new-production 6SN7 supply iffy, it’s the one we have to address first. Unfortunately, our stockpile of 6N8S aren’t easily usable here—they are fairly microphonic in Freya. So here’s what we’re doing:

• Selling without tubes. You can already buy Freya+ without tubes. Find some cool NOS tubes, and you’re set.
• Rolling LISST back in. When LISST comes back, it’ll go in Freya. Then you’re set with “tubes” until you add in your NOS tubes.
• Considering a Noval version. “Noval” tubes are 9-pin tubes, like those used in Valhalla. The 6N1P is a great noval tube, and we have a ton of them…and a good option to replace the 6SN7. However, the circuit needs some tweaks; you can’t just plop 6N1Ps on adapters into Freya.

Saga+. Using only a single 6SN7 tube, Saga isn’t so terrible. It can also use the stockpile of 6N8S tubes we have without significant microphonic issues. So expect to see it shipping with 6N8S. When LISST comes back, that’s another option.

Lyr 3. Another single-6SN7 tube product. We’re currently OK shipping these with new-production 6SN7 tubes, but don’t be surprised if we have to start shipping with 6N8S as well. LISST would be a good option here as well.

Valhalla 2. Surprisingly, we’re OK on this, at least for now. We have a lot of 6N1P and 6N6P tubes. Eventually, we’ll run out. But I’ve been saying “eventually” for 10 years now. For the moment, no changes.

Vali 2+. We’re almost out of 6BZ7, and we’re not sure how gettable a new-production, say, JJ 6922 will be. Fortunately, we began stockpiling an alternate tube before the current crisis. Unfortunately, it will require a small redesign. So don’t be surprised if Vali 2+ gets a minor tweak. But we do plan to keep selling these as well.

Folkvangr. The crazy 10-tube amp? Ironically, it was designed (at least in part) to use up our large stock of 6N6P tubes. Given the current situation, it would be most logical to kill it, to preserve tube stocks. But it’s very far along to production. So we’ll make at least one run of these! However, don’t expect this to be an ongoing product, unless things radically change.

And that’s what we know right now.


Is It Truly the End of Tube World As We Know It?

Like I said at the beginning, I don’t know. I don’t have all the answers.

What I do know is that our tube supply was, ah, profoundly constraining before Russian tubes were taken out of the picture. Which means that it’s gonna be even more constrained now. Which means we need to make some changes to how we do tube products.

If we do it right, you’ll be able to continue enjoying tube gear, without crazy price increases or worse out-of-stock situations.

And if we do it really really right, and get a little lucky…maybe we’ll even be able to help start an entirely new tube world!

As always, we’ll see…if, in the end, I feel fine.

 

[Les Strat]

Deep Purple's 'Made in Japan' is another live album that I love. Well recorded and also kicks ass, IMHO.

Ashamed to say that I don't know the album 'Waiting for Columbus' !
I'll put that right this evening...

Last year, over a few beers in a pub, a friend and I pondered the 'best' live albums.
What it really came down to, was our favourite live albums.
I think that many live albums are simply worse- sounding versions of the original studio albums.
However, a few that I really like, include:

Live and Dangerous Lizzy
Made in Japan Deep Purple
Live at Leeds The Who
Live Cream Vol II Cream
Live: The Road Goes Ever On Mountain
At Fillmore East Allman Bros
Get Yer Ya Ya's Out Stones
Free Live Free
Performance Rockin' The Fillmore Humble Pie
Live Rust Neil Young
Blues Alive Gary Moore
Live in Boston Fleetwood Mac
Unplugged EC


Not all of these albums have great recording quality, but what they do have ( in my opinion) are performances of tracks which are at least as good as the studio versions.

 

[JohnFlowers]

Hey all,

A couple of things real fast:

1. Someone asked about Tyr this month. The answer is: most likely yes! Still "most likely" because, although we have boards and metal, we're still building, pre-testing, etc, and being super-careful about this new launch.
2. I'll be announcing the SchiitrMeet for this month next. We've missed a couple due to all the production craziness. t'll be good to talk to everyone!
3. I'll also be posting a new chapter--very topical--right after that.

Three posts in a row! Well, maybe. If no-one else posts in-between anyway.

All the best,
Jason

Our long nat-Schiit-ional nightmare may be over. Long live Tyr

 

[bcowen]

2022, Chapter 4
The End of Tube World As We Know It?

Did you catch the play on words in the title? If not, I’ll forgive you—the world is in an profoundly weird place right now, and sometimes it can seem if anything can happen.

If you didn’t catch it, here it is again, bolded for emphasis: the end of TUBE world as we know it?

Now, did you catch the question mark?

If not, again, I’ll forgive you. Lots of people aren’t very precise with their writing. But decades of English-majoring, copywriting, and fiction writing have made me, ah…extremely specific.

So there’s a question mark because I don’t know.

But, after I received this via email today…



…I figured it might be good to talk to you about what to expect with our tube products, both now and in the future.


Brief Public Service Announcement

Okay, let’s make this clear: this can descend into politics realllllllllll fast. Let’s not do that. This is just about what the current tube availability problems might mean for tube gear. That’s it.

Oh, you want to talk about the—

NOPE. NO POLITICS.

Or the—

AGAIN, NO!

But you really think you should correlate—

GUYS, YOU KNOW HEAD-FI MODERATES THIS THREAD, RIGHT?

Do you want it to continue to exist? If so, lay off the politics.

Got it? Cool.

Back to the scheduled programming.


Tubes Already Sucked

Even before the latest craziness, tubes were already a pain in the ass. At least in terms of availability. We’ve been having a helluva time getting good tubes for a long time.

Now, someone’s gonna argue. “Well, hell, I can get NOS RCAs all day long!” they say.

Yeah.

You can get one of them.

Or 4 of them.

When you’re looking at 4,000 of them, that’s a different ballgame.And for us, 4,000 isn’t really that much. We’d much rather be looking at tubes in 5-figure terms. Which causes, ah, a bit of a case of the vapors for tube manufacturers. Or at least the ones we can talk to. More on that in a sec.

Aside: Yes, you read that right: even before the export ban, new production tube manufacturers could not meet our demand.​

But, before I get deep into woe-is-us mode, I should explain the various sources of tubes we have today, and their whys, wherefores, advantages, and disadvantages.

• Russian (new). New tubes are being made in Russia, and were available in decent quantities—not quite enough for us, but hey, we take what we can get. Electro-Harmonix and Tung-Sol are a couple of the brands you may recognize. Until recently, we used both Electro-Harmonix and Tung-Sol tubes. They are good tubes. We have some stock, and, if you order a Freya+ now, it may ship with either Electro-Harmonix or Tung-Sol.
• Russian (NOS). NOS stands for New Old Stock. These tubes were made in the days of the USSR. There are still large stocks of 6N1P, 6N6P, 6N8S, 6N9S, 6N3P, and others. Over the years, we have built up large stocks of these tubes. 6N1P and 6N6P are used in Valhalla and the upcoming Folkvangr. The good news is we have good stock of these, enough for several years. The bad news is if you don’t want Russian tubes, you’re kinda outta luck.
• Slovak Republic (new). JJ tubes are made in the Slovak republic, and they make some excellent tubes. We frequently shipped Freya+, Saga+, and Lyr+ with JJs. As with Electro-Harmonix and Tung-Sol, we were never able to get quite enough of them, but they were an important part of our tube supply. We have standing orders with JJ, but I expect that with the disappearance of Russian tubes, they’re gonna get slammed—and our supply situation will get worse than it ever was.
• Chinese (new). China is producing some very nice tubes. Unfortunately, we never successfully got a Chinese tube manufacturer to talk to us. I doubt if the quantities were an issue. Maybe there’s another limitation we don’t know about, or maybe we’re just not that important of a customer. Ah well; for whatever reason, China was never a viable source of tubes for us.
• Georgian (new). As in, Georgia, USA. Western Electric is rumored to be making a 6SN7. Unfortunately, it hasn’t been released yet. Also unfortunately, it’s probably going to be (a) blindingly expensive, and (b) in limited supply. How expensive? I suspect if you wanted Freya to be a $5K product, this is one way we’d get there. Hopefully I’m wrong on that.
• NOS (domestic). In addition to Russian NOS tubes, there are also domestic NOS tubes from a wide variety of suppliers—RCA, Raytheon, GE, etc. We have used tons of these tubes in Lyr and Vali 2/2+…enough that we have apparently used all the 6BZ7s available. This is pretty amazing, because the 6BZ7 is a television tube that was made by the ton back in the day. The problem with NOS tubes is (a) they are not being made anymore, (b) there aren’t that many good ones available, and (c) they’re really better for someone looking for a matched quad, rather than 40,000 pieces. So NOS can’t save us.

“Sooooo…your tubes came from Russia and the Slovak Republic, mainly,” says someone who’s been following the story. “Russian tubes are now a no-go and JJ is probably crapping sideways trying to keep up with orders. That means you’re mega-boned, right?”

Weeeeeeeeeelllllll…not so fast.

Remember how I said that tube supply was already iffy, even before the latest blow?

And remember how we have a tendency to look forward, and try to address problems that might impede our production (either by buying tons of stock, or designing something different, like with AKM)?

Yeah. So let’s talk what we’re doing.


Tubes, 2022 Style

Now, while this may be the end of tube world as we know it, it doesn’t mean there’s nothing we can do. So let’s talk strategies, and pros and cons, before we get to the specifics.

And yeah, I know, you’re skipping to the specifics. But know that:

• For some people, strategy is interesting
• I won’t be giving all the specifics

Okay? Ready? Let’s talk strategy. Here’s what we can do:

Limit production. We could simply limit production to the tubes we can get. That is usually accompanied by price increases to keep demand somewhat in-control. That’s not us. We’d like to continue to provide great value, and we don’t do that by limiting production. Plus, to be frank, we don’t know if we’re getting any tubes, yet.

Sell with no tubes. We already have this option on Freya+; it could be extended to other products. However, we’re not thrilled with this idea—we’d much rather give you something you can use right away, rather than looking around for NOS tubes.

Wait for new suppliers. This is related to the “limit production” strategy. Here, we’d limit production, and/or Kevork tube products for a while, and wait for new tube suppliers to show up. Logically, if there’s a market for something, new suppliers will eventually show. The problem with this strategy is you don’t know when new tube manufacturers will come on the scene, or how good the tubes will be when they arrive. So this is super-chancy. Not us.

Stockpiling. We’ve already done this for several tube types. As a result, Valhalla is safe for a while, and we can make some Folkvangrs. We also have some other tube types we’ve stockpiled, which may or may not make their way into new products. And no, I’m not trying to be mysterious…some of these tubes are, well, kinda microphonic, so we may not want to make any product based on them…but then again, maybe we can manage it somehow. We don’t have any hard answers yet.

Go all NOS. Start buying all NOS tubes we can. Ahhhh…no. First of all, the quantities of good NOS tubes are lower than you think. Second, to get enough tubes to sustain our production, you’d be looking at dedicating one or more staff to doing this full-time. Seriously. So that’s not viable.

Bring back LISST. Although LISST was difficult to make and not super-popular, it would give us a viable tube replacement and allow us to ship something as a tube-optional product. Like I said, it’s a lot easier for you to find 1-4 of your favorite tubes than for us to find 4000. So yeah, this is on the burner. We’ll see when we can convince someone to make them…with all of our assemblers slammed, this may be a while.

Redesign. In some cases, we could redesign for more “gettable” tubes—gettable as in already stockpiled. This is not a long-term strategy, but it’s better than nothing. And if you have a lot of some kinds of tubes—which, in some cases, we do—this starts looking more interesting. Beyond that, you can start playing with a pie-in-the-sky seamlessly-switchable tube/solid-state “fusion” design, but that ain’t gonna be easy or quick to market.

Start our own tube factory. Ahhhhhhh...no. That's, ah...kinda bonkers. And even if we did have a line on an old tube factory, complete with fixtures, that's not going to be a real solution in 3-6 months. Maybe 36 months. Maybe.

And now, what you’ve probably been scrolling for…

…what’s gonna happen with current products?

Freya+. Since Freya+ uses 4 6SN7 tubes, it’s the biggest tube hog in our line. It’s the one that always puts us in tube backorder. And now, with new-production 6SN7 supply iffy, it’s the one we have to address first. Unfortunately, our stockpile of 6N8S aren’t easily usable here—they are fairly microphonic in Freya. So here’s what we’re doing:

• Selling without tubes. You can already buy Freya+ without tubes. Find some cool NOS tubes, and you’re set.
• Rolling LISST back in. When LISST comes back, it’ll go in Freya. Then you’re set with “tubes” until you add in your NOS tubes.
• Considering a Noval version. “Noval” tubes are 9-pin tubes, like those used in Valhalla. The 6N1P is a great noval tube, and we have a ton of them…and a good option to replace the 6SN7. However, the circuit needs some tweaks; you can’t just plop 6N1Ps on adapters into Freya.

Saga+. Using only a single 6SN7 tube, Saga isn’t so terrible. It can also use the stockpile of 6N8S tubes we have without significant microphonic issues. So expect to see it shipping with 6N8S. When LISST comes back, that’s another option.

Lyr 3. Another single-6SN7 tube product. We’re currently OK shipping these with new-production 6SN7 tubes, but don’t be surprised if we have to start shipping with 6N8S as well. LISST would be a good option here as well.

Valhalla 2. Surprisingly, we’re OK on this, at least for now. We have a lot of 6N1P and 6N6P tubes. Eventually, we’ll run out. But I’ve been saying “eventually” for 10 years now. For the moment, no changes.

Vali 2+. We’re almost out of 6BZ7, and we’re not sure how gettable a new-production, say, JJ 6922 will be. Fortunately, we began stockpiling an alternate tube before the current crisis. Unfortunately, it will require a small redesign. So don’t be surprised if Vali 2+ gets a minor tweak. But we do plan to keep selling these as well.

Folkvangr. The crazy 10-tube amp? Ironically, it was designed (at least in part) to use up our large stock of 6N6P tubes. Given the current situation, it would be most logical to kill it, to preserve tube stocks. But it’s very far along to production. So we’ll make at least one run of these! However, don’t expect this to be an ongoing product, unless things radically change.

And that’s what we know right now.


Is It Truly the End of Tube World As We Know It?

Like I said at the beginning, I don’t know. I don’t have all the answers.

What I do know is that our tube supply was, ah, profoundly constraining before Russian tubes were taken out of the picture. Which means that it’s gonna be even more constrained now. Which means we need to make some changes to how we do tube products.

If we do it right, you’ll be able to continue enjoying tube gear, without crazy price increases or worse out-of-stock situations.

And if we do it really really right, and get a little lucky…maybe we’ll even be able to help start an entirely new tube world!

As always, we’ll see…if, in the end, I feel fine.

 

[Les Strat]

2022, Chapter 4
The End of Tube World As We Know It?

Did you catch the play on words in the title? If not, I’ll forgive you—the world is in an profoundly weird place right now, and sometimes it can seem if anything can happen.

If you didn’t catch it, here it is again, bolded for emphasis: the end of TUBE world as we know it?

Now, did you catch the question mark?

If not, again, I’ll forgive you. Lots of people aren’t very precise with their writing. But decades of English-majoring, copywriting, and fiction writing have made me, ah…extremely specific.

So there’s a question mark because I don’t know.

But, after I received this via email today…



…I figured it might be good to talk to you about what to expect with our tube products, both now and in the future.


Brief Public Service Announcement

Okay, let’s make this clear: this can descend into politics realllllllllll fast. Let’s not do that. This is just about what the current tube availability problems might mean for tube gear. That’s it.

Oh, you want to talk about the—

NOPE. NO POLITICS.

Or the—

AGAIN, NO!

But you really think you should correlate—

GUYS, YOU KNOW HEAD-FI MODERATES THIS THREAD, RIGHT?

Do you want it to continue to exist? If so, lay off the politics.

Got it? Cool.

Back to the scheduled programming.


Tubes Already Sucked

Even before the latest craziness, tubes were already a pain in the ass. At least in terms of availability. We’ve been having a helluva time getting good tubes for a long time.

Now, someone’s gonna argue. “Well, hell, I can get NOS RCAs all day long!” they say.

Yeah.

You can get one of them.

Or 4 of them.

When you’re looking at 4,000 of them, that’s a different ballgame.And for us, 4,000 isn’t really that much. We’d much rather be looking at tubes in 5-figure terms. Which causes, ah, a bit of a case of the vapors for tube manufacturers. Or at least the ones we can talk to. More on that in a sec.

Aside: Yes, you read that right: even before the export ban, new production tube manufacturers could not meet our demand.​

But, before I get deep into woe-is-us mode, I should explain the various sources of tubes we have today, and their whys, wherefores, advantages, and disadvantages.

• Russian (new). New tubes are being made in Russia, and were available in decent quantities—not quite enough for us, but hey, we take what we can get. Electro-Harmonix and Tung-Sol are a couple of the brands you may recognize. Until recently, we used both Electro-Harmonix and Tung-Sol tubes. They are good tubes. We have some stock, and, if you order a Freya+ now, it may ship with either Electro-Harmonix or Tung-Sol.
• Russian (NOS). NOS stands for New Old Stock. These tubes were made in the days of the USSR. There are still large stocks of 6N1P, 6N6P, 6N8S, 6N9S, 6N3P, and others. Over the years, we have built up large stocks of these tubes. 6N1P and 6N6P are used in Valhalla and the upcoming Folkvangr. The good news is we have good stock of these, enough for several years. The bad news is if you don’t want Russian tubes, you’re kinda outta luck.
• Slovak Republic (new). JJ tubes are made in the Slovak republic, and they make some excellent tubes. We frequently shipped Freya+, Saga+, and Lyr+ with JJs. As with Electro-Harmonix and Tung-Sol, we were never able to get quite enough of them, but they were an important part of our tube supply. We have standing orders with JJ, but I expect that with the disappearance of Russian tubes, they’re gonna get slammed—and our supply situation will get worse than it ever was.
• Chinese (new). China is producing some very nice tubes. Unfortunately, we never successfully got a Chinese tube manufacturer to talk to us. I doubt if the quantities were an issue. Maybe there’s another limitation we don’t know about, or maybe we’re just not that important of a customer. Ah well; for whatever reason, China was never a viable source of tubes for us.
• Georgian (new). As in, Georgia, USA. Western Electric is rumored to be making a 6SN7. Unfortunately, it hasn’t been released yet. Also unfortunately, it’s probably going to be (a) blindingly expensive, and (b) in limited supply. How expensive? I suspect if you wanted Freya to be a $5K product, this is one way we’d get there. Hopefully I’m wrong on that.
• NOS (domestic). In addition to Russian NOS tubes, there are also domestic NOS tubes from a wide variety of suppliers—RCA, Raytheon, GE, etc. We have used tons of these tubes in Lyr and Vali 2/2+…enough that we have apparently used all the 6BZ7s available. This is pretty amazing, because the 6BZ7 is a television tube that was made by the ton back in the day. The problem with NOS tubes is (a) they are not being made anymore, (b) there aren’t that many good ones available, and (c) they’re really better for someone looking for a matched quad, rather than 40,000 pieces. So NOS can’t save us.

“Sooooo…your tubes came from Russia and the Slovak Republic, mainly,” says someone who’s been following the story. “Russian tubes are now a no-go and JJ is probably crapping sideways trying to keep up with orders. That means you’re mega-boned, right?”

Weeeeeeeeeelllllll…not so fast.

Remember how I said that tube supply was already iffy, even before the latest blow?

And remember how we have a tendency to look forward, and try to address problems that might impede our production (either by buying tons of stock, or designing something different, like with AKM)?

Yeah. So let’s talk what we’re doing.


Tubes, 2022 Style

Now, while this may be the end of tube world as we know it, it doesn’t mean there’s nothing we can do. So let’s talk strategies, and pros and cons, before we get to the specifics.

And yeah, I know, you’re skipping to the specifics. But know that:

• For some people, strategy is interesting
• I won’t be giving all the specifics

Okay? Ready? Let’s talk strategy. Here’s what we can do:

Limit production. We could simply limit production to the tubes we can get. That is usually accompanied by price increases to keep demand somewhat in-control. That’s not us. We’d like to continue to provide great value, and we don’t do that by limiting production. Plus, to be frank, we don’t know if we’re getting any tubes, yet.

Sell with no tubes. We already have this option on Freya+; it could be extended to other products. However, we’re not thrilled with this idea—we’d much rather give you something you can use right away, rather than looking around for NOS tubes.

Wait for new suppliers. This is related to the “limit production” strategy. Here, we’d limit production, and/or Kevork tube products for a while, and wait for new tube suppliers to show up. Logically, if there’s a market for something, new suppliers will eventually show. The problem with this strategy is you don’t know when new tube manufacturers will come on the scene, or how good the tubes will be when they arrive. So this is super-chancy. Not us.

Stockpiling. We’ve already done this for several tube types. As a result, Valhalla is safe for a while, and we can make some Folkvangrs. We also have some other tube types we’ve stockpiled, which may or may not make their way into new products. And no, I’m not trying to be mysterious…some of these tubes are, well, kinda microphonic, so we may not want to make any product based on them…but then again, maybe we can manage it somehow. We don’t have any hard answers yet.

Go all NOS. Start buying all NOS tubes we can. Ahhhh…no. First of all, the quantities of good NOS tubes are lower than you think. Second, to get enough tubes to sustain our production, you’d be looking at dedicating one or more staff to doing this full-time. Seriously. So that’s not viable.

Bring back LISST. Although LISST was difficult to make and not super-popular, it would give us a viable tube replacement and allow us to ship something as a tube-optional product. Like I said, it’s a lot easier for you to find 1-4 of your favorite tubes than for us to find 4000. So yeah, this is on the burner. We’ll see when we can convince someone to make them…with all of our assemblers slammed, this may be a while.

Redesign. In some cases, we could redesign for more “gettable” tubes—gettable as in already stockpiled. This is not a long-term strategy, but it’s better than nothing. And if you have a lot of some kinds of tubes—which, in some cases, we do—this starts looking more interesting. Beyond that, you can start playing with a pie-in-the-sky seamlessly-switchable tube/solid-state “fusion” design, but that ain’t gonna be easy or quick to market.

Start our own tube factory. Ahhhhhhh...no. That's, ah...kinda bonkers. And even if we did have a line on an old tube factory, complete with fixtures, that's not going to be a real solution in 3-6 months. Maybe 36 months. Maybe.

And now, what you’ve probably been scrolling for…

…what’s gonna happen with current products?

Freya+. Since Freya+ uses 4 6SN7 tubes, it’s the biggest tube hog in our line. It’s the one that always puts us in tube backorder. And now, with new-production 6SN7 supply iffy, it’s the one we have to address first. Unfortunately, our stockpile of 6N8S aren’t easily usable here—they are fairly microphonic in Freya. So here’s what we’re doing:

• Selling without tubes. You can already buy Freya+ without tubes. Find some cool NOS tubes, and you’re set.
• Rolling LISST back in. When LISST comes back, it’ll go in Freya. Then you’re set with “tubes” until you add in your NOS tubes.
• Considering a Noval version. “Noval” tubes are 9-pin tubes, like those used in Valhalla. The 6N1P is a great noval tube, and we have a ton of them…and a good option to replace the 6SN7. However, the circuit needs some tweaks; you can’t just plop 6N1Ps on adapters into Freya.

Saga+. Using only a single 6SN7 tube, Saga isn’t so terrible. It can also use the stockpile of 6N8S tubes we have without significant microphonic issues. So expect to see it shipping with 6N8S. When LISST comes back, that’s another option.

Lyr 3. Another single-6SN7 tube product. We’re currently OK shipping these with new-production 6SN7 tubes, but don’t be surprised if we have to start shipping with 6N8S as well. LISST would be a good option here as well.

Valhalla 2. Surprisingly, we’re OK on this, at least for now. We have a lot of 6N1P and 6N6P tubes. Eventually, we’ll run out. But I’ve been saying “eventually” for 10 years now. For the moment, no changes.

Vali 2+. We’re almost out of 6BZ7, and we’re not sure how gettable a new-production, say, JJ 6922 will be. Fortunately, we began stockpiling an alternate tube before the current crisis. Unfortunately, it will require a small redesign. So don’t be surprised if Vali 2+ gets a minor tweak. But we do plan to keep selling these as well.

Folkvangr. The crazy 10-tube amp? Ironically, it was designed (at least in part) to use up our large stock of 6N6P tubes. Given the current situation, it would be most logical to kill it, to preserve tube stocks. But it’s very far along to production. So we’ll make at least one run of these! However, don’t expect this to be an ongoing product, unless things radically change.

And that’s what we know right now.


Is It Truly the End of Tube World As We Know It?

Like I said at the beginning, I don’t know. I don’t have all the answers.

What I do know is that our tube supply was, ah, profoundly constraining before Russian tubes were taken out of the picture. Which means that it’s gonna be even more constrained now. Which means we need to make some changes to how we do tube products.

If we do it right, you’ll be able to continue enjoying tube gear, without crazy price increases or worse out-of-stock situations.

And if we do it really really right, and get a little lucky…maybe we’ll even be able to help start an entirely new tube world!

As always, we’ll see…if, in the end, I feel fine.

Relaunching the Freya S looks timely....

 

[Jason Stoddard]

Relaunching the Freya S looks timely....

Freya S is already back in the line.

 

[KoshNaranek]

I understand how you feel but after what I have been through in the past two years and what people in Europe are going through right now, this qualifies as small stuff. I don't sweat small stuff.

 

[ManShear]

2022, Chapter 4
The End of Tube World As We Know It?

Did you catch the play on words in the title? If not, I’ll forgive you—the world is in an profoundly weird place right now, and sometimes it can seem if anything can happen.

If you didn’t catch it, here it is again, bolded for emphasis: the end of TUBE world as we know it?

Now, did you catch the question mark?

If not, again, I’ll forgive you. Lots of people aren’t very precise with their writing. But decades of English-majoring, copywriting, and fiction writing have made me, ah…extremely specific.

So there’s a question mark because I don’t know.

But, after I received this via email today…



…I figured it might be good to talk to you about what to expect with our tube products, both now and in the future.


Brief Public Service Announcement

Okay, let’s make this clear: this can descend into politics realllllllllll fast. Let’s not do that. This is just about what the current tube availability problems might mean for tube gear. That’s it.

Oh, you want to talk about the—

NOPE. NO POLITICS.

Or the—

AGAIN, NO!

But you really think you should correlate—

GUYS, YOU KNOW HEAD-FI MODERATES THIS THREAD, RIGHT?

Do you want it to continue to exist? If so, lay off the politics.

Got it? Cool.

Back to the scheduled programming.


Tubes Already Sucked

Even before the latest craziness, tubes were already a pain in the ass. At least in terms of availability. We’ve been having a helluva time getting good tubes for a long time.

Now, someone’s gonna argue. “Well, hell, I can get NOS RCAs all day long!” they say.

Yeah.

You can get one of them.

Or 4 of them.

When you’re looking at 4,000 of them, that’s a different ballgame.And for us, 4,000 isn’t really that much. We’d much rather be looking at tubes in 5-figure terms. Which causes, ah, a bit of a case of the vapors for tube manufacturers. Or at least the ones we can talk to. More on that in a sec.

Aside: Yes, you read that right: even before the export ban, new production tube manufacturers could not meet our demand.​

But, before I get deep into woe-is-us mode, I should explain the various sources of tubes we have today, and their whys, wherefores, advantages, and disadvantages.

• Russian (new). New tubes are being made in Russia, and were available in decent quantities—not quite enough for us, but hey, we take what we can get. Electro-Harmonix and Tung-Sol are a couple of the brands you may recognize. Until recently, we used both Electro-Harmonix and Tung-Sol tubes. They are good tubes. We have some stock, and, if you order a Freya+ now, it may ship with either Electro-Harmonix or Tung-Sol.
• Russian (NOS). NOS stands for New Old Stock. These tubes were made in the days of the USSR. There are still large stocks of 6N1P, 6N6P, 6N8S, 6N9S, 6N3P, and others. Over the years, we have built up large stocks of these tubes. 6N1P and 6N6P are used in Valhalla and the upcoming Folkvangr. The good news is we have good stock of these, enough for several years. The bad news is if you don’t want Russian tubes, you’re kinda outta luck.
• Slovak Republic (new). JJ tubes are made in the Slovak republic, and they make some excellent tubes. We frequently shipped Freya+, Saga+, and Lyr+ with JJs. As with Electro-Harmonix and Tung-Sol, we were never able to get quite enough of them, but they were an important part of our tube supply. We have standing orders with JJ, but I expect that with the disappearance of Russian tubes, they’re gonna get slammed—and our supply situation will get worse than it ever was.
• Chinese (new). China is producing some very nice tubes. Unfortunately, we never successfully got a Chinese tube manufacturer to talk to us. I doubt if the quantities were an issue. Maybe there’s another limitation we don’t know about, or maybe we’re just not that important of a customer. Ah well; for whatever reason, China was never a viable source of tubes for us.
• Georgian (new). As in, Georgia, USA. Western Electric is rumored to be making a 6SN7. Unfortunately, it hasn’t been released yet. Also unfortunately, it’s probably going to be (a) blindingly expensive, and (b) in limited supply. How expensive? I suspect if you wanted Freya to be a $5K product, this is one way we’d get there. Hopefully I’m wrong on that.
• NOS (domestic). In addition to Russian NOS tubes, there are also domestic NOS tubes from a wide variety of suppliers—RCA, Raytheon, GE, etc. We have used tons of these tubes in Lyr and Vali 2/2+…enough that we have apparently used all the 6BZ7s available. This is pretty amazing, because the 6BZ7 is a television tube that was made by the ton back in the day. The problem with NOS tubes is (a) they are not being made anymore, (b) there aren’t that many good ones available, and (c) they’re really better for someone looking for a matched quad, rather than 40,000 pieces. So NOS can’t save us.

“Sooooo…your tubes came from Russia and the Slovak Republic, mainly,” says someone who’s been following the story. “Russian tubes are now a no-go and JJ is probably crapping sideways trying to keep up with orders. That means you’re mega-boned, right?”

Weeeeeeeeeelllllll…not so fast.

Remember how I said that tube supply was already iffy, even before the latest blow?

And remember how we have a tendency to look forward, and try to address problems that might impede our production (either by buying tons of stock, or designing something different, like with AKM)?

Yeah. So let’s talk what we’re doing.


Tubes, 2022 Style

Now, while this may be the end of tube world as we know it, it doesn’t mean there’s nothing we can do. So let’s talk strategies, and pros and cons, before we get to the specifics.

And yeah, I know, you’re skipping to the specifics. But know that:

• For some people, strategy is interesting
• I won’t be giving all the specifics

Okay? Ready? Let’s talk strategy. Here’s what we can do:

Limit production. We could simply limit production to the tubes we can get. That is usually accompanied by price increases to keep demand somewhat in-control. That’s not us. We’d like to continue to provide great value, and we don’t do that by limiting production. Plus, to be frank, we don’t know if we’re getting any tubes, yet.

Sell with no tubes. We already have this option on Freya+; it could be extended to other products. However, we’re not thrilled with this idea—we’d much rather give you something you can use right away, rather than looking around for NOS tubes.

Wait for new suppliers. This is related to the “limit production” strategy. Here, we’d limit production, and/or Kevork tube products for a while, and wait for new tube suppliers to show up. Logically, if there’s a market for something, new suppliers will eventually show. The problem with this strategy is you don’t know when new tube manufacturers will come on the scene, or how good the tubes will be when they arrive. So this is super-chancy. Not us.

Stockpiling. We’ve already done this for several tube types. As a result, Valhalla is safe for a while, and we can make some Folkvangrs. We also have some other tube types we’ve stockpiled, which may or may not make their way into new products. And no, I’m not trying to be mysterious…some of these tubes are, well, kinda microphonic, so we may not want to make any product based on them…but then again, maybe we can manage it somehow. We don’t have any hard answers yet.

Go all NOS. Start buying all NOS tubes we can. Ahhhh…no. First of all, the quantities of good NOS tubes are lower than you think. Second, to get enough tubes to sustain our production, you’d be looking at dedicating one or more staff to doing this full-time. Seriously. So that’s not viable.

Bring back LISST. Although LISST was difficult to make and not super-popular, it would give us a viable tube replacement and allow us to ship something as a tube-optional product. Like I said, it’s a lot easier for you to find 1-4 of your favorite tubes than for us to find 4000. So yeah, this is on the burner. We’ll see when we can convince someone to make them…with all of our assemblers slammed, this may be a while.

Redesign. In some cases, we could redesign for more “gettable” tubes—gettable as in already stockpiled. This is not a long-term strategy, but it’s better than nothing. And if you have a lot of some kinds of tubes—which, in some cases, we do—this starts looking more interesting. Beyond that, you can start playing with a pie-in-the-sky seamlessly-switchable tube/solid-state “fusion” design, but that ain’t gonna be easy or quick to market.

Start our own tube factory. Ahhhhhhh...no. That's, ah...kinda bonkers. And even if we did have a line on an old tube factory, complete with fixtures, that's not going to be a real solution in 3-6 months. Maybe 36 months. Maybe.

And now, what you’ve probably been scrolling for…

…what’s gonna happen with current products?

Freya+. Since Freya+ uses 4 6SN7 tubes, it’s the biggest tube hog in our line. It’s the one that always puts us in tube backorder. And now, with new-production 6SN7 supply iffy, it’s the one we have to address first. Unfortunately, our stockpile of 6N8S aren’t easily usable here—they are fairly microphonic in Freya. So here’s what we’re doing:

• Selling without tubes. You can already buy Freya+ without tubes. Find some cool NOS tubes, and you’re set.
• Rolling LISST back in. When LISST comes back, it’ll go in Freya. Then you’re set with “tubes” until you add in your NOS tubes.
• Considering a Noval version. “Noval” tubes are 9-pin tubes, like those used in Valhalla. The 6N1P is a great noval tube, and we have a ton of them…and a good option to replace the 6SN7. However, the circuit needs some tweaks; you can’t just plop 6N1Ps on adapters into Freya.

Saga+. Using only a single 6SN7 tube, Saga isn’t so terrible. It can also use the stockpile of 6N8S tubes we have without significant microphonic issues. So expect to see it shipping with 6N8S. When LISST comes back, that’s another option.

Lyr 3. Another single-6SN7 tube product. We’re currently OK shipping these with new-production 6SN7 tubes, but don’t be surprised if we have to start shipping with 6N8S as well. LISST would be a good option here as well.

Valhalla 2. Surprisingly, we’re OK on this, at least for now. We have a lot of 6N1P and 6N6P tubes. Eventually, we’ll run out. But I’ve been saying “eventually” for 10 years now. For the moment, no changes.

Vali 2+. We’re almost out of 6BZ7, and we’re not sure how gettable a new-production, say, JJ 6922 will be. Fortunately, we began stockpiling an alternate tube before the current crisis. Unfortunately, it will require a small redesign. So don’t be surprised if Vali 2+ gets a minor tweak. But we do plan to keep selling these as well.

Folkvangr. The crazy 10-tube amp? Ironically, it was designed (at least in part) to use up our large stock of 6N6P tubes. Given the current situation, it would be most logical to kill it, to preserve tube stocks. But it’s very far along to production. So we’ll make at least one run of these! However, don’t expect this to be an ongoing product, unless things radically change.

And that’s what we know right now.


Is It Truly the End of Tube World As We Know It?

Like I said at the beginning, I don’t know. I don’t have all the answers.

What I do know is that our tube supply was, ah, profoundly constraining before Russian tubes were taken out of the picture. Which means that it’s gonna be even more constrained now. Which means we need to make some changes to how we do tube products.

If we do it right, you’ll be able to continue enjoying tube gear, without crazy price increases or worse out-of-stock situations.

And if we do it really really right, and get a little lucky…maybe we’ll even be able to help start an entirely new tube world!

As always, we’ll see…if, in the end, I feel fine.

So, I ordered a Freya+ about 2 weeks ago. Am I Schiit outta luck? . All kidding aside, when I ordered it, it was labeled as being on a rolling backorder of 2-4 weeks. Does this announcement change that backorder status at all? FYI, I did send an email to the Orders department basically asking the same thing.

 

[Jason Stoddard]

So, I ordered a Freya+ about 2 weeks ago. Am I Schiit outta luck? . All kidding aside, when I ordered it, it was labeled as being on a rolling backorder of 2-4 weeks. Does this announcement change that backorder status at all? FYI, I did send an email to the Orders department basically asking the same thing.

You're set, we have tubes for the current run.