LOL

[Scuffcakes]

At a low point in my life, when I was between jobs and needed money, I sold cars ( I know, lowest of the low).  It surprised me at first how many people came in there pretty much just begging to be ripped off.  I go outta that gig as soon as I could but the startling realization that people with disposable income are incredibly stupid about how they spend it has colored my view of the world since.

 

[bbl4ck]

At a low point in my life, when I was between jobs and needed money, I sold cars ( I know, lowest of the low). 

Hey, at least you were not a lawyer!  Or, I guess these days you could say at least you were not a member of congress.
Question: How do you know when a lawyer is lying?
Answer: Their lips are moving...

 

[Great Ape]

Wait, wait, WAIT!!!! Are you telling me that knobs DON'T affect your sound?!? :sad:

 

[Scuffcakes]

Wait, wait, WAIT!!!! Are you telling me that knobs DON'T affect your sound?!? :sad:

Not at all.  Turn 'em one way and it sounds different than the other way.


Oh, you meant...  :doh:  Nevermind.

 

[hannaugh]

Yes, knobs greatly contribute to the tone, and you have to get "vintage correct" pickup rings otherwise you ruin your guitar's mojo. 

The thing that drives me nuts about some of these parts is that they seriously just took a regular plastic part and damaged it.  They want you to pay $210 for a damaged piece of plastic that I'm willing to bet nobody except the OCD owner will notice looks any different than if they just bought a regular part.

 

[Super Turbo Deluxe Custom]

Separating the tone chaser from their money, actual or perceived, is also quite easy.  The boutiqueiest, point to pointiest, hand wirediest, vintage correctiest tube amp comes with the nicest Eastern European or Chinese tubes money can buy.  If you have a stash of old US made ones, they will expire eventually. 

It seems a perfect oppurtunity for some enterprising individual to crank out U.S. made tubes for guitar amps.  Afterall, a U.S. made boutique amp with a U.S. made guitar can't have tubes that speak with an accent even if the guitar's woods do.  Oh no.  The only problem I could see, besides the know how, is the $2 million bank loan to, and I quote, "build and sell what?"   

 

[Cagey]

$2M wouldn't even begin to cover the bribes you'd need, let alone comply with the 82 bajillion regulations you'd have to comply with just to open the doors. That doesn't include the cost of building/leasing a facility, fighting the unions, tooling and setting the place up, and actually manufacturing anything. Probably add about $250M for that, if you're lucky. You wanna make vacuum tubes in the US? No problem. As long as you can get about $150/ea for them in large quantities, and there's no market for large quantities. Why do you think nobody makes them here?

There are roughly 2 places to get tubes now, and they make them using political prisoners on ancient equipment. They're widely binned, so some distributors get better parts than others. Outside of the military needs of some third-world countries with ancient military equipment and some guitar amp manufacturers, there's no demand for them at all. Why would anybody go into that business?

Besides, have you ever heard an Axe Fx?

Tubes are dead.

 

[Super Turbo Deluxe Custom]

There are places in this great land where unions do not control the work and union labor is actually hard to find, I'm in a labor union. 

No market for tubes (and tube amps by extension), and tubes are dead?  I'll write that down.

I'd argue that household appliances that no longer use tubes, radios and TVs, killed the U.S. tube market.  The companies that made tubes then that are still around today still make tubes, just not the ones we want.  There is a demand, just not lucrative enough for GE to do it.  The boutique market is the biggest it's ever been.  If people are throwing down $210 for pickup rings, what would they pay for U.S. made preamp and power tubes?  Especially in this backwards renaissance where American Astronauts go into space in Russian space capsules and CD sales fall while vinyl is going up.

 

[hannaugh]

Thread detour:  To be fair, cds are dead because of mp3s, not vinyl.  Vinyl is going up, but that just means 1% of the population is buying it as opposed to .5%, and it that's because it's a collector thing, not a technological thing.  A ton of people I know who buy them do it just for the album art. 

I don't know what the hell some peoples' beef is with NASA though, considering they're actually one of the only government industries that has consistently made a profit since it started.  I wish we would expand the space program. 

Okay back to regularly schedule programming.  Continue.

 

[Super Turbo Deluxe Custom]

Well, with all that American made tubes would sell.  They wouldn't even have to be good at 3 or 4 times the price of their counterparts.

 

[Cagey]

Come up with a viable business plan for making tubes, and any bank will loan you the money to bring it to life. So, go for it!

 

[Super Turbo Deluxe Custom]

I want to buy them, not make them.  I'm much happier working for someone else.