How come that NOS is better them NS new stock ?


There is a lot "tube equipment" threads on this forum. After hearing some good tube amps, Lamm, Hovland, BAT, Cary I could understand why people are buying and making so much fuss about it. I with every passing months closer to invest some money in "obsolete" technology :)
They really sound better then their modern SS counterparts. But I do not understand why people at any price are trying to replace their NS (new stock) tubes for NOS tubes. Do not we have progress in electronic industry? I believe that nobody is using anymore black and white TV, old picture tube should be better then new ones, is it not? But people seems to buy instead, new ones...
So how come, old tubes seems to be better for everybody here? How|Why they sound better?
Maybe SS on old germane transistors form 50's would be better too?
Maybe old resistors would be better too? It does not make any sens to me.
sorlowski
This has been covered in detail both here and @ AA. Suffice to say these are the facts:

NOS are better, in basically all cases. (I have come across one new production tube that betters any NOS version, but that's it. And I have thousands of tubes.)

The quality of NOS will never be equalled again, for many reasons.

The prices are going to continue to go up, for NOS stuff. Every day there is one less mullard/amperex/etc. in the world - but never any more new ones.

Newbee, this is an uninformed opinion: "tube design is fairly well settled - not much new coming along." I have to disagree on that. There's quite a bit of new development going on in tube design. You won't see it from big commercial manufacturers though. It's all happening at the one-man-band level. Some of these things are new, others are re-discoveries of things known and done back in the 1920s and 30s and revived for modern use. But in fact I think if anything, more, not less, development and innovation is happening in tube audio than SS amps. The few 'new' things to SS are: The advent of so-called digital amps; Increased use of switch-mode power supplies by more manufacturers (not really new, just more in vogue now), The Gaincard (chip amps); and The Aleph line from Nelson Pass (among some of his other innovations). These are the only things I can think of in SS recently that can be considered somewhat 'new' at all. The 'new' things in tube audio are numerous enough that I don't have the energy to write them all down (and even then I am sure I'd miss some, there is so much.)

FWIW,
-Ed
I am curious, Ed. What is the single new production tube that beats all NOS versions?
Hi Sorlowski-

I suggest you go to www.vacuumtube.com. Place an order for The Vacuum Tube Valley Quarterly, Issue 19. Read the article “Why NOS Tubes Are Better”. This article provides and excellent discussion regarding NOS vs. new production tubes. This issue also contains a shootout for 6550/KT88 tubes in both guitar and hi-fi applications.

Regards,
Don
I believe I have read there are environmental considerations in the materials and practices of manufacturing tubes that weren't in place years ago (when the NOS tubes were made). This is not uncommon as air emission and materials waste disposal issues have a much larger impact on manufacturing than even 15 years ago. I remember just enough to be dangerous here, and cannot remember specifically what it was about the environmental considerations (maybe the use of lead or some other metal?), or how that would affect the quality of the tubes, so maybe some of the more tube-literate folks here can help out.
Emissions Labs 45 betters all vintage 45s (including globes of course) that I have heard.

BTW, Don_b - VTV has a bit of a conflict of interest in an opinion like that (not that I disagree with them), since they sell NOS tubes (at inflated prices, IMHO). I'd take their shootouts with a grain of salt for the same reason.

Ed