Western Electric looking for consumer feedback to make new tubes!

It would be awesome to see another US manufacturer succeed

Question from a newbie regarding tubes: what are the most “valuable” tubes that WE could produce?

As a small manufacturer, WE needs to produce tubes for which they can charge a lot - if they want to fill spare manufacturing capacity, they need to do it with relatively specialized tubes catering to customers who would pay anything. Question for the group: is that something like 211s? 2a3s? 45s? @aricaudio your insight greatly appreciated by the group

If they want to get bigger in a healthy way, then they’d drop down a notch in price level and address a bigger market with an ultra-premium product ($600 845s whatever)

I think WE would need to become much bigger before producing a more common tube like an EL34, and even then will always need to position as an ultra-premium product. WE can take a big share of market profits without taking a big share of market unit sales

An analogy would be the way in which Porsche expanded its product line from the 911, to the Boxsters, to SUVs, to sedans. They sell a lot more cars, all of which enjoy high levels of customer loyalty, and all which are expensive

BTW, I’ve surely missed a bunch of ways one could think about this idea, so alternative views requested!

Have a great day

@aricaudio - thank you so much for the response - I believe the thread to which you refer is posted above. Perhaps then WE’s next best tube is the 6SN7, for which there is a lot of demand (and hence the ability to create a premium segment)

And thanks again for your ongoing personal support of these forums - it’s a pleasure to hear from people like yourself and @atmasphere  who bring so much professional expertise to these discussions