What are we going to do about Tele 12AU7 prices

@mozartfan 

Fortunately, Tele 12au7’s aren’t the holy grail of the 12au7 family or nearly as coveted as Tele 12ax7’s. You shouldnt have to look too hard to equal or better their performance.

I guess it depends more on your gear. What are you running and what sound qualities do you appreciate most?

Well said @bob540

The art of the hobby on the tube side of things is to properly match the system. Obvious I know but there is alot of terrific sounding gear that doesn't require an esoteric tube set to sound exceptional. For instance, Audio Note ships with a nice blend of new production tubes with the occasional NOS tube here or there. Shindo utilizes non traditional tubes that can be quite inexpensive. Leben sounds amazing with all new production tubes and with rare exceptions, rolling in NOS doesn't necessarily mean better....just a little different. These manufacturers voice their gear that way. Audio Research uses reasonably priced new production tubes and they achieve terrific results and besides, other than some of the unobtainable Reflektors, there are no other makes in 6h30's or KT150's.

For most of us in the hobby, NOS tubes can emphasize certain sonic traits that we either enjoy being overemphasized or more likely, certain NOS tubes help us OVERCOME the shortcomings of the gear we have chosen.  Be it vintage, new production or gear that comes equipped with questionable quality new production tube sets, there are some wonderful tubes being made today for audio purposes.

My next comment applies to me and to many others I am sure. I buy a piece of gear and let it break in, and I love it. Then I decide if its good as is, imagine how good it could/would be if I rolled in X, Y or Z NOS tubes. SOME modern gear can benefit from NOS tubes but not always. MOST vintage gear benefits from NOS tubes but not always. Listen to an old Scott 222c full of NOS Teles and an old Mullard rectifier and you wonder why we even bother to chase the grail when that 60 year old integrated sounds that good. I've connected mine to $20k+ speakers and a $10k + dac and I just shake my head. Its the cocktail of the old iron, well done circuits and the best of tube manufacturing from a time when tubes were mission critical. With that said, there is some amazing new gear being manufactured today that show just how far the art has evolved.

@bob540


You are correct.

So, wouldn’t the tubes provided with the equipment be ones that the manufacturer thinks are pretty good? For the relatively low cost of the Freya+, they could include other, more costly tubes and charge a few hundreds bucks extra, and people would pay that. Right?

Many manufacturers do this very thing. In fact, Schiit used to do this…they offered the Freya with a base level tube set and an unpgraded tube set for an extra fee. At least in Schiit’s case, they are manufacturing to a price point and a basic performance goal. Their business model isn’t to make an all out assault on the state of the art, add up the cost, calculate a profit margin and then set the price. In many cases it would appear that they determine a function, determine a pricepoint and then finalize the design of their offering.

Manufacturers also must consider consistency across their desired product run. For knstance, Audio Note may desire to produce 1,000 units of the XYZ integrated over a 10 year period. Maybe it has 4 XYZ tubes inside so they must stockpile or have access to 4,000 XYZ tubes plus, say, another 5,000 to cover warranties and retubes. So, when speccing the tube they need to spec where they can access 9-10,000 of this type type. Bespoke manufacturers like Shindo or Kondo might do limited runs of 20 pieces which reduces considerably the tube stockpile required. I would venture to guess that Schiit has no plan to produce anything remotely approching a small batch of anything. If they could sell 100,000 Freyas they would. Therefore, they will always spec their gear with the widest production of tube types to ensure product consistency. No serious manufacturer is going to spec a large batch product with an extremely limited tube as in rarer NOS varietals.

Rgearding power cords, if you are a manufacturer, there are too many variables to consider. For instance, in my home with dedicated circuits, a power cord may not need to solve the power problems that might exist in someone elses home. Some manufacturers do ship with upgraded cords (Aqua) while others engineer and voice their products to a specific cord (Shindo). Manufacturers who sell through a retail channel may also recognize that their dealer network is going to sell and pair their own power cord recommendations because that is a material part of their retail business model. Talk to a competent electronics manufacturer and they will shrug their shoulders in many cases about the efficacy of aftermarket wire/cable. I use them anyway because I’ve gulped the coolaid but the guys at Schiit call BS on alot of the high end voodoo.