From tremolu–(at)–ol.com Sat Oct 1 00:22:56 CDT 1994
Article: 29027 of rec.music.makers.guitar
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From: tremolu–(at)–ol.com (Tremolux)
Newsgroups: rec.music.makers.guitar
Subject: Re: Re-biasing after retubing
Date: 30 Sep 1994 21:54:05 -0400
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Groove Tubes 6L6s????? Bend over and grab your ankles, GT just reamed out
your bank account. Those damn things are the most over rated, over hyped
and way over priced things around. You just threw a whole wad of money
out the window, Aspen Pitman thanks you all the way to the bank.
Here’s the straight shit on Groove Tubes. They currently offer 3 kinds of
6L6 tubes: 1. – Chinese shit aka commie firecrackers (POW!!)(6L6C), 2. –
Russian Sovtek 5881’s, not too bad, reliable, sound ok (6L6B), and 3. – GE
6L6GC, American NOS, their best, good sounding, powerful (6L6 “Old
Style”). Which ones did you buy? Their prices are OUTRAGEOUS.
Avoid the Chinese stuff altogether, it sounds lame, dosn’t last long, and
falls short performance wise. This leaves Russian or NOS GE. Antique
Electronics in Tempe, AZ can fix you up with a matched pair of either for
about 1/4 the price you’d pay GT. They’re the same damn tubes, why the
hell pay so much more for GT’s testing and re-painting????? I’ve been
doing business with Antique for a long time, and they haven’t let me down
yet. All GT does is buy tubes from suppliers, tests them and matches
them, re-paints them, and re-sells them.
Let’s examine GT’s margins, by looking at the Sovtek 5881, the tube they
sell as the 6L6B. In the large quantities they buy them, they pay about
$5.00 or less per tube. They then re-sell matched pairs at a list price
of (I think) $110.00. Now, let’s assume the yield is 75% (which should be
easy with the 5881 since they’re very consistent and fairly reliable),
this gives a per-tube cost of $7.50 or so. Now the testing, which they do
in large lots, probably costs them about $5.00 per tube in labor. This
now brings the tube cost to about $12.50. They would then put the pairs
together for about $25.00. Wholesale price would then be $50 per pair,
and your local retailer sells them for $100. Antique will sell a matched
pair of these Russian 5881s, the very same damn tube, for less than $20.
A matched pair of GEs will go for less than $40, where I think they list
for $150 from GT. Hey, if you have that much money to spend, I have a
good stock of tubes I’ll sell you at a discount off the GT price.
Just my 2 cents worth.
Regards.
