"Brian Gaff" wrote in message
news
Its purely because of mass production of course. once the main factories
making valves got below a certain number prices started going up, and vice
versa for semiconductors of course.
I think one has to be careful if buying the Chinese copies of valves
around at the current time, as quality control is almost non existent,
though some Russian ones are made a lot better I'm told.


Well, I must have been leading a *charmed life* all these years and didn't
know it!!

First, I have never had anything like the 'normal failure rate' in vinyl
that others appear to have experienced and, to top that, I have never had
any problems with a variety of Chinese valves that have passed through my
hands - that's no problems whatsoever, AFAICR...??

CF2 miniature pentode/triode input valves were indistinguishable from
Mullard EC82 (?) replacements; Shuguan EL34 and various Chinese 300B output
valves all worked and sounded perfectly fine - including Golden Dragons
branded 'Audio Note' and 'Chelmer'!

Pity I can't have the same luck with lottery tickets!

@:-)


(In fact, I'd go as far as to say that all my valve and rectifier failures
have beeen Russian and whatever JJ Tesla is!!??)