ampage
Tube Amps / Music Electronics
For current discussions, please visit Music Electronics Forum.

ampage archive

Vintage threads from the first ten years

Search for:  Mode:  

 

previous: Lee The "problem" with most companies i... -- 10/10/1999 3:52 PM view thread

Re: sovtech 12ax7LPS

10/13/1999 4:02 AM
Uncle Ned
Re: sovtech 12ax7LPS
>The "problem" with most companies in ex-communist and 3rd >world countries is that they wouldn't know a quality system >from a sound system. They are probably still thinking you >can inspect quality in after the fact rather than build >into the design and manufacturing process.  
 
Actually, a lot of what the Russians know about making tubes they learned from...guess who...Americans. A whole lot of  
Russian tubes are knockoffs of RCA and even Western Electric tubes from the 40's. Since the Russians were getting loads of Lend-Lease equipment from the USA during WW2, it only made sense that they'd make copies of US tubes, and were probably given and probably instructed in the details by Americans (probably RCA, given how close some of their tubes are copies of 1940's RCA items).  
 
I'm sure Russian engineers got copies of all sorts  
of US literature on tube making, like this one:  
http://www.triodeel.com/quality1.html  
which describes quality control procedures in US  
factories, and where it's stated "Quality cannot be  
inspected into a tube-quality must be built in".  
 
Russians can make decent tubes, it's just a question  
as to whether they care enough to or not.