I personally think companies like New Sensor have a lot of nerve for buying the rights to the names of some of the most famous tube companies and declaring their tubes to be "reissues/exact copies" of the original. From New Sensor's website describing their 'Gold Lion' KT-88: "After extensive research and engineering, New Sensor Corp. has reissued the famed Genalex Gold Lion KT88. This tube has been recreated down to the finest detail..."
I give New Sensor credit for doing a good job of duplicating the original tube boxes, but anyone who thinks they are getting anything close to a real Mullard, Tung Sol, or Gold Lion tube is sadly mistaken. The ironic thing is that Sovtek makes some really good tubes. Even though 'Tung Sol' is getting the credit for the KT-120 and KT-150 tubes, they are purely Russian tubes that can stand on their own Russian legs (or pins).
And no, China isn't making 'real' GE tubes either. As I have said before, WE spent years trying to bring their 300B tube back into production. WE had the advantage of having the original drawings, build of materials, spec sheets, procedures, and the original equipment that was used to manufacture the 300B. All the King's horses and all the King's men couldn't put the 300B back together again and make it sound just like the original ones. WE went out of 300B production again (choose your reason/excuse here). So just because you have the original machinery that a particular tube brand and type were made on, what makes anyone think that is going to ensure a duplicate of the original tube? Trust me, it won't.
