I know this is a few week old thread. Just a few data points for your consideration:
1. Electro Harmonix which is owned by an American (Mike Matthews) owns the New Sensor plant in Russia that produces the tubes under the Tung-Sol, Electro-Harmonix, EH Gold, Genalex Gold Lion, Mullard, Svetlana and Sovtek brands.
2. Only two other sources globally: JJ tubes which is in Croatia and PSVane from China. Both JJ and PS Vane are much smaller suppliers and have already been dealing with 6-month back orders as they try to ramp up manufacturing which was impacted by the COVID pandemic. Their 6-month back orders pre-dated Russia's incursion into the Ukraine and the subsequent export ban of the 200 products cited above by Mike Matthews in mulveling's post above kicking off this thread.
3. Mike Matthews has subsequently come out with a statement saying that EH has figured out how to resume exports from their New Sensor plant in Russia (
Electro-Harmonix says export ban on Russian tubes has been lifted, warns of tariffs, higher prices and shortages | MusicRadar), however, "in a statement released by EHX founder Mike Matthews, the company were prioritising existing orders, and hope to resume shipping in April. But Matthews warned of price rises, tariffs on exports, and inevitable tube shortages further down the line."
4. As we all know, only two main niche industries use vacuum tubes: hifi and guitar amp manufacturers. The market isn't big enough to attract new suppliers plus finding knowledgeable folks who know the ins and outs of how to manufacture tubes is difficult and the equipment used to manufacture tubes is antiquated (much the same problem we see with vinyl production where pressing plants have to buy old pressing machines and refurbish if they can find any or use the machines they buy for parts for their existing equipment that need to be fixed/maintained). The economics to justify investment in new facilities that can manufacture at scale are not there hence we will remain in a supply-constrained world.
I am not making any political statements here. Just presenting the facts.
I sent my Audio Research Ref CD7 and Ref 110 amplifier to be serviced right after Thanks Giving. I also bought a replacement tube set for my Ref 3 from ARC. The CD7 and the Ref 3 tube set got back to me right before the outbreak of the Russian-Ukranian war (ARC had a 8-10 week wait time on their repairs as they are down to 1.5 technicians as they had a few experienced folks leave during COVID pandemic). So my Ref 110 is still there and I received an email from them saying that they don't have visibility on when they will get restocked on tubes for their repairs/servicing units(I am assuming they are using what tube inventories they have on hand to put into their production units and maybe to service units still under warranty coverage). So I am hoping that with the hopeful resumption of tube exports in April from New Sensor in Russia that this tube shortage phenomenon will start to alleviate in the coming months. In the meantime, the unscrupulous online sellers that have used old tubes or supposedly good condition NOS tubes are marking up crappy product by 300-500% (and in some cases even more).
Crazy times we live in but clearly this is a wake up call to the niche hifi and guitar amp industries and it may spell the eventual demise of the vacuum tube amplifier as we know it.
