Any Recent News On A Lawsuit About Tubes?

[crunchee]

I heard about this about a year or so ago, been Googling the subject tonight but found nothing about a verdict, or if it got dismissed, or even if it's still going on. Here's a link that gives as much solid info about what it's about as I can find:

http://www.audiokarma.org/forums/showthread.php?t=416146

The web address for Ryan Inman's "Hot Glass Audio" website still exists, but all it does is send you to a black, blank screen.

I dunno if any tube sellers went under because of it. That apparently was the initial worry when the lawsuit got filed. I do know that Angela Instruments used to sell tubes...a LOT of them, but now they don't. Is that because of this lawsuit?

Anybody know what the latest is about this...or if there even IS a latest, regarding this? TIA!

[marcnorth]

As someone said in that thread we used to play with the stuff at school back in the 60's. It would make a worn out dull silver coin shine like a new one.

[gtone]

Talk about a frivolous class action case. Stuff like this makes me sick, frankly. We have a lawyer down the road from us that specializes in taking cases on like this. He gives lawyers a bad name with his tactics. I imagine many lawyers practicing in other more respected aspects of the law (our own stevieconlon, perhaps?) despise some of these sleezeballs, as it tends to tarnish the integrity of the profession on the whole.

[crunchee]

That's why I was wondering about the fallout from the case...did just the threat of being sued to oblivion put the fear of God and a screeching halt to some vintage tube sellers/resellers? Plus, what was the result? Did the case get thrown out like the obvious money grab that it was?

I used to get vintage and used vintage tubes several years ago from Antique Electronic Supply, as well as Angela Instruments. AES still sells tubes, but they're all NEW Chinese, Russian, or Eastern European stuff that you can get practically anywhere, not the occasional vintage bargains that they used to have. I wonder if RoHS had anything to do with all this, too?

[JohnnyB]

That's why I was wondering about the fallout from the case...did just the threat of being sued to oblivion put the fear of God and a screeching halt to some vintage tube sellers/resellers? Plus, what was the result?

I used to get vintage and used vintage tubes several years ago from Antique Electronic Supply, as well as Angela Instruments. AES still sells tubes, but they're all NEW Chinese, Russian, or Eastern European stuff that you can get practically anywhere, not the occasional vintage bargains that they used to have.

You need to cast a wider net. I find plenty of NOS tubes on the sites I've always habituated. However, it stands to reason that the NOS tubes that were affordable in 1998 (when I did most of my buying) are scarce and expensive now, and the ones that were scarce and expensive then (e.g., a European 5AR4) are either astronomically priced or simply not to be found now. In 1998 I scored NOS RCA greyglass 6V6GTs regularly for $12/per with free matching, and Philips mil-stock 12AX7WA's for $11-15 each. You won't be doing that these days. In fact, while you can find some excellent NOS 6V6s these days, the RCA greyglasses are apparently pretty scarce. The source where I got mine simply doesn't have any. But he still has plenty of other stuff from the '50s.

[crunchee]

Good for you. It still doesn't answer my question about the lawsuit or if it affected sellers.

[JohnnyB]

Good for you. It still doesn't answer my question about the lawsuit or if it affected sellers.

Well, it's hard to say if it affected sellers. It obviously didn't affect all sellers because there are plenty of NOS sellers out there with stock from the '40s to the '80s. It's just that their offerings show the signs of dwindling supplies because they've been consumed. They are getting more imaginative and less purist--rebadges, white box, pulls from Hammond organs, etc. If the lawsuit was killing the NOS commerce, none of these imaginative sources of NOS and lightly-used pulls would be surfacing. I think the rise in Chinese and eastern European supplies has more to do with availability than a lawsuit. Many vendors are offering whatever NOS tubes they can still come up with.