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Old 31st Jul 2021, 5:05 pm   #2
GrimJosef
Dekatron
 
Join Date: Sep 2007
Location: Oxfordshire, UK.
Posts: 4,310
Default Re: £10,000 wooden-cased valve amplifiers

Quote:
Originally Posted by David G4EBT View Post
... I can't imagine what these valves cost:

https://www.definitiveaudio.co.uk/pr...0b-valves.html ...
A matched pair of the new production Western Electric 300Bs will set you back $1500, plus whatever it costs to get them here from the USA, where they're made. I imagine they might be £1500 in this country. According to the ONS https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentand...y-earnings-awe that would amount to a bit less than three weeks' average earnings.

My 1939 Osram Pocket Guide lists PX25s as costing 20/- each, so £2 for a pair. In 1939 the average weekly earnings seemed to be about 65/- https://www.measuringworth.com/index.php. So a pair of comparable valves would have set you back a bit more than 60% of a week's wages.

So the price has gone up perhaps 4-5 times, in real terms. That is a big hike. But given that audio triodes were being mass-produced in 1939 whereas it's pretty much a cottage industry now, the price doesn't seem too unreasonable.

Sadly most of us can remember the 1970's, when valves were being sold for 'scrap' prices. So spending a hefty chunk of our salary on them now seems like madness. The fact, however, is that it's the 1970's prices which were madness. It's just hard for us to grasp that.

Cheers,

GJ
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