Everything which was done from engineers in that time was for professional use and there was also a lot of competition. Reliability, heat management was a serious chapter on its own. The comeback of tubes is for High End only with all its negative facts (cheap production, lousy wires inside, marketing, Distributor chain, no real knowledge from the modern buyers, too).
On the other side, some NOS are really expensive, real NOS became rare and even burned down tubes with a famous name are totally overpriced. And it is normal that all those who deal with old tubes have only bad words about new ones. In a way they are responsible that for some old - expensive - ones the price went down.
Compared to these prices the new ones are ok. And as usual, you find from everything average, good or better ones. It is the same rule valid like for all "High End" products: when no one has a clue from something, you will get products where the manufacturer says: It is good enough for you. Be it Turntable, Arms, reissue vinyl, Phono Stages....and so on. "They fix it in the marketing".
And the Chinese (and others) do exactly that and not for a dime more. Russian Jet Fighter tubes are the way to go when you want something serious for a fair price. But unfortunately, they did not use 300B, 12AX7....
On the other side, some NOS are really expensive, real NOS became rare and even burned down tubes with a famous name are totally overpriced. And it is normal that all those who deal with old tubes have only bad words about new ones. In a way they are responsible that for some old - expensive - ones the price went down.
Compared to these prices the new ones are ok. And as usual, you find from everything average, good or better ones. It is the same rule valid like for all "High End" products: when no one has a clue from something, you will get products where the manufacturer says: It is good enough for you. Be it Turntable, Arms, reissue vinyl, Phono Stages....and so on. "They fix it in the marketing".
And the Chinese (and others) do exactly that and not for a dime more. Russian Jet Fighter tubes are the way to go when you want something serious for a fair price. But unfortunately, they did not use 300B, 12AX7....