Why do old tubes sound better than current tubes?

Nostalgia?

Does Flo Rida or the Black Eyed Peas sound better with NOS tubes?

I found this and thought it interesting:

NOS

"some old tubes sound great, some sound like crap, some new tubes sound great, some like crap"

I suspect this to be true.

" I've bought tubes that are claimed to be NOS from supposedly reputable sellers that test pretty mediocre on a good, modern tube tester (Amplitrex)."

So are they real NOS tubes or not? PErhaps NOS tubes are just not always the cats meow? They are old after all. Most electronic devices decline with age.

"Also, there is such a wide variety of voicing of older tubes that it is easy to come up with simply wrong tubes for a particular application. "

I think one must be willing to experiment with lots of different tubes to find the best. Buying overpriced NOS tubes just because they are NOS will break the bank sooner and perhaps actually prevent one from finding the right tubes perhaps?

Does Flo Rida or the Black Eyed Peas sound better with NOS tubes?

"Nothing would make these guys sound good on anything other than an MP3 player, IMO. ;-)"

I use stock 12AX7 tubes in my ARC sp16 tube pre-amp and BEPs sound just they way they should to me and mega miles better, no comparison, than on an Ipod with earbuds which typically has very limited dynamics.

BLindjim,

Never thought about it but you are right. New old stock sounds like marketing jibberish. Its old, oh but its new! Oh sorry but I meant unused, not new. How do I know it was never used? Well, it reads like new. Yeah right! Funny.

I agree tube rolling can yield benefits, but the book is still open for me on the merit of NOS versus otherwise. I may never know though because so far for me, the fewer tubes, the better. And I like the few that I already have!

I still think nostalgia is part of it.

Old tube gear had a certain sound different than modern gear. part of it was the tubes perhaps but also the overall state of eletronics design 50 years ago compared to now.

Old tubes in good condition still perhaps deliver that sound compared to more modern high end sounds.

The old tubes perhaps are more in the rhythm and smoothness camp and the newer ones more in the detail and resolution camp?

I'm sure there are exceptions, but that is my theory. I have too little actual experience with a variety of tubes these days to say for sure.

Similar to old low res TV versus newer HD TVs. You can see more details in HD but not everything is more beautiful in HD necessarily!