Laugh all you want - after rolling tubes through my amps till I was blue in the face, I genuinely preferred the sound of the Genalex Gold Lion and the Gold Pin EH12AX7 to any / every other preamp tube I had tried. I totally get that the gold plating likely does absolutely nothing. But I also get that it is at least reasonable to think that EH and Genalex start with the highest rated tubes for their ‘gold’ designation. I think I may have 6 of each on my shelf - in addition to the ones in my amps right now. I used to buy them for about $20 - $25 a piece. Now sets are hovering around $80 per tube - $250 for a set of 3? $320 for a set of 4????
I cannot believe that the Russian export ban is now permanent. In today’s hyper connected global economy, a nation the size of Russia cannot just step away from the word market indefinitely. There will come a time when zero imports and zero exports will choke their economy out. It may take quite a while, but the optimist in me says ‘this too shall pass’ and fine Russian Vodka, caviar, oil and vacuum tubes will once again litter our US shelves - and the backlog from the previous period of no sales will probably cause prices to drop lower than they were before the import/export clamp down.
I‘m not about to panic and snap up existing dealer stock at 4x markup (remember, tube re-sellers bought current inventory LONG before this sh*t started…) only to see prices return to normal LONG before any of my current inventory of 12AX7s gives up.