Fender Buys Groove Tubes - What's the impact

[zaphod_phil]

My take on Fender's purchase of GT is that business will continue pretty much as usual. While GT is a profit-making operation, Fender has no need to mess with it. So everyone who wants to buy Groove Tubes for their amp, will have no problem doing so. Maybe some of Fenders' competitors may decide to review their policy towards using Groove Tubes. However, as has been pointed out, manufacturers like Groove Tubes for their reliability, due to the fact the tubes are tested to h*ll and back (with the exception of their Mullardish GT12AX7Ms).

And maybe this will also encourage Fender to produce more tube amps, now that they have their own internal cost-price supply of tubes. GT will no doubt also benefit from Fender's marketing. So look out for Fender-funded GT advertising all over the place.

It appears that Pittman will stay on with the company, according to his letter - http://www.groovetubes.com/assets/1769_ ... letter.pdf And while he's there, it's unlikely they'll change location either. Once he's gone, then they would be at the mercy of Fender's bean counters.. One thing we can be sure of is that Aspen Pittman has become a very wealthy man.

[rjgtr]

Groove Tubes for their reliability, due to the fact the tubes are tested to h*ll and back (with the exception of their Mullardish GT12AX7Ms).

Which is so curious. I'd include their EL34Ms too, since I had one die after three or four months of pretty light use. It's their own designed and manufactured stuff they have the most issues with, not the rebranded tubes.

[Francis_Vaughan]

The tubes in my Pro Jr were actually Fender rebranded GrooveTube rebranded Sovteks I wish I still had it I'd post a pic...

Something like this perhaps?

[sub]

i have never seen a "rebranded-rebranded" tube.....

[rjgtr]

Well it's really just dual- rebranded tube since the Fender and Groove Tube labels were applied at the same time!

[rowman]

I had known Paul Patronette (Mercury Magnetics/Groove Tubes) and Rick Benson (Groove Tubes) probably ever since GT got started. I was always calling for schematics or technical questions to Red. I love those guys in that they're truly dedicated to helping the musicians that they are/were serving. On the other hand I can't speak for Aspen Pittman's actions. Personally I think Aspen's a sellout to both his people and his product line. At first the quality control with GT "stamped" tube brands were great. In latter years, somebody was really asleep at the wheel in their quality control department as I purchased more faulty tubes than I cared to remember. It's one thing to charge exorbitant prices for nominal quality tubes. However, with the advanced GT testing system as advertised by the GT team, GT should have been the forerunners of selecting quality current production tube lines. This is part of the high cost of their tubes, tossing out the bad ones. The only thing was that GT started shipping the bad tubes to the consumers while still retaining the higher costs. It's unfortunate, but present tube production be it from China, Russia, Slovakia, etc. all have problematic issues. I've read enough on the web to note that, whatever tube reviewed by one user will be slammed by another as having construction or voltage handling issues. Does'nt matter what it is you will find a detractor somewhere, and I believe they're all legitimate claims. If you had just (1) company that did nothing but process all the currently manufactured tubes for the highest quality tubes from each batch, there would be a massive amount of lost revenue due to sub-standard quality tubes having to be tossed by the vacuum tube manufacturers.

[rick32559]

The impact would be Aspen Pittman`s wallet getting attacked by major cash.

[supah]

all this rebranding is ridiculous! lol

are groove tubes notoriously bad...? never played with them or heard them before...

[CurtissRobin]

GT started out great then they began believing their own press releases were gospel and they got sloppy. There was enough of that bad mojo to sully the GT name bigtime and long term. Who'd have thought that musicians would notice bad tubes with a [formerly] good name.

While some people avoid GT entirely, I think of it now the way I think of produce. I know that they're not all bad but I carefully check those carrots before putting 'em in my basket.

KennyO

[zaphod_phil]

Usually they're just some usually mediocre re-badged Russian or Chinese tubes. Their tone is about OK, neither fantastic nor poor, but their reputation is for reliability, since they have the heck tested out of them before they get shipped out. At least that's the theory. Recently I hear worrying reports of some reliability issues coming up as well. So I generally don't bother with GTs, as a result....

[supah]

Who'd have thought that musicians would notice bad tubes with a [formerly] good name.

haha, how often do you see phenomena like that !