"Are the reissue Gold Lion KT88s the same sort of deal? What happend to all the "We painstakingly recreated the exact same classic tube from years ago down to the molecular level..."
That's a far cry from "We just put 10 different names on the same crummy tube, charge different prices for them and pretend that they are something they are not".
What's the truth? Inquiring minds want to know!
I dunno about the molecular level but the new GL's are very good. There is a LOT of hype and myth in the world of NOS tubes. Many of the sought after ones were not originally designed for audio. Tubes were in everything and as common as light bulbs. In the Golden Age, tubes were routinely re-labeled by various manufacturers for many reasons. Most older tube gear was not as transparent as modern gear so the choice of tube 'brand' did not matter as much. Personally, *I* don't want to own any gear was voiced for tubes that are becoming unobtanium.
I think that a reasoned response here is: It depends on on the gear.
There is a lot of hype and myth about both old and new gear, as well as tubes. It just goes with the territory. For example, the argument that modern tube gear sounds better than vintage is sort of valid, but also not valid at the same time.
If you just take vintage gear off the shelf, bring it up on a variac, and play it, then there will be compromised performance. However, take a vintage Fisher or Scott unit, update the caps and resistors, and voila, you will have a unit that will outperform the vast majority of modern equipment (tube or solid state). There are numerous reasons for this, but perhaps the major one is the output iron. Those old Freed transformers are a bit of a lost art, and the quality of those pieces are VERY hard to come by.
As far as small signal tubes are concerned, most people agree that the NOS tubes are BETTER than current made tubes. Fortunately, there is still a lot of old tubes out there, and with a little research, one can still get them. There is no need to mess around with current small signal tubes.
Power tubes is more dicey. Obtaining NOS power tubes can be difficult and expensive. If one wished to use NOS power tubes, a fair bit of research is required. The Genalex KT88 re-issue, Penta KT88SC, and Winged C 6550 are all decent current production power tubes. OTOH, if you can obtain NOS Tung Sol 6550's, the sonic benefits are easily heard, and may be very well worth the extra trouble/effort to get them.
