Tube prices starting going up a year or more back. The reason some of these haven't "hit" the consumer yet is that a lot of places were working through big stocks of tubes that were purchased at the old contract prices.

The tubes needed to fulfill most international orders, particularly the most likely "hot spots" are generally in a whole different category performance-wise relative to what U.S. commercial customers expect out of a new, Gen. 3 tube.

Most countries are limited to MAX 1800 FOM, with some "naughty" folks being limited to 1600, while others who play nice / nicer may get 2000 or 2200 MAX FOM. Only a select few, very close allies receive 2400 MAX.

Gen. 2 architecture tubes and overseas produced tubes (AKA: non-ITAR tubes) are far more heavily affected by international demand, however in general most international customers, unless they are very strapped for cash and/or needing to buy everything they can get their hands on, tend to still prefer MAX 1800 FOM Gen. 3 over non-ITAR (to them--they do become ITAR once they enter the U.S.) tubes when they can get them.

Where non-ITAR tubes tend to be most popular / successful is typically with large scale fielding to conventional national defense forces / armies, where the difference of even a couple of Euros per unit can make a big difference over several thousand units, not to mention sustainment and maintenance contracts and other support tailored to large scale conventional formations. However, this kind of programmatic demand is typically known about and planned for years in advance and delivered incrementally, so it does not typically interrupt supply that much.

Annual pricing increases are fairly normal on tubes, though 2024 was higher than normal--inflation is a thing everywhere, beyond that the direct-from-manufacturer pricing and pricing increases have been fairly steady over the last few years and within normal expectations. If you are seeing more drastic pricing changes, it likely has more to do with distribution structures and supply changing.

~Augee

I can't speak for what the rumor mill is saying these days, though there's not a lot of other dealers that are actively marketing and selling SuperGain tubes, so I can guess...

What I can speak to is that this is absolutely not true for us.

We currently have SuperGain tubes on-hand and continuously incoming in both 10160 and 11769 (both mono and bino formats), with an approximately 4 week lead time on built-to-order systems depending on housing availability and spec requests, and while neither have been listed on the website yet (sorry--everyone inside and outside TNVC can blame me for the delay...), we have the new DTNVS-MG housings in-stock and Nocturn Industries Manticore-Rs inbound that provide the manual gain control capabilities that many SuperGain users prefer.

I've been using SuperGain tubes in ABC housings for several years now and almost never touch the gain control on MGC systems--however, what we have continued to find is that as you approach the ragged edge of tube performance as the SuperGain systems do, individual light sensitivities and preferences become much more important as tube performance begins to surpass "normalized baselines." In the past, everyone wanted "all the performance" tubes could spit out and it was still not enough--now we've gotten to the point where they're so good, it can sometimes be "too much."

Next projected availability (after current backorders are fulfilled) for inbound SuperGain L3Harris BNG (PVS-31) is August, and BNR (1531) in September.

That being said, the Build Team did advise (I double-checked with them prior to posting) and wanted me to make sure I mentioned that some of the tubes we have on-hand, including some screaming high performers do have some peppering in them, and the list for "clean" tubes, depending on how you want to define that, is very long, so depending on how picky you want to be, this could add to your lead time.

Now, having conveyed the message as requested--what I would point out is that the peppering he's referring to is almost all sub-.003 and therefore not even annotated on spec sheets, and well below Ground MIL-SPECs. The truth of the matter is that commercial customers these days have gotten extremely picky about tube cosmetics, since it is one of few clear "specs" that you can accurately compare and contrast with others online. I don't begrudge anyone this--our goal above all is customer satisfaction, and there's a fair argument to be made that we [TNVC] started it, back almost twenty years ago when manufacturers were primarily pushing shit-tier MIL-SPEC fallouts onto the commercial market to make a little side cash.

However, as a result, I've gotten to use some absolutely screaming tubes that were deemed potentially "unsellable," despite being well within acceptable MIL-SPEC performance, that I choose for our demo / training / marketing systems--2900-3000+ FOM tubes that happen to have a <.003 pepper spot in Zone 1, which disappears the moment you look at something with any texture to it (i.e., not a bathroom wall).

Anyways. Off my soapbox.

What I will say is that for more reasons than just the 120K Gain spec our /1225 tubes are currently the best tubes out there you can consistently buy.

Things have been crazy busy on our end due to some big exciting things coming so we haven't had a chance to update a lot of stuff on the website--our staff has been hounding me for months on some of this stuff, but if you or anyone else is interested in a quick turn TN/DTNVS-MG with high spec SuperGain tubes and okay with a little peppering within... the same spec that USSOCOM gets, I would highly recommend shooting @TNVC_Will a PM to talk to him about it.

I hope I didn't break any new forum rules... it's been a while since I've popped in, I know, and I apologize.



~Augee

I'll answer for Augee since I know he's pretty busy at the moment so may not see this for a minute.

We avoid selling tubes separately but we can make exceptions from time to time. Shoot me a PM or give a buzz tomorrow if you want to discuss more.

We can order a CNVD-LR with a SuperGain but expect the ETA to be how shall I say it ..... a bit long

All this stuff, hahaha.

Thanks Will,

~Augee