Quote History Originally Posted By Visigothic:
What is the current status on L3 Super Gain tubes? Rumor mill is saying don't expect any L3 SG high spec clean tubes until almost 2025. Is that true? Seems like the wait has gotten longer despite all the hype about L3 specs becoming better. Specs matter nothing if it isn't available after a reasonable amount of time.
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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