How can
you be sure you are getting the tubes made in JSC Svetlana’s St.
Petersburg’s factory?
Look for the
“Winged C” logo!
As the tube world
gets more and more complicated, it is important to make sure that you know
what you are buying and how to identify the tubes you want to buy. Here’s
the story:
JSC Svetlana is a
Russian company that owns and operates the Svetlana factory in St.
Petersburg, Russia, which has been making vacuum tubes for almost a
century. These tubes have been known in the United States as Svetlana
brand tubes and have had the “S” logo and/or the
logo (a Cyrillic S) on them.
Because of a
change in ownership of the former American distributor, JSC Svetlana
recently lost its ability to sell vacuum tubes bearing the “Svetlana”
name, while maintaining the ability to sell the tubes bearing the
logo in the United States and Canada.
The Xpo-pul
factory, otherwise known as Reflector, in Saratov, Russia is an entirely
different Russian company that makes vacuum tubes for an American
corporation that controls the Sovtek and Electro-Harmonix brand names.
This same American corporation now also owns and controls the Svetlana
brand name in the United States and Canada and recently introduced (last
Fall) a new line of Svetlana branded vacuum tubes produced in the Xpo-pul
factory. The Xpo-pul factory “Svetlana” tubes are not the same
Svetlana tubes that you have been accustomed to over the years!
Rest assured that
the Svetlana factory in St. Petersburg, Russia is still producing vacuum
tubes and has no plans to stop. These tubes are available to you through
Antique Electronic Supply under the
“Winged C”
name.
All
current production St. Petersburg factory tubes -- and only those
tubes -- do bear the
mark, while in the past some did not.
In today’s world
if you want the tubes that you’ve come to know in the past as “Svetlana”,
the only way to be sure you’re getting that tube is to look for the
mark.