I didn't quote the first post of this thread and I explicitly mentioned the context. "DE" as in "Russian DE" means Double Edge.
"DE" as in "Personnas made in DE or US..." means Deutschland. No reason expanding this further.
Gillette DE blade production moving??
- Thread starter Slock
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"DE" as in "Personnas made in DE or US..." means Deutschland. No reason expanding this further.
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My head just exploded.
No blame was ever assigned.
Good
Think of it as Lego blocks.
One block labelled “DE” means “Germany”.
One block labelled “DE” means “Double Edged”.
Now insert first the one and then the other Lego block into the sentence and see which one makes more sense.
Shouldn’t be too hard as long as there are only two options.
And here one strictly for graduates of the master class:
As there are only a few DE brands made in DE, and as DE from RU may become unavailable, then I shall switch to DE from JP or DE from GR, even though there is anecdotal evidence that DE from GR may have occasional QC issues. Of course, one could also source DE from KR, PK and EG.
To be fair, I find it sometimes mildly annoying how people throw abbreviations around to show “they’re in the know”, assuming that everybody knows them.
B.
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Now what if Russia owned double edged razor blade production interests in Germany and then moved that intellectual and physical property to Pakistan or China?
Personna Red Double DE's 
Is anyone still buying blades produced in Russia?
I have thousands of them, but strangely haven’t bought any in… just over a year.
I have thousands of them, but strangely haven’t bought any in… just over a year.
alishock
I wrap my lips around a lovely pipe
I would say as a rule I find the 7 o'clock series in any colour pretty reliable but the yellows come out on top for me.
It ain't gonna happen.
Tubes are now mostly a forgotten technology. Tube factories in England were enormous. But, in those days, a factory manufactured every part in the tube. Tube factories were as automated as possible but still the entire process was very labor intensive. In those days, workers did not jump from job to job. Many workers spent their entire working careers working for one company. That translated to workers being highly skilled at the task that they preformed.
Just like with vintage razor blades those today who own tube equipment covet vintage tubes. They typically sound better and last three times as long as their modern day equilivents. There is no way to compare the quality of a modern day audio tube with a vintage tube.
The obvious problem is that vintage tubes are getting more and more scarce. As specially NOS tubes. The large power tubes being the rarest. NOS KT88 power tubes might run you $1,500 each. You need a pair of these tubes for each channel, four tubes for a stereo amplifier, do the math!
That is a project in Rossville Georgia to recreate the original Western Electric 300B tube, first manufactured in 1938. This is considered by many to be the Wholy Grail of vacuum tubes.
They are a triode that is used in single ended amplifiers that only use one tube per channel. These vintage amp designs with 300B power tubes typically run 8-Watts per-channel.
A matched pair is $1,500, which is considered a bargain.
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You are absolutely right about this. In one of the online audio communities I belong to, I’ve read discussions where some tube collectors are so serious about it they will seek out tubes with specific dates, down to the smallest increment they can find, because it increases the chances that a particular tube was made a particular individual, individuals, or shift workers. The hope is that person/people made the tube better than replacements (due to vacation, illness, maternity leave, etc) or newly hired people. I don’t have any idea how this information even exists in the public domain, but there are collectors who believe so and act upon it.
I really can't think of any good reason why not to stockpile your razor blades? I really don't see prices going down. If anything, I expect they will be on the uprise, given the state if world affairs in general.
On the past five years, we have seen several popular blades disappear from the marketplace.
Within the past six months, I have seen Sputnik, Rubie and Minora drop from Amazon listings.
We could easily see the demise of the Gillette/PPI production. Not only are these products very popular among DE shavers but should they suddenly become unavailable, then there might be a worldwide shortage and prices would jump up accordingly.
Razor blades can be had with very small investment dollars. Owning something you will be using will save you in the long run and certainly save you a lot of aggravation.
I agree. I have no problem buying a 100 pack of blades even if I have never tried one. In general I've got $20 for a pack of blades. I have seen a lot of blades come and go over the years, prices were high at one time when someone had to organize a group buy to get a case of blades ordered from overseas.
I'm actually surprised that a lot of PPI blades are still affordable and available. I'm also surprised that I haven't seen anyone start a rumor that PPI was closing, causing panic buying and price hikes.
I always wanted to try the Sputnik and Rubie but their prices were always higher. Someone sent me a couple, but I haven't tried them yet.
I agree with you. I returned to DE shaving post lock-down. At first, I tried to methodically analyze razor blades. Zip. Then I spent about a year just doing things randomly, figuring I would develop some sort of feeling for the different blades. Zip.
Then I spent the last six months of 2022 going through the different blades. I put 17 rubber stick on circle magnets along the side of my bathroom mirror.
I would shave with a blade and put a dot on it with a Sharpie. I would use a different blade every day, moving them down the line. I would jump about so as to mix a shave with a new blade with one that had several shaves on it, for the shave the next day. This way I would be mixing blades that had different number of shaves. After the 8th shave, I retired the blade.
This year's project is to shave with one blade for one full week of daily shaves, using a few different razors. This week, I am using an Astra Superior Platinum.
I can successfully shave with any of my 25 blades that I have in quantity, that are in rotation.
For the most part, I couldn't tell you one blade from another. Therd are some that give me a smoother shave but the closeness depends more on the razor than any other factor.
Yeah, there are many strange practices in audio. I doubt that this one has any credibility to it.
There is definitely a problem. A modern day manufacturer can engineer and build an outstanding amplifier. However they don't make the tubes that goes into it. Modern day tubes are not the quality of tubes from years past.
Sputnik was on my list before they dropped off of Amazon. Fortunately I was able to pick up a sleeve of one hundred Rubie's. They are very nice blades. Their shave is very smooth and close to the Gillette 7 O'Clock Black's.
The Minora 's were still available but they disappeared this year.
I still see them on Amazon HERE. I haven't tried them yet, but I have a few tucks laying in wait... Been pretty happy with the Treet Platinum.
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