EASTHAMPTON — For a business that relies heavily on purchasing directly from overseas manufacturers, it was clear to Dave Mell that the COVID-19 pandemic might cause some disruption.

With 80% of the vacuum tubes he buys being made in Russia, the pending war in Ukraine in February 2022 was another international incident that set off warning bells.

Fortunately for his business, Viva Tubes, Mell had the foresight to stock up on inventory before things became unmanageable.

“The past 3½ years has been absolutely wild,” he said. “We’re talking two- to three-year lead times [on purchase orders]. The supply chain issues in this industry have been as extreme as it gets.”

The problem with vacuum tubes — key components for amplifying the signal in certain guitar amps and audio equipment — is that they are almost exclusively used in matched pairs. This means each pair is not only physically the same but displays close to exactly the same electronic characteristics.

Using a pair of tubes that isn’t properly matched can damage equipment, Mell said. And a single, unmatched tube isn’t much use to anyone.

Although factories sometimes attempt to match tubes, factory matches are frequently inaccurate, according to Mell. So his business, with five employees in a 7,000-square-foot space on the top floor of the Brickyard Building on Pleasant Street, is largely about testing.

“We test everything,” he said.

Vacuum tubes, consisting of a filament like a light bulb and a gray plate with a grid inside, are prized for different characteristics according to the use. A rock guitarist may look for tubes that “break up” or distort the sound at lower volume levels, while a jazz player may prefer more clean headroom, and audiophiles will want no distortion at any volume.

Solid-state amplifiers were introduced in the 1960s but, despite being affordable and reliable, they never fully supplanted all-tube amps, which produce a warm tone that, for many, transistor circuits couldn’t match.

Viva Tubes sells mainly to individuals — roughly 60% guitarists, 30% audiophiles and 10% other — and does almost all its business online. These days, according to Mell, it is pretty much the only tube vendor in the country with a full stock.

“There are very few tube sellers in the country,” he said.

Music stores rarely offer much choice if they sell tubes at all. A number of competitors went out of business in recent years because they didn’t have the stock, he said. Although he has plenty of local customers, Mell said there never was much foot traffic — perhaps in part because the business isn’t easy to find — so a retail operation has never been part of the plan.

Most of what Viva Tubes buys comes from New York City, Mell said, where Electro-Harmonix founder Michael Matthews imports directly from a U.S.-owned factory in Russia. But with high tariffs on top of price increases, he said, the price of vacuum tubes has more than doubled in the last two years.

Treasure hunter

Mell, 33, grew up in western Massachusetts and always knew he wanted to go into business. As a student at Holyoke Community College, he would hunt for things, mostly music-related, he could sell on eBay.

One day he found a box of vintage tubes at a tag sale.

“I didn’t know much about them,” he said. “I bought them, looked them up [online] and my jaw dropped.”

His luck was in. He’d stumbled onto a valuable find, and Mell decided to keep going with it.

But, after working with vintage tubes for a while, “I kinda hit a wall,” Mell said. Vintage is still part of his business, but he switched his focus to new and reproduction tubes. In 2017, he moved the business from Chicopee to the bigger space in Easthampton.

About a year ago, the rental situation became uncertain there and he started looking for a place to buy. He ended up buying what had been Greenfield Community College’s downtown center on Main Street in Greenfield.

For now, he’s seeking tenants for the Greenfield building and Viva Tubes is staying in Easthampton. Mell is also looking expand, possibly into amplifier sales, and to hire an operations manager so he can spend more time putting his ideas into practice and less time “putting out fires.”

“I would really like to go around to the local music stores,” he said, “and be able to feed each other business.”

James Pentland can be reached at jpentland@gazettenet.com.

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