Gold Lion KT88's different types?

It's pretty laughable to start your own post, and then make almost all of the posts but that's what I'm doing. I kind of feel like I'm having a conversation with myself but maybe someone else will benefit from the posts.

Here's what Jim McShane at Citation Amps and Tubes (well known and respected tube seller) has to say on the subject:

I'm not an Audiogon member so I can't post there. But feel free to share what I wrote.

"The hard-soft-medium stuff is for guitar amps. It's describing the point where the tube breaks into distortion. But unless you are using these in a guitar amp it's meaningless to you.

And add that the big sellers use "distributor matched" tubes. The matching is almost always pretty awful on those, regardless of what they say. I've seen "distributor matched" tubes off by over 10 ma. My standard is plus or - 1 to 1.5 ma."

It appears there are different types and some are better than others for audiophile purposes.

Here is what BNB Tubes had to say about it:

Hello Mike,

It does indeed apply, and you should have something toward the harder end of the scale. Meaning the tubes will stay cleaner, longer. Which translates into higher Gm and Ip numbers. Please just remind us if you order that you want something toward the harder end of the scale. If you have any more questions, don't hesitate to ask,

Best regards, BnB Tubes, Inc.

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I have noticed some other sellers ask you to specify soft, medium, or hard which seems to correspond to how and when they distort. I’m using these in a very high end amplifier so not sure if that applies?

Mike

That is exactly what I saw. However if you look at the add to cart option you have to specify which Genalex Gold Lion Quartet type you want first. The options are hard, medium, or soft.

There is only one type of Gold Lion KT-88.The hard,medium and soft discriptions are characteristics used to describe different tubes for guitar amps as you stated.A certain tube can only be one of the three discriptions.

You probably did a google search and saw the following ad.

Shopping results for genalex kt88 Genalex KT88 Gold Lion Power Tube Sets, Soft Quartet
$189.99 new - Amazon.com
Genalex KT88 Gold Lion Power Tube Sets Medium Quartet
$189.99 new - Musicians Friend
Genalex KT88 Gold Lion Power Tube Sets, Soft Duet
$99.99 new - Amazon.com

If you read a little deeper in each ad,you will find the following discription in each one of them.

Soft, medium, and hard style descriptions refer to break up modes of the tube for an overdriven guitar signal. The Genalex KT88 Tubes are soft-rated tubes that break up slow and have the highest amount of headroom, while hard-rated tubes break up easier and have the least headroom, yielding a heavier, harder distortion. Medium-rated tubes fall in between.

Note the GL's are soft rated for use in amps guitar amps.They are an excellent choice for home audio.I use them as do many others.Hope this helps.