kt77 vrs kt120 in Rogue M180s


I recently was a able to compare gold lion kt 77s verses tung sol kt120s in my Rogue audio M180 mono-blocks, and wanted to share my experiences with you. I did these comparisons over a period of weeks, so I think I now have a pretty good understanding of their sound in my amps. The kt77s have a little bit more air and extension in the treble, nice midrange, and very good depth, and slightly looser on the bass. The kt 120s, were clear and very open sounding, with better projection into the room with the sound stage, with less depth than the kt77, but have better width and separation. The kt120s also had better Bass extension and control over my Revel f32s woofers, They seemed to wake up the speaker, everything sounded dynamic and full. Besides the little bit of roll off in the highs, I much preferred the kt 120s in my system. Hope this helps some of you, Christopher
chrissain

Showing 2 responses by mulveling

That's a very helpful comparison; thanks. I've been using KT120 in my Apollos for a while, and your description of their strengths closely reflects my own observations in replacing the EH KT90. I've been surprised and pleased at how all Rogue gear showcases the voice of each tube, rather than imposing a voicing of its own.

Running KT120s, I occasionally wish for a touch more air and sparkle up top, without tipping over into brightness or shout-iness. Sounds like the KT77 provides that, but not without compromise in other areas. Someday I'll just have to try them for myself. It would be interesting to see whether I observe bass control issues w/ KT77; my Apollos are already way-overkill running into 96dB/Watt 8 ohm speakers.

Mike
Jedinite24 and Samzx12,
It was probably EH/New Sensor's fault. I think it was about 2-3 years ago when my audio dealer started complaining about a VERY bad run of EH KT88. They experienced an extremely high (early) failure rate of these tubes in that time period. Not sure if they've fully resolved those quality issues. The EH KT90 was far more reliable, even though I actually had one of those blow up (at low hours) in my amp. The KT120 have been very solid thus far.