KT88 recom. for quicksilver mini mono's


I recently aquired a set of mini's and am looking for sugestions on tubes. Of what I have tried so far I have found I like the sovtek 6L6's. Upscale recommended the EHkt88 for a clean,dry, less warm sound, since I think that is the direction I am going in. What would you guys recommend that you have tried, what would you not recommend? Thanks, Matt
toomuchstuff

Showing 2 responses by trelja

One has to take Marco's quoting the 6moons.com interview of Professor Kron as the true. And, as Marco states, this was a different tube than the JJ (Telas/Teslovak).

I have no experience with the KR KT88, apart from seeing a pair of amps with them. They are far larger physically than a JJ KT88, with supposedly more power and extension. As far as the "tone" of the tube goes, or the claims of superior power/extension, obviously, I cannot make any comment regarding that. There is so little opinion avaible about them sonically that they remain more or less an unknown. I REALLY lament the missed opportunity of not giving them a listen.

One would surmise that if JJ felt the KR KT88 superior, they would have either continued on with the design. Or, if doing so violated any agreements, patents, trademarks, etc., they would have still incorporated elements of the overall design in their own tubes. Perhaps this has not yet happened, but will in the future?

Marco is also correct about rebranding tubes. This was de rigeur during the halcyon days of tubes. There are hundreds, if not thousands of examples of this, such as the treasured Amperex/Bugle Boy tubes which were made by third parties (normally by Mullard, Philips, etc.).

Aside from all of this, one has to label the second hand nature of the statements regarding the KR KT88 being compared sonically to the British Gold Lion tubes as such. While, it may or may not be true, until and unless someone who has actually tried both steps up and says this here, or we have a tube shootout, it comes across as not having much behind it.

The KT88 in current production that I like best is the JJ. For my money, they are head and shoulders better than the Sovtek and EH variants.

Finally, I hear a lot of good things by people I respect regarding the Shuguang/Penta tubes, but have not personally heard them. I will say that I wouldn't discount the Chinese tubes offhand. As utterly shocking as this assertion will sound, in my own experience, the current Shuguang 12AX7 bests a lot of the NOS sacred cow 12AX7 tubes. Now, if they'd only redo their EL34...
Count me among those who prefer a good EL34, such as the JJ, over the 6550, KT88, and KT90. The midrange, which gives "life" to the music is simply light years better. That being said, I have seen more than a few amplifiers that for whatever reasons (maybe improper bias?) that can run both, and just do not come alive with an EL34.

Another option is the JJ KT77, or the 6CA7 which is offered by Ei and ElectroHarmonix. My experience with the KT77 was that it was a good compromise between the JJ E34L and their KT88 - powerful lows of the bigger tube, with superior mids (though still not close to the E34L).

I've been meaning to write up the tube shootout our audio group did in three separate systems - 1960s Mullard XF1 EL34, JJ E34L, EH EL34, JJ KT77, JJ KT88, but have never gotten around to it. For what it's worth, the conclusions were pretty consistent...