2. amps-preamps
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New KT150 tubes?

Has anyone any experience with these pretty new tubes. There are already one or 2 amps I know of, that use them. The review of one of these amps in a UK magazine suggested they were a little warmer and more natural sounding than the nearly new KT120's

The article also suggested they were a straight swap for KT120 based amps, with no adjustment necessary. They are more than twice the cost of KT120's, but still not too costly compared with NOS tubes. I know changing from KT88's or 90's to 120's. did require some amp modification. I have an ARC reference 75 and might want to try the new tubes at some point, ARC don't seem to have a customer E-mail service, to ask the question
david12

Showing 4 responses by wolf_garcia

wolf_garcia
6,786 posts
 
Such a rebel! Especially when you consider that no amp has ever been reported to have blown up from 120s or 150s.
wolf_garcia
6,786 posts
 
The current heap of hot glass in my simple Jolida has been amazing me lately...the 150s seem to have settled in and sound so damn good I'm STOKED with them.
wolf_garcia
6,786 posts
 
Your gut tells you there is no issue with 150s as does my previously noted survey. This must be digestion related.
wolf_garcia
6,786 posts
 
The KT150 is a fantastic tube, but after a year they seemed less so, and I perceived that they were putting some strain on my beloved Jolida 502p (ear to speaker I could hear the Jolida softly saying, "help me…help me…"). Back in April I put in a set of matched and balanced (I assume "thetubestore" uses a small scale to balance these as they do seem to be the same weight) Gold Lion KT88s and they're sounding beautiful, and I think the gold lettering and their reputation have a large influence on my shallow and obvious "low threshold" sense of what's good. These tubes are REAL good, and my amp seems happy (!). The KT150s are still great, but it is harder now to tell how great they are since they're now in their boxes on a shelf…but hey…they're great at being in their boxes also. They're not trying to climb out, not getting dusty…friggin' great.
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