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 2 responses by ariess

Hifigeek1, any more info from ARC on the KT150's? For those of us running 4 KT120's in a REF75 or VSi75, what would the new power rating be? If there really is a sonic benefit, the cost of a quad, at $300-$400 would be cheap as an upgrade to an $8000 unit.
I could imagine there are a number of people who are running KT 150's in their REF75 (or other amps) but would not want to volunteer that information in a public forum for fear of voiding their warranty. Knowing that Carl Marchisotti has made the switch and is happy is enough to try it and upscale audio and others sell matched quads of KT150's. The real issue for some may be whether
they are willing to break the principle of their warranty with ARC and use something (even if its safer and better) that is not approved. I myself have cut the tags off my mattress though the warning says I would void my warranty to do so.