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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
knghifi
1,668 posts
 
Add the new VAC IQ 200 to the list.   KT88 stock but can roll KT120 and KT150.   

Kevin Hayes said all tests between KT88 and KT150 in the factory and dealer sites, KT88 win hands down.   Very interesting!
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samzx12
1,220 posts
 
Not sure that statement is true or it's subjective but what kind of KT88 is Kevin Hayes referring to? I have some EH KT88 and tried them in my Primaluna Dialogue and didn't care for them at all. The TS KT120 sounded better and that wasn't saying much.
bdp24's avatar
bdp24
9,853 posts
 
Kevin is highly complimentary of the Gold Lion KT88 reissues, as is Roger Modjeski of Ram Labs and Music Reference.
wolf_garcia
6,711 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.
mjalazard
2 posts
 
I have a Quad of KT150's in my highly modified Harman Kardon Citation 2....truely a great tube.
The thread over at Audio Karma has gotten a lot of interest and controversy.
http://audiokarma.org/forums/index.php?threads/deuce-is-almost-done.674521/#post-9963377
Mike

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