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
hifigeek1
770 posts
 
Bifwynne..KT-120's....2,000 hours.
hifigeek1
770 posts
 
Oooops my bad on the last post...disregard. Tsushimal they are technically compatible as far as I know at this point. ARC would not be life testing the tube if it wasn't. It remains to be seen what ARC says about the specs however.
tsushima1
1,165 posts
 
Sounds promising Hfg1 , the last time I ran this past the main UK distributor being a number of weeks past the situation ,as far as was aware at that time , was that the Ref 75 would be Circuit/Traffo compatible , the Ref 150 he thought more doubtful !

The situation might have been misinterpreted however ,and the situation may well have developed since that time.

We wait upon the Judgment of Zeus !
wolf_garcia
6,644 posts
 
Cheapest 150s I've seen are $300 for a quad.
bifwynne
2,206 posts
 
Wolf ... when speaking with Upscale Audio, one of the guys slipped that the KT-150s may rtail for about $100 per tube, or thereabouts. However, that price is not fixed yet as I mentioned above.

Even still ... if that is indeed the final price, it's almost twice that of the KT-120s. And ... unless the KT-150s have longer life, I'll probably take a pass, unless I inherit some money and get an itch to road test um' on a whim. I use my rig pretty much every day. The cost of tubes will get prohobitively expensive.

Let's see what somes back in user comments.

Happy Holidays,

Bruce
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