2. amps-preamps
  3. 1381392517

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
bifwynne
2,206 posts
 
Tsushima1, please explain what you meant when you posted that ARC was "phasing out of the 2Uf Teflon coupling capacitors on the Ref 150." I own the Ref 150 so I have a real interest.
wolf_garcia
6,708 posts
 
Although I barely care what ARC says about most things, I'm tempted to ask them about the 150s simply because I was asked not to.
tsushima1
1,165 posts
 
FAO ~ Bifwynne ,

http://www.audioaficionado.org/audio-research/23028-arc-coupling-capacitors.html

You should have no concerns as long as you experience no necessity for ARC to replace any of your 2uF coupling capacitors ,note post #17.

(I trust that posting the above does not contravene any forum rules ? , my apologies to the Mod's in advance and please delete should this be the case )
bifwynne
2,206 posts
 
Thanks Tsushima1. I read the various posts in the attached link. I suspect that ARC had either supplier issues and/or there were performance improvement gains by going with the new caps. My Ref 5 SE and Ref 150 both have the "old" white Teflon monsters.

I'm a big ARC fan and I believe that if ARC is using different coupling caps, it made the switch-out for good reason. I recall that I had to wait about a year before ARC called me to upgrade my Ref 5 to the SE version. One of the reasons for the delay: supplier problems. But as I said, it may be there are reliability or performance issues with the Teflon caps. Dunno.

Maybe if Hifigeek catches this thread, he will chime in.
smoffatt
205 posts
 
If they have reliability and/or supply issues with their tef caps why don't they go with Vcaps. At their asking price, their entire Ref line should have Vcaps in them. Not those no brand name white caps that appear to have some reliability issues.
Just sayin' you know.....
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