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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
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.....
chrissain
470 posts
 
its not a reliability problem, they just found a new cap they like the sound of better.
don_s
271 posts
 
Can we please get this thread back on KT150 tubes?
wolf_garcia
6,695 posts
 
I might buy a quad of 150s when my 120s die just to see if my amp would blow up. Am I so wrong? Seems the amp (Jolida 502p) can take it...plus I'm getting curious about the 150s and starting to overcome the pickle-esque vibe.
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