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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
tsushima1
1,165 posts
 
Perhaps fellow interested parties might care to zoom in on the output tubes as sported within ARC's own demo Ref250 !!!~

http://www.monoandstereo.com/2014/03/audio-research-dream-demo-room.html
bifwynne
2,206 posts
 
Tsushima, my eyes ain't what they used to be. I assume you are implying that ARC is hogging the KT-150s for itself? Rats!!! I hate hogs. Well ... I don't feel like getting my head snapped off by calling ARC. Perhaps Gary (Hifigeek) will weigh in again with a status report.
hifigeek1
770 posts
 
If those are indeed KT-150's (difficult to tell) in the Ref250's that would make perfect sense as that is part of the life testing process. If I talk to the factory next week, I will inquire about the KT-150 status and availability. Hopefully our government does not start embargoing products shipped from Russia....
smoffatt
205 posts
 
Is this an horizontal bi-amped configuration? What's sitting between the 250's?
I would bet that those are indeed 150's.
For room acoustics, they much favour diffusion than absorption in that room.

"Hopefully our government does not start embargoing products shipped from Russia...."

No they won't. Putin will take care of that including shutting down all the oil and gas pipelines heading towards Western Europe creating a global financial collapse.
wolf_garcia
6,734 posts
 
One bit of hype that seems silly is the claim that the pickle shape eliminates microphonics...assuming this shape doesn't allow vibration from anywhere to get to the tube...nonesense.
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