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
Veerapaneni, has your (ARC?) dealer been given *Official* sanction from ARC Central for the utilisation of KT150's ?
@Tsushima1

yes. That what he told me . He went for training to ARC couple of weeks back, and you have to just swap 120s with 150s. Nothing more to be done. I am going to do that soon , My tubes only have 700 hrs and thinking twice to waste them :)
Veerapaaneni ... I e mailed ARC about using the KT-150s in the current Ref line and whether the GS-150 (soon to be released) and the Ref 150 have different innards. So far, no answer.

Here's my cynical speculation. I think the GS-150 WILL sound better than the Ref 150 only because it uses the KT-150 tubes. Otherwise, until someone tells me that the GS-150 has different innards than the Ref 150, I think it's just a dressed up Ref 150 with KT-150 tubes.

I hope an ARC dealer or ARC service tech catches this thread and disabuses me of my cynical comments. I WANT to be wrong, so please someone disabuse me. But so far I see no rational reason for ARC continuing to be officially mum about dropping the KT-150s into their current Ref line. In the meantime, I wait.

BIF
I have heard from a number of people using KT150's in their ARC reference 75. The only problem is that the tube is taller, so the top of the amp can not be refitted. This does not apply to the 150 or other amps in the ARC line. I have ordered a quad from Upscale and will report the results, assuming the house does'nt burn down wnen the amp catches fire.

I am with BIF, I am sure ARC's silence is connected to the new amps fitted with KT150's. They want us to go out and buy their new shiny amps.