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
Will the Ref 150 work with KT 150 tubes, probably yes, but is it optimized to be used with KT 150's, probably not. That is why they developed the GS 150.
Brf ... you touch on my very question. How does the GS-150 differ from the Ref 150, save the fascia and the tubes?

Not getting any definitive answer to my question. In the absence of any information to the contrary, all I can see is that the GS-150 and Ref 150 share identical specs ... on paper. I concede that published specs do not speak to whether other important components have changed ... but so far, no information in the public domain ... yet.
Whoa!!! Pause it there, please. @Smoffatt, would you care to re-read my post of the 12th Inst, perhaps paying a little more attention to the punctuation.

@Bifwynne, please note the above.
For my part, I am no stranger to frustration with Obfuscation Central myself, remember 'Capacitor Gate'?.

Whilst recently discussing the GS150 with an ARC sales rep and the main ARC distributor for Europe, I asked whether they had utilized the stock output transformer from the Ref150 line, merely deigning to output the 16 Ohm winding? I was assured that the OPT's as sported on the GS line, had been the subject of an re-design to the winding spec.
They could not elaborate any further, however, one might hypothesise this to indicate larger 8 and 4 Ohm winding sections over the Ref OPT?!?!?
Tsushima ... more importantly, the main question is whether ARC changed the innards of the GS-150, principally the components that would handle the increased current demands of the KT-150 tube. Specifically, the power tranny and other passives that drive the tube.

At this point, all I have to go on are the published specs of the Ref 150 and the GS-150, which are IDENTICAL!! I can surmise and infer all day long. I have only one question. Will the KT-150 damage or prematurely age the innards of the Ref 150. That is ALL I care about and I can't seem to get a straight answer.
It would seem that the Death Star may be working on an 'Authorised' tech modification (cost of a handful of resistors and the odd cap unknown at this time) to some of the current production Ref/KT120 models, in order to optimise the utilization of the KT150, Ref 150se anyone!

This would of course enable relatively recent customers to retain any remaining factory/dealer warranty, whilst also affording the proud owner the facility of purchasing ARC factory tested sets of the new OPT's.

Curiously I raised the same point several weeks back, opine-ing, that as frustrated Ref owners were undoubtably going to go Off-piste anyway, that ARC may as well offer an upgrade service and make a few $$$ out of the situation, rather than expecting hordes of Ref owners to upgrade, lemming like, to GS, merely because they are the only officially sanctioned
models within the portfolio sporting the KT150.

Anyway, perhaps an avenue for you consider BiffWhine!