Bob Carver 180 Mono-blocks perform superbly

The 12ax7 & 12at7 Psvane tubes I installed 3 years ago have been the best of the few tubes I tried when I was doing the tube rolling thing. That was my 1st time with tube equipment.
I tried and ranked them this way:

1st Psvane - Well balanced and sounded just right. Not too this or too that.

2nd Mullard CV4004 & CV4024 NOS - Best Mids by far, but got tired of the effect after a while. Too too much of a good thing can wear on you.

3rd Gold Lion reissued - Brightest sounding of the bunch. Not waaay too bright, but my speakers can be finicky in the highs area to begin with.

4th Tung Sol reissued - Not a bad tube at all for the price; I think $20 each. I even might rank them above the Gold Lions depending on my mood that day. FWIW this tube had the highest gain of the few tubes I've tried.

All in all, I think I'm biased (lol) for a tube that is currently in production i.e. can be bought without having to hunt a set down here and there at some extremely marked-up price.
...oh, and I'm running Tung Sol KT-120's for my power tubes, even though the amps are set-up for the KT-88's. Back when I purchased them from Mr. Carver, he said it was cool to do and the KT-120's wouldn't harm the amps one bit. Now I'm curious if the cherries can handle the new KT-150's :-O

Heynow,

Was there a drastic improvement when you went to the kt-120's from the kt-88? From what I read it takes the power up to 260 watts. I know somebody that went to the 150's in the cherries but he had to have bob carver himself modify the power supply up the what is in the black beauty's. Carver charged him $1000 for the mod and $1100 for the tubes. From what I saw it didn't change the power ratings much.

When I bought the amp, direct from Bob, he gave me the option to have him send me the KT-88's that he normally sends or the KT-120's; his new company didn't come online 'til a short time later. Anyhow, I ended up having him send me the standard tubes and I ordered 12 KT-120's from another source. Once getting the amps home, I plugged in the KT-120's and they have been in pretty much the whole time. However, I did once after several months, try the KT-88's. The sound was actually a little warmer, but the tubes seem to be working very hard. What I mean is, I like to play my music relatively loud at times and with the KT-88's it looked like a fire storm raging in the tubes as the music played. These amps was/are my only experience with tube equipment, so that was kinda scary to witness. Maybe thats how power tubes regularly behave under serious music listening, but with the KT-120's the peak "flaming" is much less and conversely less stressful to see when enjoying your tunes. The only drawback with the KT-120's, is that you can barley see that the tubes are lit, even at night...and as we all know that's part of the appeal of having tubes...seeing the glow lol. As far as the warmth goes, I added some Mullard tubes (4004 & 4024) to the equation and that warmed and smoothed out the sound again.
Thanks for the info on the KT-150's. I think I'll stay with the KT-120's for now. My next move would be the upgrades on the gain/attenuator & 2caps on each amp; which Dracula1 spoke about earlier in this thread.

On one of my amps a couple of the kt-88 are going bad, the bias will max out at 100 where the other will max out at 140. Tax money will be for 12 kt-120's. I have already upgraded the front tubes to the Psvanes so I am hoping the combo will sound great.

I have the Psvane tubes also and go back and forth between them & the Mullards. What are your impressions of the Psvanes? Did you change both of the smaller tubes or just the 12ax7?
With the KT-120's plugged in, the min. you can bias the amp is 90 and the max is way passed the meter scale. I set mine sometimes at 90, sometimes at 150, but right now I have it set at 110. It depends on what mood I'm in and what music I may be listening to at the time.
I have had a total of two KT-120's tubes go south on me. The first one took out a resistor and I had to get a technician to help repair that. I contacted Bob and he and my technician, at the time, chatted about it and got the issue resolved. The second time one of the tubes went out, it was a tube in the other cherry amp, but it did not take out any resistor(s). It bears noting that the group of KT-120 tubes were not from Bob, they were from an online site. I subsequently got in contact with a local tube dealer (Upscale Audio) and bought & installed a whole new batch of 12 KT-120 tubes, just to put myself at ease. I haven't had any failures or problems since. The owner of Upscale Audio is a little high strung at times, but again, I've never had any problems with the KT-120's or the Mullard 4004's & 4024's or any other tubes a bought from him. The initial batch was purchased by a very well known online site. I'm not saying that site sales bad or bunk tubes in general, but it just so happened that I got a few tubes from them that took a Dive after only several months of service. I haven't used that site since though.