kt77 vrs kt120 in Rogue M180s


I recently was a able to compare gold lion kt 77s verses tung sol kt120s in my Rogue audio M180 mono-blocks, and wanted to share my experiences with you. I did these comparisons over a period of weeks, so I think I now have a pretty good understanding of their sound in my amps. The kt77s have a little bit more air and extension in the treble, nice midrange, and very good depth, and slightly looser on the bass. The kt 120s, were clear and very open sounding, with better projection into the room with the sound stage, with less depth than the kt77, but have better width and separation. The kt120s also had better Bass extension and control over my Revel f32s woofers, They seemed to wake up the speaker, everything sounded dynamic and full. Besides the little bit of roll off in the highs, I much preferred the kt 120s in my system. Hope this helps some of you, Christopher
chrissain
FINALLY somebody who doesn't like KT120s! Bravo! I do think tubes tone characteristics are amp specific and I decided not to buy GL KT88s because the 120s sound so damn good (compared to my 2 other tube types anyway), but I still might try 'em since they look so cool...we shall see.
Reynolds, interesting, I was running GL kt88s but blew several tubes within a year, one took out part of my circuit board, so I was not able to do a side by side comparison, and was not so eager to re tube because of the reliability issues I had. I do remember liking the GL kt88s.
Wolf, you cracked me up!

Chris, I ordered my M180s originally with the GL KT88s as an upgrade. I've been fortunate that they've been going strong for about 3 or 4 years. I've been told that Rogue rejects a lot of tubes, so the ones they supply are supposedly better than average. In case you haven't sourced your tubes from them, that might be helpful should you decide to re-tube.
Reynolds makes a good point. I blew 2 EH KT-88 tubes in my Tempest II and called up Mark at Rogue and bought a matched quad of EH KT-90's. No more problems.
What would cause 2 EH KT-88 tubes to blow up and not 2 EH KT-90s? Don't the KT-90s put out a little more power than the KT-88s and tax the transformers more? Is it just the EH KT-90s are built better than the KT-88s?