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

Showing 3 responses by davide256

will keep my fingers crossed that these will be better quality and can be used in place of KT-120's. Love the sound of the KT-120 but quality of manufacturing precision is erratic compared to the GL KT-88's they retired for my amp. Given what we saw with the KT-120's no doubt will have to wait a year before the various manufacturers render opinion on whether they are safe to use with the different models in their product lines. I suspect we could all get better results out of an improved QC version of KT-120 (or KT-150 if similar to 120 for tonal balance)
The KT-120s sound fine but the internals of 1 were clearly not given a good visual QC... the posts (anode?) for the vertical glowing conductors are shorter above the top mica plate than the other 3 and guaranteed that when circuit protection cuts in, that's the culprit tube.
hmm, anyone know what the life expectancy of the KT-120's are? I should have about 3000 hours of actual play( more if you include standby) on mine after 2 years of use in January. A quad of the KT-150's is running anywhere from $329~$400, so they are not pricey and could use any incremental power improvement I can get with the Prima Luna Premium integrated amp and Maggies.