New tubes...far more power??


I replaced my quad set of KT150's in my tube mono blocks a few days ago...replaced with a new set of KT150's that were quad balanced and now for some reason the power output is considerably more. So much so that i need to drop the volume control on my preamp by three notches! Plus, the sound quality is actually no better than before...and maybe even a little strident! Anyone have any idea as to why this would be? 
128x128daveyf

Showing 4 responses by daveyf

This amp design doesn't allow for manual biasing. As I said before, I don't know of any auto basing designs that allow for manual biasing..do you??
@dweller   My amps are auto biasing, but they have no method to manual bias, I don’t know any auto bias amps that do.
@don_c55 you are right, I am a tube novice, having owned tube amps and preamps for more than thirty years.
Plenty of assumptions here. Including that these tubes need to be broken in..
as they were played for about 200 hours when I first acquired the amps (Jadis mono blocks) and were then put aside in favor of the stock KT150’s that came with the amp.

I will try the unplug suggestion, will be using my back-up amp ( a ss design, which does make for a lot less nervosa) for a week or so.
Last night, I was pleased to hear that the tube amp was in fact sounding a lot better, the increase in power was still very evident ( and strange) but the overall SQ was fuller and less bright. I moved a power cord off the preamp and replaced it with another brand...this could have helped.
Here's the interesting thing, my ss amp puts out 250 watts/ch into 8 ohms...and nearly doubles into 4ohms, my tube mono blocks put out 48watts/ch into 8 ohms and not much more into 4ohms...yet the tube amps sound FAR more powerful than the ss amp. ( Yes, the tube amps have massive transformers, while the ss amp has slightly smaller transformers..and the tube amps are mono blocks, while the ss amp is a stereo amp...but the power output in volume is strikingly different...and adverse to what one would expect!)