new tung sol kt 120

wow, i cant believe more people have not tried this tube, I was hoping that there would be more information on it.

From my understanding, the tubes are only recently available on a large scale. Chris J just started to carrying them.

Folks, beware that the KT-120 draws 1.8 Amps heater current per tube, as compared to the KT88 1.6A spec.
A stereo push-pull amp with four KT-120 tubes will draw 800 additional milliamps from the heater winding. The amplifier's power transformer will run hot and possibly fail in the long run.

I think this may be an excellent tube for a new design buit around its strengths.

IMO one can safely try KT-120s only on conservatively designed tube amps with over-specified power transformers that run cool and that use self-bias / cathode bias.

Fixed bias amplifiers need to be modified before one installs KT-120s, so this rules out most USA-made muscle push-pull amps.
I hope this helps.

Casouza,

Help me better understand "self-bias/cathode bias".

My Sonic Frontiers monoblocks use four KT-88s per amp. I have a knob on the amp that allows me to select one of these four tubes. Using a screw driver, I can turn a shaft with a slot in it to adjust the bias using a meter.

Is this a fixed bias amp?

Thank you.

Flyfish, yes, your amp has fixed bias, because it has bias trimpots. Actually this is a misnomer, because it is adjustable!!

The non-adjustable bias method is called self-bias or cathode bias, usually performed by a resistor in series with the power tube cathode.