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New manufacture Northern Electric KT88s, graphte plates?

Gary Kaufman said:
They do look like graphite, very similar to some of the graphite 300B Chinese tubes. You can see some of the screws joining the sides together - they'd be spot welds or crimped in a metal plate.

Ironically in the GM70 tube world folks are clamoring for the metal plate versions, where the Graphite plates are the more common.

For that price, I'd grab some vintage US made TungSol 6550's, GE 6550A's or Sylvania 6550's. IMHO any of those will outlast and outperform any 6550/KT88 variant I've seen produced in China.

- Gary
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Have to agree Gary. Just yesterday I saw NOS quads of the GE 6550s going for $600, as well as NOS quads of EI KT90 type IIs going for $600, for matched quads as well. Will be interesting to see how these 'NE' tubes stack up though. I can't see them selling very many for that price though.
 
Just scroed ... er ... scored a matched quad of low mileage Psvane HiFi's for $100 ... them fancy graphite things would have to be a MASSIVE improvement to beat that, me being a cheap SOB and all.

I'd have to wonder about longevity ... if they're immune to red plate, you can drive them consistently hard with a long service life, and the sound is as good as they say, then their value goes up in my book.

Still ... that's a LOT of bucks to be a guinea pig ... I'll let those Absolute Sound kinda guys be on the bleeding edge of this one.
 
MichaelO said:
These appear to be the same as the Sophia Electric KT88s.
http://www.sophiaelectric.com/

Michael
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Interesting.

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sKiZo said:
if they're immune to red plate, you can drive them consistently hard with a long service life
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You can't do it. Grids will melt sooner than you get plate glowing red. Graphite makes sense only in very special designs like low Mu triodes.

In Kt88 and alike tubes higher possible plate voltage limit will bring more advantages. But you do not need graphite for that.
 
Gary Kaufman said:
They do look like graphite, very similar to some of the graphite 300B Chinese tubes. You can see some of the screws joining the sides together - they'd be spot welds or crimped in a metal plate.

Ironically in the GM70 tube world folks are clamoring for the metal plate versions, where the Graphite plates are the more common.

For that price, I'd grab some vintage US made TungSol 6550's, GE 6550A's or Sylvania 6550's. IMHO any of those will outlast and outperform any 6550/KT88 variant I've seen produced in China.

- Gary
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I find myself agreeing with Gary again (seems to be a pattern developing).:D I don't think you can get that kind of money for any "new" tube as long as there are NOS tubes for the same cost. Thanks to cableguy I got to try some Black 6CA7 Treasure Tubes, and damn they sound good. Handle all the current and voltage I wanted to throw at them and more, but they are way pricey too. I didn't realize how good of a deal Bill had given me until I went to look at buying some more. There's always the doubt about new stuff, and let's face it, the Chinese don't have the tube reputation that Germany and Holland do. Maybe they are targeting the crowd that believes more money means better product automatically. There are some of those guys in this hobby especially. I'd be very curious to know how much it costs to make the tubes in China, seeing how they seem to have an abundance of cheap labor (skilled and unskilled). Yeh, for 800 skins I can get some damn nice 88s or EI 90s, my favorite of the Kink-less Tetrode family.
 
jaymanaa said:
I find myself agreeing with Gary again (seems to be a pattern developing).:D I don't think you can get that kind of money for any "new" tube as long as there are NOS tubes for the same cost. Thanks to cableguy I got to try some Black 6CA7 Treasure Tubes, and damn they sound good. Handle all the current and voltage I wanted to throw at them and more, but they are way pricey too. I didn't realize how good of a deal Bill had given me until I went to look at buying some more. There's always the doubt about new stuff, and let's face it, the Chinese don't have the tube reputation that Germany and Holland do. Maybe they are targeting the crowd that believes more money means better product automatically. There are some of those guys in this hobby especially. I'd be very curious to know how much it costs to make the tubes in China, seeing how they seem to have an abundance of cheap labor (skilled and unskilled). Yeh, for 800 skins I can get some damn nice 88s or EI 90s, my favorite of the Kink-less Tetrode family.
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Yep hard to beat the EI KT90s for sure. Someone needs to reverse engineer the type Is and start making them again. Those I'd pay a premium price for, still not $200 a pop though.
 
Looking at prices folks are quoting for these things and NOS, a good TOTL vintage SS amp by James Bongiorno, Nelson pass, John Iverson or other known-respected designers is competitive for the price of a quad of the bottles alone. Makes my head spin.
I think I'll have to stay with amps that use 'cockroach' tubes like 6L6 and 6BQ5 in pairs.
 
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Northern Electric KT88 I see for sale on

http://www.thetubestore.com/Tubes/KT88-Tube-Types/Northern-Electric-KT88

I am looking to buy a quad of tubes to replace some 2+ year old KT88s. A quad. I'd pay a bit more and this would be the ceiling of what I'd spend. Pushing it to be honest.

These look pretty robust and well built.

Interested in thoughts and wondering if anyone has experience with these. I'm also wondering if these have been in inventory for 6+ years
 
If your amps have the heater current available, you could try the KT150's. Also robust and from my experience with them very good sounding tubes. I've been running them SE but the effect should carry over with a PP amp.
 
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I have been toying with the idea... I'm running in a pair of 2009 McIntosh MC75 monoblocks... I called McIntosh and they advise to use KT88. I bet it would be ok to go KT120 or the new KT150 but I don't want to push it. McIntosh tends to overbuild.

I wonder if anyone runs these KT150s in a MC275? Anyone?
 
MX117.MC7150 said:
Indeed. I won't even spring for $100/tube for the Winged 'C' 6550s so why $200/tube for something that is essentially untested. Not into China 'stuff' of any sort. No Wally-World or Cabela's for me.
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I hear ya. Hard not to buy a tube that isn't made in China. Most everything is rebranded including a lot of what you mentioned I think. Not trying to offend.

I was looking to replace some Gold Lion KT88 tubes that have served me well. Just farting around with ideas.
 
I went with Shuguang Treasures over those gold lions myself and they are superior. I'd used those Gold Lions for about 3 years--after buying into the hype with those things when they came out and how great they were supposed to be.

I only found them slightly better than EH/Tesla/tungsol/ and not as good as vintage when you got right down to it. Way over hyped and I even had some fail---so pricey with a failure rate and not as good as they were hyped to be.

the big problem with those shuggies is they are about twice the size or width of the gold lion tubes. You'd better have enough space for them.

But I won't buy russian tubes for awhile until they can show big big improvements
 
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