great tube deal on Tung Sol KT-120

These guys have the new tubes for the best deal on the net I can find.
$89.95 per pair. I just bought a quad for the same price as Genelex KT-88's.
At that price why not?
http://www.partsconnexion.com/

baddog1946 wrote:These guys have the new tubes for the best deal on the net I can find.
$89.95 per pair. I just bought a quad for the same price as Genelex KT-88's.
At that price why not?
http://www.partsconnexion.com/

Heck of a price!

However don't you need to run them at like 100 milliamps to really make them worth having? And as I recall in another thread the current st 120 kit with the cap upgrades etc, doesn't really have enough power supply to push that kind of power through a quad of KT120's

Thats what I was thinking, while they might be fun to play with if you really can't get the full advantage out of them (due to not being able to supply enough current) it seems like a bit of a waste. Btw, and on another note, the ST 120 on the opening page of your website (courtesy of JJM) do you know what tubes he's running? They have a lot more 'blue' to their glow than others I have seen and I am just curious. I had some sylvania 6v6GT's that did that and supposedly the bendix's of the same type are well known for having a very blue'ish glow.

FYI: In some instances "blue glow" is not necessarily a good thing. It can be caused by the fluorescing of gasses in the tube. If memory serves me (a tenuous concept) "blue glow" is more serious if it originates in the area of the elements. Some blue glow near the surface of the glass envelope is not considered to be serious. Ex: for a number of years I had a single-ended amplifier in which I used some WWII vintage RCA 2A3 (JAN) tubes. These tubes would often produce some blue areas just inside the glass. I never noticed any ill effects from these.

Best Regards,
Charlie

I've heard this before that a 'gassy' tube will emit a 'blue' glow near the plates, but I was just referring to against the glass which as I understand it is the result of electrons reflecting off of it in some designs because of the distance between the plates and glass is more pronounced and not necessarily indicative of a problem.

I have been running the gold lion KT88's and they aren't very blue, but I am running them pretty much dead on @ .550v I am sure I could bias them up a little more (perhaps .560-.570) without much ill effect but I have noticed some tubes 'have it' and some others just don't. I haven't noticed any relation between sonic fidelity and color of the glow, it's just the blue makes for nice aesthetics. The sylvania 6v6's I used to run in my old ST70 had a lot of blue to them and sounded great IMO. As much as I like that color I am not the type to sacrifice clarity or tonal quality for an aesthetic quality.