About 20 years ago a buddy of mine bought a pair of VTL monoblocks that used eight KT88's per amp. This guy was a true audiophile and two weeks after he got the amps he decided he wanted to use 6550's so he sold me these barely broken in tubes which were St. Petersburg Svetlana KT88's. I'd totally forgotten about them until I was organizing my stuff recently and found them. Two matched octets, I tested them and they are brand new. Such a shame that the Svetlana tube factory closed down.
Great video Thanks. I own a PrimaLuna integrated amp which has true adaptive autobias. I am thinking of doing some 'tube rolling' shortly. I could easily put in 4 EL34s and 4 KT88s without harming my amp. Do you think this grouping of these two different types of tube might sound nice together or should I use my 8 EL34s by themselves & the 8 KT88s by themselves? Thanks Again for an informative & interesting video. I am pretty new to your channel ann I'm learning a lot from you already. Thanks for all the good work you do. This channel is a great resource for me.
Sonically you always want matched tubes, both by type of manufacture and electrically. The one exception to this is instrument amps, for which owners are always trying for that "magical sound".
True, but in many cases a quality preamp in front of an integrated amp will actually improve the sonics. Audiophiles have known this for at least 50 years (now I'm dating myself!). Does it make sense? Not on the surface, but remember much of audio is additive, so if you put a quality tube preamp in front of a solid state integrated you now have the sonics of those preamp tubes added to the signal path and that can often be a good thing, especially with a flat sounding integrated or a slightly edgy sounding class D amp.
Congratulations Mellow Tone Kits on another positive review. Thank you test builders and Valves & More.
About 20 years ago a buddy of mine bought a pair of VTL monoblocks that used eight KT88's per amp. This guy was a true audiophile and two weeks after he got the amps he decided he wanted to use 6550's so he sold me these barely broken in tubes which were St. Petersburg Svetlana KT88's. I'd totally forgotten about them until I was organizing my stuff recently and found them. Two matched octets, I tested them and they are brand new. Such a shame that the Svetlana tube factory closed down.
Great video Thanks.
I own a PrimaLuna integrated amp which has true adaptive autobias.
I am thinking of doing some 'tube rolling' shortly.
I could easily put in 4 EL34s and 4 KT88s without harming my amp.
Do you think this grouping of these two different types of tube might sound nice together or should I use my
8 EL34s by themselves & the
8 KT88s by themselves?
Thanks Again for an informative & interesting video.
I am pretty new to your channel ann I'm learning a lot from you already.
Thanks for all the good work you do. This channel is a great resource for me.
Sonically you always want matched tubes, both by type of manufacture and electrically. The one exception to this is instrument amps, for which owners are always trying for that "magical sound".
@@tubelab194 Thank You for this important information.
Why would someone purchase a preamp for their integrated amp?
There is a preamp/input stage built-into the unit.
True, but in many cases a quality preamp in front of an integrated amp will actually improve the sonics. Audiophiles have known this for at least 50 years (now I'm dating myself!). Does it make sense? Not on the surface, but remember much of audio is additive, so if you put a quality tube preamp in front of a solid state integrated you now have the sonics of those preamp tubes added to the signal path and that can often be a good thing, especially with a flat sounding integrated or a slightly edgy sounding class D amp.