Anyone tried the new "Tung-Sol" KT66's??

[Flames1950]

Did anyone else even know they existed? I didn't before tonight......

I can't get my JTM45/100 to quit popping fuses though, and I really have to suspect the power tubes -- I've got the GT KT66's -- and I have no other KT66 tubes to try. George is having trouble with the Valve Arts KT66's in his real and clone JTM45/100's too, so the Chinese and Saratov tubes are out. These voltages of 530-560VDC are just chewing them up and spitting them out.

The construction on these is different from either of the above, and also different than the Sovtek KT66 (which I also hadn't seen before tonight, but I have to assume that Sovtek/Reflektor makes these "Tung-Sol" versions as well as the Sovtek branded ones.) The Sovtek-branded glass just looks cheap to me, doesn't have the right look. The Tung-Sol tubes LOOK awesome, but......can they cut it?

I'm not interested in all the griping about Mike Matthew's marketing BS please -- I don't like it anymore than you do. But if I can't get reliable tubes this amp is a very expensive paperweight or doorstop. And I can't see George being able to sell his clones without a reliable, great sounding new production KT66 either.

It makes me wonder how the Germino JTM45/100 clone sounds. I thought he was claiming to be running 560VDC on the GT's, and my experiences thus far tell me those have to be biased ice cold to survive. I tried biasing my amp colder but it just got brittle and piercing -- a mere shadow of what it can do when you can bias it properly!!!

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