Preferred Series KT88 Power Vacuum Tube (Matched)

22 Reviews
SKU: PS-KT88

Availability: Usually ships within 24 hours.

USD $‎69.95
Each

Need matched power tubes? Don't worry! Price includes matching in any quantity you need for no extra charge. Need a matched pair? Just order "2" tubes. For a matched quad order "4" tubes. Matched sextets and octets are available as well.


Our Preferred Series KT88 vacuum tube is a versatile high quality tube. It is very musical and with a frequency range balanced from top to bottom. It has a strong detailed bass and smooth highs, with the mids slightly warm yet still detailed. The soundstage is wide and deep. The Preferred Series KT88 power tube construction features a solid plate design and triple getters.

We have been working at sourcing a good quality KT88 tube for the past couple years. This KT88 has excellent quality and for the price is one of the best KT88 in production today. They are custom made for us in China by the Shuguang factory. Our years of experience in testing, rating and listening, combined with customer feedback and knowledge were used to give you the best tube value we can provide. These are tubes that consistently provide us with positive customer feedback.

This tube is also sold as or known as Penta KT88SC or KT88-SC tube.

The Preferred Series KT88 tubes carry a 6 month extended warranty.

Wholesale pricing: Is available on 25 pairs or more. Contact us for pricing.

Other Preferred Series tubes          KT88 Tube Types

Additional Information and Downloads

Tube Matching Information:
Power Tube Matching FAQ
Perfect Pair System


Warranty Information and Return Policy

Warranty Period: 6 months

Preferred Series tubes have a 6 month warranty from date of purchase. (Any exceptions will be noted on that tube's Warranty tab)

If you receive a tube that does not perform to the manufacturer's specifications, please do the following:

- contact us to get a return authorization
- return it via regular mail within 180 days from when we shipped it, and we will provide an exchange or refund of the full purchase price of the tube.

Returns not related to warranty or defect will be considered at our discretion, and are subject to a 15% restocking fee.

We can not accept returns that don't have an authorization, are past 6 months, or are returned improperly.

These guidelines may be updated without notice.

Ratings & Reviews

22 reviews

Outstanding

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I really like these in my AricAudio Transcend P/P amp. They are a "goldilocks" tube. A touch of warmth in the mids, good highs, powerful bass.Right in between the Genelex and TungSol KT120. Excellent value.

An excellent substitute for Tung Sol KT-120s

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These tubes exceeded expectations. I use these in my Rogue ST-100 amp as replacements for the now incredibly expensive/difficult to find Tung Sol KT-120 tubes the amp was designed to use, and let me just say that I was expecting a downgrade in power output but these tubes truly deliver.

There is a great sense of soundstage precision, excellent bass and excellent midrange. The higher frequencies are there but no as extended as I remember. The higher frequencies seem more natural now.

Even if the KT-120s become available again I doubt I will be switching back. I tried a quad of Psvane KT88-T Classic MKII tubes in my Rogue St-100 and they kept burning through tube fuses and causes weird biasing issues.

I recommend these Preferred Series KT88's over the Psvanes in Rogue amps. These have been rock solid since day 1.

Preferred Series vs Gold Lion KT88.

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I bought these for Primaluna Dialogue Premium Integrated amp 3 years ago. From the get go didn't care for them. Too much detail and brightness. Unlistenable almost unfortunately. Couldn't even stand to even let them break in.
Fast forward to now. Buddy of mine let me borrow his MC275 while on vacation. I've listened to this amp extensively for the past month with Gold Lion KT88. Honestly this is the smoothest most unfatiguing amp I've heard. With that I thought hey lets liven it up with the Preferred Series. I do have to say they sound better in this amp however, not near as euphonic as the Gold Lions. Bass is very good but overall disappointed with the overall presentation. Hearing some sibilance not present with the GL. Maybe they need more break-in and trying to be totally fair but they aren't living up to the price. The Gold Lions are a much better value and better tube sonically. Your mileage may vary.

Note from thetubestore.com: Like most KT88 tubes, a break-in period of 50 to 100 hours of music-playing time is required for best results and recommended before critical listening is considered.

Better than stock.

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My VTL S400 auto-biasing amp was suffering from failing, VTL supplied and tested EH 6550s. In the space of 2,000 hours I had six faults with a total time on the amp of 2,300 hours, 3,000 hours being the suggested life expectancy. The local VTL distributor strongly advised against non-VTL replacements, although the VTL tubes used as replacements were the ones that were failing.

After great correspondence with Jon, who reassured me there would be no issues, I bought 16x PS KT88s, 12x for the amp and 4x spares.
They arrived via FedEx earlier this week. With some trepidation I installed all 12x, reset a few things and voila, it all burst onto life.

Music is different, and better, than the 6550s. More texture and better clarity, particularly in the bass. Depth imaging is slightly improved, and the sound seems to hang together better. More emotion is coming through. This may be a function of new tubes (less than 30x hours on them), but colour me extremely happy.

Thanks Jon!

Great sounding tubes

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I installed a pair of these tubes on a hiwatt clone guitar amp I built. I had a pair of genalex gold lions reissues on this amp and I love them. To be honest I bought the prefered because they special priced. I have a pair of Preferred Series 6L6GC on other of my amps and love the sound. So I decided to give these kt88's a try. Installed them, biased to 60% and started playing. Immediately noticed they sound brighter than the Genalex. More extended and detailed top end. They sound so alive. There is a beautiful natural compression and a kind of vibration that allows you to play the most beautiful cleans with no reverb or other effects. There is like a reverberation on the notes that makes me love them so much. The bottom end is strong but controlled and less mid range than the Genalex. Definitely you all have to try them. I didn't expect to like a kt88 more than the Genalex and I just did. They will stay in my amp.