As a follow up question. I know that tube amplifiers need to warm up before sounding their best, but is it necessary to warm them up to avoid damage? If so, what's a general guideline for doing so? |
I was going to verify that I could leave it alone when turned off as I would rather have an iPod if I have to carry it with me.
I'm aware that heat cycling the unit has the potential to shorten it's life, but once it has reached a steady state operating or ambient temperature it seems that any additional time would be unjustified. I currently have my system (that includes home theather and stereo components) setup to leave everything turned on once it is turned on and then shuts everythign off a single time rather than cycling everything when switching sources.
I shouldn't have any issue abiding by the leave it off for 3 hours before turning it back on again "rule", but with two small kids I'll have a difficult time finding 3 hour windows for listening where I will be available continuously so I guess I'll just have to risk it. |
Considering I can't leave the tube amp on without speakers connected and I only have one pair of speakers that need to be connected to my home theater system the majority of the time it'll be hard to leave it on for more than a few hours at a time. Especially, considering I can't leave it unattended while it's on.
I'm starting to appreciate solid state more all the time :-) |
The amp I'm getting has a soft start feature.
Any major issue connecting my receivers pre-outs to the tube integrated other than having two volume controls? I'm exploring options for not having to swap speaker cables back and forth as much. |
Yogiboy - I'm strongly considering doing this, but the audiophile in my struggles with the idea of something unecessary in the signal path.
Wolf_garcia - Will the tape outputs bypass the preamp in the receiver? I did figure out the setting last night were my receiver will pass all audio signals to the TV so I can just set the speakers to "no" and use the TV for volume when the speakers are not connected. This is also a workable solution for everything but movies that don't happen often. |
Yogiboy - The primary reason is that I only have a 1,200 sq-ft house and the WAF alone would prevent me from having multiple sets of speakers in the same room. Plus, giving up my good speakers for blu-ray would be a very poor choice because both my wife and I really enjoy the HD audio quality. My wife has only commented on a single CD being a bad recording, but definately notices when a movie's soundtrack isn't HD, it makes a significant improvement.
Wolf-garcia - One of my EE audio friends suggested that the pre-outs with the recievers volume set to 0 db might be a better way to go. His comment was "tape out would work but I think the impedance and signal voltage may be slightly different than an actual pre-amp output." I guess I'll have to try both and see what works best. I'm guess that both will work and I might not really be able to tell the difference. |
I have pre-amp outputs available, the concern that I had was having two points of volume control. My EE buddy reminded me that I just needed to the the receiver volume at 0db and the input signal should effectly pass through without attenuation. |
Well, I managed to get the on and off sequence backwards, but it seems to survive. I did get right at 3 hours of listening (not all 100% supervised) and plan to sleep for at least 3 hours so should be able to comply with that rule at least this time. An enjoyable evening of Christmas music. |
Listening round 2 ended with the power going out. We will be gone most of the day so I just shut the power conditioner down until we get back. |
It's getting played a lot today and it's really enjoyable listening. It's really growing on me.
It seems that if I flap my arms like a chicken five times before I power the amp on the resulting sound is far superior unless I'm wearing a belt, then it doesn't work at all.
The iDiot :-o |
My tube amplifier is in a cabinet that I either leave the door open on or just remove when the amp is running. I have noticed that if I turn the amp on and leave the door shut for a few minutes it really warms up much faster.
Is this a good way to speed up the warm up process? Obviously, I don't plan to leave the door closed for a long period of time, but it seems that 5 or 10 minutes could really speed up the process of getting the amplifier closer to fully warm operating condition.
Is heating up faster significantly harder on the tubes themselves? |
@tablejockey - I've still not used it waiting for some consensus for how to move forward...
Actually, the amplifier is now in the care of a friend of mine as I've upgraded and currently have a Pathos Classic One MkIII and a Krell S-300i. The Yaqin was an excellent amplifier especially when factoring in the cost. |
