recommendations for tube dampers???

Has anyone experienced that dampers (Pearl, Silicone rings, Herbies etc) helped extend the life of their tubes? So far I've just placed Silicone rings on my preamp and power tubes. I've noticed no sonic difference with or without them in place the systems I've used my tube amp in. My experience with tube amps are limited though.

I'm just thinking now about using dampers from either Pearl or Herbie's Audio Lab to help with the heat and possibly prolonging the life of the tubes. Thanks

Herbies are the only ones I found, having tried all others, pearl, ensemble, silicone, etc. that actually improved the sound, more open detailed and smoother. Most tube dampers actually degrade the sound noticeably. Difficult to say if tube dampers extend the life of tubes, I mean, how would one determine that? IMO the main thing is to improve the sound, if possible.

I always thought the Pearls looked neat, especially on power tubes. But to my knowledge it never extended tube life at all, never altered the sound and those rings holding them dried out.

I've used the silicone rings on small tubes in a phono stage as an overkill reaction to my quest to reduce harmonics, but then I always bought LN tubes in the first place. I never thought they hurt anything though, unless of course you have micro-phonic tubes and like the sound.

Hi Geoffkait

Thanks for sharing your thoughts and experience. I'll keep the Herbie's dampers in mind. You really tried a lot of dampers. I never would have thought dampers could degrade the sound. Good to know.

With my tube life question. I was thinking that someone possibly may have had tubes w/o a damper for a bit and after the tubes died when they got a new replacement set and used dampers with them they noticed they lasted a bit longer.

I look at them as an insurance policy. The purpose is to reduce or eliminate microphonics which is a form of noise, not signal. Audio research seems to provide dampers with installed tubes and provide them with low noise tube replacement for the prime slot in the low level phono section only which makes sense to me as the most important application.