I leave my JP80 on all the time, unless I'm going to be out for an extended time. It may or may not shorten tube life; some believe that the constant starting up of the tubes is more wearing on tubes than leaving them on continuously. If you get good NOS tubes, they will last a considerable time in a well-designed preamp. I recently took out some Tele 12AX7s from my preamp (replaced them with Tele 803Ss, reputed to last even longer) after having them in there for almost two years and they still tested very strong and quiet. Make sure you keep the pre muted, in case of a power outage.
Is it OK to leave a tube preamp on all the time?
I just recently purchased a used VTL 2.5 preamp that I'm using along side with an Adcom home theater processor. I've had to do this because I can't find a processor under $2500 that keeps me happy for two channel music. I'm currently going from the Adcom processor front pre outs, to the processor input on the VTL, then out to the amp inputs. I connect only my CD player and turntable to the VTL, and all video sources to the Adcom.
My wife has become very frustrated with this arrangement because it's much too complicated to figure out what to turn on and off, and which volume to adjust- so I've had to constantly leave the unit on and turn until the volume so it's balanced with the centers and rears. Does anyone know if leaving on constantly (but without passing any signal through) shortens the tube life? The logical answer would be yes, but I'd like to know for sure. Or is there another way that I can feed both the VTL preamp and my processor to the amp input without losing sonic quality (like a very high quality Y connector)?
Any advice would be appreciated. I know the easy answer is to get rid of the wife, but that's not an option right now ;)
Thanks!
My wife has become very frustrated with this arrangement because it's much too complicated to figure out what to turn on and off, and which volume to adjust- so I've had to constantly leave the unit on and turn until the volume so it's balanced with the centers and rears. Does anyone know if leaving on constantly (but without passing any signal through) shortens the tube life? The logical answer would be yes, but I'd like to know for sure. Or is there another way that I can feed both the VTL preamp and my processor to the amp input without losing sonic quality (like a very high quality Y connector)?
Any advice would be appreciated. I know the easy answer is to get rid of the wife, but that's not an option right now ;)
Thanks!
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- 16 posts total
- 16 posts total