The heat of tubes...


I have been auditioning some tube amps in the last few months and now that the weather is getting warmer, I am noticing something very important....MY ROOM IS AS HOT AS HECK!!

How do you tube lovers handle this? I tried turning on the AC, but during soft passages, the sound of the AC just bugs me.

I need therapy...
matchstikman
Although I've never been bothered by the heat of my tube amps in the summer - the AC's usually on anyway here in DC*, where it's almost always hot and humid during July and August - I would be wary of keeping my amps in a closet; I'd much rather that they make me a little hot, than for me to allow them to run in an environment even hotter still, which will rapidly degrade their operating lifetime. If the amp(s) can raise the temp of a whole listening room a few degrees, think how much higher they'll raise it in a small confined closet. Ventilate, ventilate...

*[Good grief, I can't believe it took me two long years to arrive at that inadvertant bad pun of abbreviations for air conditioning, The District of Columbia, and alternating- and direct-current!}
I like listening to music in shorts and a T-Shirt.
I have no problems with that. And my cartridge is always right on temperature.
I love the smell of tubes in the morning.....it smells like victory!

PS My closet actually has a tiny window in it I can use as a vent if it gets too hot, but it really never does get that hot in there. Now I'm just running my pre-amp and front end out of the closet while the amps are out in the room with cages on them. But when the amps were in there it was still no problem...never had to open the tiny window. Mind you these are 300B sets and not not one of those christmas tree amps with a bakers dozen EL34's though. I'd imagine the later may turn any closet into a sauna....hey, there's another idea!
You gotta figure that heating up the closet won't make the tubes all that much hotter. On their surface they are so much hotter than ambient, that a warmer ambient won't change the surface temp all that much. A vented closet is a good idea though. In the Pacific Northwest, a great place to drive out th moisture! Jax - what've you got running in your studio these days?