The heat of tubes...

Hey Peter - Your Aleph 5 has a new home in Vermont with a very happy new owner! I loved the amp...closest I've heard SS come to tubes, and had nice qualities of its own. Ultimately I prefer tubes though and went back to that at the studio. I downscaled to a pair of Quicksilver Mini-Mites which are amazing little amps! At 25wpc (push-pull) they seem to put out just as much power as the 60wpc of the Aleph5(!?). But I think the Aleph is a bit soft on power while the MM's pack quite a punch for their rating. Still, that Aleph 5 is a damn fine amp! Initially I was a bit dissappoined with the Mini Mites as the soundstage seemed rather restricted. Swapping out the Chinese 12x7 with a Sovtek 12AX7LPS was a big improvement, but then swapping that out with some Tungsram 12AX7's and those puppies really throw a wide and deep stage. Really quite wonderful. I'm told that going to KT88's improves it further still (I'm running JJ Tesla EL34's - early 90's vintage). BTW, the heat of the Aleph was no problem at all here in the Pacific NorthWet...then again it was winter and the space is pretty big. I can see how in AZ it may be a problem though! When I tried touching it running full-tilt boogie I couldn't help but think of that beginning scene in the Kung-Fu TV series where David Carradine tattoo's himself by embracing the scalding hot iron pot with raised icons! You could give yourself a similar "Class A Aleph" tattoo...kind of like a bar code! I exaggerate here folks, it's nowhere near that bad, but a funny image that came to mind! What did you end up with for your amplification Peter ....or is it still a work in progress?

Thomas,
How about listening naked?

Funny you suggest that Markanetz. I tried to post a parody that had that very title here on the Gon'. It is the only thing that has ever been bounced back to me by the moderator as being 'unsuitable' for Audiogon. I guess it is pretty racy, but as I recall I was blowing off some steam at the time. If anyone would like to read it, it's pretty funny and has entertained more than a few Audiophiles I've shared it with. Just post me using the link with your email address and I'll be happy to forward a copy with the warning that the contents may not be suitable for everyone!

Peter, it's not necessarily the tubes that suffer most for being run in a hotter ambient environment, though it's good to keep them cooler as well - it's also many of the other electronic parts inside an amplifier, especially capacitors, which will have their rated operational life exponentially shortened by running them in a marginally hotter environment. Similar laws do apply to the tubes (and actually transistors as well) - that's why there are tube-cooler tweaks for sale - but at least tubes can be easily replaced (well, maybe not some NOS...).

Some good suggestions here, especially locating the amps outside the listening room. Most often that's not an option, so make sure there's adequate room around them for ventilation. Some big tube amps throw off a lot of heat - a friend had two pairs of Atma-Sphere MA-2s behind his speakers for years, until a few months ago he replaced them. I imagine his air conditioning bill this summer will be quite a bit less. Other amps that come to mind as putting out a lot of heat are big Audio Research amps such as the Ref 600's - 'how much heat' is the number one question they get on them - and Tube Research Labs amps. The TRL 800's could just about heat a house in the dead of winter, being class A, as I recall feeling the heat from them at the '92 WCES from 15 feet away...

I can't wait to see what the heat output is from the Atma-Sphere MA-3's to be introduced somewhere down the road, with 42 output tubes each, running full bore...might set a record and make people want to live in Minnesota and leave the windows open just so they can listen to them without roasting...