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How can you tell when tubes are shot?

I have an ARC REF1 and ARC REF Phono Preamp as well as assorted solid state gear. I leave everything on 24/7 and am wondering if the tubes just quit working (ie: get really noisy) or whether there is a gradual decline in their performance? ARC makes recommendations on who long they should last but I have been running the REF1 steady for over 18 months and haven't noticed anything.
ntscdan
kublakhan
718 posts
 
when i need to know if a 9v battery is still good i touch my tongue to it. i'm guessing you could do the same to the tubes while they're in the amp. i'm going to test mine right now.
kublakhan
718 posts
 
WARNING WARNING WARNING

ignore previous post. ignore previous post.
wirehead
140 posts
 
Guess the girlfriend wasn't around Kubla?
whatjd
1,139 posts
 
Kubla must be an Army guy.....in the Air Force we were so
macho...we used "other" body parts to test electical
voltages....let alone keep the curl in our hair!
brauser
526 posts
 
I think there's allot of good advice on the previous posts.
I might add that turning the epuipment on/off really is not a problem with the newer design ARC epuipment. I got tired of replacing tubes so I just plan out listening time to turn
everything on about an hour before. Keeping the system on also creates one other gremlin and that is that resisters/capacitors begin to dry out over a long period of
sustained use which presents degradations apart from the
tube issue alone. I tend to buy the highest quality I can
afford and then keep/tweek for along time. As such, I believe it's best to turn the epuipment on/off if there are
sustained periods of non-use.
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