Tube life in preamp. Please help

I have also found telefunkens to be the tube to beat. My amprex's had a hot top end that sounded a bit unnatural.

02-25-15: Elevick
Czarivey-You are a bit paranoid, aren't you? Not too many amps will "burn in front of your eyes" unless you mess with them...
Paranoid is just definition and definition maybe just another form of bs. burning amp wasn't bs it was a fact.
Don't know if anyone messed with that, but it all started around just ONE failed power tube.

The one thing that no one has mentioned is the cost of keeping tube gear on all the time. I had an ARC SP9 at one time and it wasn't drawing that much power, but it together with a pair of ARC M100 monos and we're talking $20 to $30 a month in power usage. I also had one of the M100s catch fire in front of my eyes, but in all fairness the piece had been modified. As the years have gone by I have returned to solid state equipment for the reasons that first there is really no appreciable difference in the two technologies at the high end, and that I am more focused on the music than the equipment as I grow older.

Too right Brauser, all that happened to me as well !
I have a theory, most tube freaks never heard ,say, a quad of Sylvania 6550's from the 1950's in full cry, the junk output tubes available today make tubes a non-starter for me today.

My current "junk output tubes" are KT150s that sound astonishingly excellent, and if you leave tube gear on all the time...well...you get what you deserve.