Leave tube amps always on?

aj,

Whether turning a tube on & off or leaving it on, a tube doesn’t consume any more power than they are designed to consume (as long as your amp is functioning properly and biased correctly). But the initial temp change from cold to hot when powering on is what is especially stressful on tubes especially power tubes.

Your LTA amp is designed to be less stressful on tubes thus longer life so I wouldn’t be as concerned with your amps. I would treat it like a preamp. Turn it off when you leave the house or go to sleep. Other times use discretion.

PS. EDIT: What Larryi2 said above while I was typing.

Nobody leaves tube amps on all the time turn on 1 hour before listing is enough.

@1extreme 

@larryi 

Thx, super helpful explanation and information. A very knowledgeable forum. 

BS, it absolutely does not cost you more energy to turn your tube amps on an off relative to leaving them on all the time. Tube life is shortened but not as dramatically as you would think. I do know some people who keep them on because they hate waiting for them to warm up. They are also filthy rich and could care less about tube life. Some tube units like my ARC phono amp have low power standby modes. I do leave that on continuously. I have a class AB SS amp in the workshop that I leave on all the time but the JC 1's in the main system are turned off.
Turning the tubes on and off stresses the filament due to expansion and contraction of the metal with the extreme changes in temperature. Same for transistors although the temperature changes are not as extreme. 

Tubes consume more power if turned on and off regularly so you should leave them on all the time? Clearly a flawed logic from the LTA owner