Are Lamm preamps hard on tubes?

I’ll say it again:

anyone with tubes should give themselves the gift of a basic tube tester. nothing fancy, just shorts, signal strength.

https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p2334524.m570.l1313&_nkw=tube+tester&_...

get or download it's manual, so you know how to operate it.

test the new ones when you buy them. make notes. test them yearly, I do it before thanksgiving every year, ready for the holidays.

test if you have any confidence issues, more than likely you will rule out the tubes; perhaps find a short; after a LONG time see some strength diminishment, and: equal diminishment? still matched strength?

and, if you find tubes persistently weakening rapidly, as you are concerned specifically ......

get a tube tester that has been calibrated…. B and K make superb portable small signal tube testers. I have found it invaluable. Also find a NOS vendor with a sterling reoutation AND superb test equipment - I really like Andy at Vintage Tube services.

The Lamm phono pre is super good but in the $ range there are myrid choices…

Andy cracks me up. He's good, very old school. Love his invoices which are stamped (who uses rubber stamps anymore?) and then initialed by him-- I think he's there all by his lonesome. I'm going to try to visit him once this Covid thing finally subsides and air travel is a little easier. 

I don't think there's any reason to question Brent Jessee's ethics.  Unless you have some evidence that he's selling used tubes as NOS I wouldn't do that.  He's been running a successful tube business for a while now and I don't think you can do that if you're swindling people.

Thank you @tomcy6 

That's not what this post was about. I have been buying from Brent forever and he's one of the best humans in the business.

Thanks to those who actually answered my question! Very helpful! Especially the part about cleaning the ears :)