1st Tube amp question

Tube amps need a load on the outputs, whether a speaker or resistor.

Everyone eventually accidentally turns on their amp without a load--well most of us at least.  

the problem occurs when you hear no music and turn it up, putting harmful currents into the transformers.  

If you keep the volume down or on mute or have no signal going in, you won't do any damage.  But there is no reason to do this other than by accident.  This won't help significantly with burnin although time on the tubes with heat will help them settle in.  I'd just wait and do it with music so you can hear the improvements.

Jerry

You don't necessarily need an input, but you do need a load on the output transformers.

Not knowing at the time a load was needed, I've accidentally not had speakers connected when biasing my tube amp, but that was quick (1-2 min) and thankfully, no damage occurred.  I wouldn't do it again.

I had a telephone conversation about biasing with the tech support guy from Cary (this was a few years ago when you could actually speak to someone from Cary on the phone about issues) related to a Cary V12 that I was taking out of hibernation, and in the course of the conversation he told me that it wouldn't hurt it at all to bias it without a speaker load hooked up.  That typed, I put a load on it anyway.

Also, I remember a couple of ARC VTM120s I used to own, & the guy from ARC told me to NOT have the preamp turned on when I biased them.