Tube microphonics

i haven’t bought new audio research tube amp in a few years but i have over a half dozen of them, and in every case, the company puts thick rubber tube dampers on every low level tube when the amp is shipped from the factory, and when replacement tubes are shipped there are instructions to move the old dampers over to the new tubes to be installed

this shows that as designers/makers of the gear, they are definitely concerned about unwanted microphonics affecting the sound produced, and are making an effort to damp them out

so i think it is worthwhile for the op to make an effort to move the amps, as hard as that might be, away from the speakers, to see if a positive sonic difference results

These days ARC only puts dampening rings on small tubes. Not big power tubes. 
 

This does not take away from the argument that tubes can be microphonic. I suspect the large power tubes may run so hot, that they cannot use those dampeners.

@carlsbad2   Kinda both. Because I really don’t want to move those amps with the full sets of tubes already in them. Don’t want anything happening to the tubes by a bump or so. I already had one tube arc on me the first time I tried my amps when they got delivered. And it took out a resistor and fuse also. Don’t want that to happen again.    @jetter That sounds like a good idea. I will definitely try it. And yes. I did carry them upstairs but like u said there were no tubes in them. @ghdprentice Right. They don’t have rubber dampers for the KT150s. 

@tattooedtrackman So just test for microphonics in all your tubes as I described.

Maybe. I’ve only rarely heard any tubes acting microphonics in power amps, and only for very old NOS tubes in the V1 / input slots. Amps are very far downstream in the gain structure, so microphonics are rarely an issue. Tube preamps and phono stages are a different story.

Anyways, I’ve had a few different tube power amps right besides my speakers. Never in front, but I’ve had them on bare floor, spikes, hockey pucks, isolation feet and even expensive $3K isolation shelves. Never heard that much difference from the isolation, sorry. I play loud too. Swapping the AMPS themselves, however, is always a hugely audible difference.