Tube Preamps Should Have This Feature

I have literally never hesitated to turn on my system. If you can’t afford new tubes, spend less on groceries.

and obtw, the architecture of a passive pre it totally different.  You are asking for 2 totally different components.

"casual listening for a short time"

Your system is going to sound darn good 2 minutes after you turn it on. Try it. Play something favorite, involving I bet. Wait 30 minutes, play again. How much ’More’ involving?

The practice of waiting 20, 30 minutes, (I do it) we convince ourselves, for me it’s why not, but I go cold often enough? Someone coming over, oh helllll yes, warm it up!!!!!!!!!!!

@dweller 

I think that you're worrying way too much about tube wear. Life is short; just use it and be happy.

Agree that life’s too short to stress about such things, especially with regard to a preamp where tubes tend to last pretty long and are relatively cheap to replace.  Music soothes the soul even if it’s just for 30 minutes, so just do it!

The Freya is an excellent choice and does solve this problem. I have one and primarily listen to the buffered, solid state stage for a couple reasons. I will disagree with @elliottbnewcombjr and say that the tube state does not reach its potential for 20-30 minutes, and is nothing special until then. Mine is on all of the time, and occasionally I listen to the tubes, but not often due to the warmup requirements.

I am in search of a new preamp and have trialed a couple solid state designs. I am not opposed to tubes, but would like one that I could just leave on all the time that would not burn through a lot of tubes, and also would not heat my house. Are there tube preamps that you can just leave on all the time and expect to get reasonable tube life?