How long does it take your tube amp to warm up?


My tube amplifier has about 12 tubes and takes a couple hours for it to open up and sound really good and comfortable to listen to. Always wondered why it takes so long for a tube amplifier to warm up and what’s happening during this phase.

If I left it on for six or seven hours would it sound even better? I normally don’t leave it on for more than four or five hours.

How long does it take your amplifiers to warm up?

emergingsoul

It takes 3.5 minutes…. The time it takes for the soft startup to complete and the amp to switch on. 
 

I used to experience a long warmup for my Audio Research REF 5SE preamp… it took about 12 minutes with signal running through it, and the improvement was substantial. But with the REF 6, that has gone away… sounds great as soon as the 1.5 minutes of soft startup is over and the mute comes off.

I have a pair of Cary 211FE amps which take an hour to an hour and a half to reach  what I call the Golden Zone. If right from the start I push them hard an hour but if I have company I like to slowly build up the volume so it will be about an hour and a half.

 

what might be a better ? to ask is do those big exotic caps and or cables ever form with the relatively tiny signal… ? see DBS patent… and ponder that the application of it might not be limited to just cables…..

When I had my Viva, it was 45 minutes. Now I’m putting together an Audio Note system and I find it’s about 2 hours.  Peter Qvortrup leaves his tubes all the time I think. But that’s not a good idea for most people.