Powering up is likely where the greatest stress is placed on tubes, equipment with soft start circuits and/or standby ability where heater always powered can be helpful . Seems ironic, but I'm most fearful with fresh new tubes, damage due to shipping or poor quality control is where most of my failures have occurred. Just experienced this with a new Western Electric 300B tube. 101D tubes are extremely fragile, 845 can be scary.
Replace tubes yearly?
I just watched a Paul McGowan video (PS Audio) about the wisdom of leaving your gear powered on all the time. I get that. He also said that vacuum tube gear is the exception and not to leave it on all the time. I get that too.
But he also mentioned that it didn’t make a huge difference since you probably should replace your tubes every year.
Is that true? I have an Audio Research LS-16 tube preamp from the late 90s or early 2000s. I don’t think the tubes have ever been changed. I’m not really a ’tube’ guy but this unit was given to me 6 or 8 years ago. As far as I know these tubes are original.
At one point I got curious about the different sound quality potential of different tubes and another Audiogon member lent me a set of tubes to try out. I could definitely tell a difference but did not think the new ones sounded better than the original ones. I mention this because at that time the original tubes were quite old and still sounded quite good. And still do.
So, bottom line is, is there any real need to replace tubes on a schedule of some sort. Maybe its different if it is an amp versus a pre-amp?
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@larsman My new WE 300B's were about 2 1/2 years old, guaranteed for 5 years as you know. My only backup was a set of cheap Cossars that came with the amp. WE had a sale in November so I figured buy another pair just in case. I had no idea mine had deteriorated and the guys in our audio club always thought my rig sounded great. Much to my surprise, I put the new ones in to break them in and they sounded glorious. Immediately clear they sounded much better, much more detail at every frequency. Greater precision in the soundstage. Not a subtle improvement. The old ones had about 4,500 hours on them and weren't showing any signs of of their having deteriorated. BTW, I've had 12AU7s deteriorate seriously within only 9 months. |
@dougthebiker - thank you for your thoughts about your experience. It would take me much longer than I've got left to live to run up 4500 hours on my 300B tubes. For me, they get used perhaps 1/10 of that much. |
I think that both bascom king and arny nudel?spelling knew a thing or two about tube's and thier design.they both had thier hands in bhk desidn.i have 2 and have not had trouble.watch the video from ps audio reviewing them both.alot of prominent audio designers were in the audience.we have a difference of opinion in science that can be good.do your own experiences enjoy the musicand life. |
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