Replace tubes yearly?

@brianlucey

”…if you didn’t notice, then everything is fine.”

This is not true.

Parts slowly deteriorate. Some of that deterioration can cause a slow moving degradation in sound over a number of years. You don’t really notice. Then one day a part fails, you replace everything and then you notice what you’ve been missing.

It’s sorta like the frog in boiling water.

@audio-b-dog 

I'm not sure what you are doing or where the problem is... but having tubes routinely blow means there is something very wrong. I  run over fifty tubes and have for many years. I have never had one blow. Not one. Many thousands and thousands of hours of play time. I change them at recommended hours of running time.

I’m not an electronics guy. I’ve learned a bit along the way (how to change a tube, for example, and which tubes are for power, input, output, feedback, etc.) out of necessity. I have had a number of tubed pieces over the years, mostly ARC. I had an ARC PH-3 with three 6922 tubes and they never blew. I changed them because I wanted to find out about rolling tubes. I had a CJ Premier-14 preamp for a number of years and don’t remember changing the tubes.

So, what gave the most trouble were ARC Reference 2 Mk.2 and ARC reference 3 preamps. Often tubes didn’t last more than a few months. (I think there are bad tubes or faulty tubes that come out of manuacturing.) On both ARC preamps pretty much every type of tube blew. Output, input, power, etc. As I’ve gotten older, changing tubes especially in a preamp has become a giant pain in the ass. So, I sold the Reference 3 and bought a Pass XP-30 solid state which I love as much as the Ref. 3. Both great preamps.

I still own an ARC PH-7 phono preamp because I can’t find anything within my price range that I liked better. I bought the PH-7 used for $3500. I called every dealer in the U.S. looking for a used one and finally found a dealer in Canada who had just gotten one on a trade in. The tubes have been pretty stable in that one. It uses four 6922 tubes in a striaght line that power both channels. Supposedly they last for 2,000 hours, and the preamp counts hours, so I’m waiting for it to hit about 2,000 before retubing. I have used spares in a drawer in case an odd one blows. It also has a 6l6G power tube which has blown once. I’m not counting huors on that. I’ll just replace it when it blows.

Truthfully, ghdprentice, I hope I have your luck in the future. Because isolating bad tubes and changing them is a pain.

@audio-b-dog

Thanks for your reply. Really sorry to hear of your experiences.

Ok, you are unlucky in purchasing some malfunctioning preamps. I am assuming they were used... and they needed to be repaired. I know folks that have used tubed preamps for decades without blowing a tube... changing them or not. I have owned tubed equipment for more than a decade without failure. 

What I might do instead of REPLACE every year is to ROLL every year. I have a low power SET in the bedroom system who's tubes may outlive me. I've collected some used and new replacement tubes, and as it happens, intend to roll power tubes today.