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?

 

n80

"What I might do instead of REPLACE every year is to ROLL every year."

Um, isn't that the same as replacing them?

Since I’ve settled on my current setup, about fifteen years ago, I’ve only had to replace two tubes and that was because a shelf collapsed and dropped my turntable motor controller on the power supply of my phonostage (it uses two 300b tubes as rectifiers).  Other than that, not one tube in 26 that are in my sysrem has gone bad.

 

Yes, change those bad year-old tubes. Send them to me, I'll take care of them.