I have always been told turning amps on for short periods then off is bad for tubes.
I would think that repetition would be the key to avoid on this one.
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Balanced power supply. It provides exactly 120 volts at exactly 60 Hz...constantly. IMO critically important to provide to tube amps...well, if you want your tube amp(s) to sound as it/they were designed to sound, which, sanity indicates you should. Oh, and bias holds better which increases tube performance and longevity,...huh, so I guess the more accurate sound is just a bonus to the longer tube life...funny how that works... |
It is almost always better to turn gear off when not listening and turn it back on when resuming a listening session. Tubes are not light bulbs which are designed to come on instantly so they don’t suffer as much from thermal shock from being turned on. Still, a lot of tube amps do employ some sort of soft start circuit that ramps up slowly and/or heats up the cathode first before the full plate voltage is applied (to avoid “cathode stripping”). An amp with a tube rectifier can have the rectifier act as the soft start feature. The other practice to avoid is turning off an amp and then turning it back on again after a few seconds; the discharge from the caps can be damaging under these conditions. Wait a minute or two before turning the amp back on. Amps that don’t need the owner to adjust bias (cathode biased) tend to run tubes more gently. This setup does not allow the circuit to extract quite as much output from the tube, but the reward is often a longer life. |
@xenolith pretty sure your balanced power supply doesn't regulate voltage. Regenerators are the only power supplies I know that do. My amp has adjustable heater voltage. I do have to adjust it for different driver tubes but I'm using a wide variety of type 10,10Y, 210, 801, and 801A tubes. Jerry
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