How do I break in a tube amplifier?

Wolf ..., ARC told me the same about waiting 5 minutes between a shut off and restart. But you asked a good question about where one should wait during the 5 minute cool off period.

I was told that I should wait in another room and that I must NOT look at the amp during the 5 minute cool down period. Otherwise, the amp may not start up again. So I wait upstairs and lock the basement door for 5 minutes. Doesn't everyone???

LOL ;>')

My god; you can leave it unattended whenever you wish. I mean, I wouldn't drive off for the day while it's on, but I've left my ARC or Sophia or BAT on for hours while I'm otherwise occupied.

Just make sure small children aren't around it.

I had the large caps replaced on my former ARC CL-60. I walked into the store's back room where my amp was sitting on a table. It was turned on with no speakers attached.
The tech told me it is alright to have the amp powered up as long as you don't try to drive it (no input signal from a pre-amp).

A dealer told me that broken-in tube equipment takes about an hour warm-up to sound best whereas solid-state takes 24 hours.

Yogiboy - I'm strongly considering doing this, but the audiophile in my struggles with the idea of something unecessary in the signal path.

Wolf_garcia - Will the tape outputs bypass the preamp in the receiver? I did figure out the setting last night were my receiver will pass all audio signals to the TV so I can just set the speakers to "no" and use the TV for volume when the speakers are not connected. This is also a workable solution for everything but movies that don't happen often.

Mceljo- Why don't you get a pair of inexpensive speakers for your TV? You really don't need high end speakers to watch movies! That's what I do! Just a suggestion!