Tube amp warm up

All of the tube amps I've owned needed about 15 minutes to sound good. Is it getting better after that period? Perhaps, but I don't kill myself trying to notice any difference -- I just know it sounds good after 10-15 minutes. Solid state stuff takes a whole lot more time to warm up. I've fooled around with gear that sounds really disappointing until its been on for many hours if it has been off for some length of time. That is usually not a problem because the solid state stuff can be left on continuously.

Hey, I've got a question! I bought a 2 year old tube amp that hadn't been used for almost three months. It took a number of hours to sound it's best but now sounds superb after 10-15 min of being turned on. Wonder what the technical reasons are for it not sounding its best after being 'on the shelf' for 3 months?

Probably the capacitors needed to be "reformed" by use. That is the reason people slowly bring up voltage using a variac for equipment that has been sitting for years.

Larry,
What does 'reformed' mean? Also, have you ever heard that the more use transformers get, the better they sound? I seem to remember hearing or reading that many years ago but it doesn't make any sense to me.

A lot of warmup character has to do with the tubes themselves, as well as filter capacitors.

As most of you might know, we don't have any transformers in our amps, and our MP-1 MkIII is entirely regulated, yet the warmup character on any of these is the same as almost any other tube amplifier or preamp, so my belief is that it is 90% the tubes.

Most of the transistor stuff I've had over the years needed to be on for about a week to warm up properly.