The everyday use of a tube amp

There must be an optimal answer to this question of leaving tubes on or off but I have never been confident I have found it. In the hay day of tubes the largest numbers were used for digital applications which are less sensitive to noise than are analog applications. Thus, the data with the greatest statistics is not totally relevant.

After listening to lots of experiences opinions, I have come to believe (without really any definitive evidence other than dealers', audio engineers and serious audiophiles I have talked to) that it is best to turn amps on only once per day and turn them off before going to bed. And my most trusted, experienced source would say, when in doubt keep them on because it is the on and off cycle that makes the tubes go noisey.

Sorry, but this is the best I can do. I just know of no controlled test with data to really answer your question. But there are lots of opinions.

You know I see people selling 50 year old fisher amps with original tubes that test fine and sound fine,it seems to me that it was turned on and off a lot,it also seems to me many out there want to make money selling tubes.A friend of mine that has a audio store and he specializes in tube amps told me once only replace them if they burnout which rarely happens and has never happened to me over the past 12 years. Nick

Thank you for answering, I will try to leave them on when needed and check the electricity after 3 months, this could be an argument too...

well this is completely different, but similar questions have been asked regarding projector bulb usage. One poster replied that he services projector, and someone came in with a projector that had 7000 hours on the bulb before it blew. This is an unheard of number of hours. When he asked the owner how he got so many hours, the guy said he simply woke up in the morning, turned on the projector, then turned it off before he went to bed. So at least for bulbs, the on/off cycles seem to be the killer, not necessarily the number of hours on.