small room... tube amp... summer

I run a Prima Luna PL2 with EL-34s inside a well vented bookcase in a 10X15X9 room. There is a MDF shelf about 10 inches above the amp which bears the brunt of the heat. I keep the windows open and there is a whisper quiet ceiling fan usually running at a moderate speed and tube heat has never been a problem. Granted I live in NYC (Queens) off of a bus route street, so I may have different expectations about how quiet the room will ever be, but tube heat is not a problem.

Best regards,

Rich

That's one of the reasons why I switched to Hi Effeciency speakers and single ended amps.

A light breeze from a fan will keep the faceplate and other metal parts from getting as hot. Just don't put it on high, and keep it several feet away. I have a Cary CAD 120's and it works fine. The V12R was another story, you could fry a burger on the transformer, so you need a big room for one of those. The Mac 275 runs very cool for a tube amp, but sounds more SS than tube. Tubes can be a bit of a pain, but to me they are well worth it. Good luck.

Okay... I have a small-room system set up (14'x 11') in Tucson AZ. It does have an overhead ceiling fan and that works quite well. But I do limit my output tubes to 2 per side of either the EL34 or KT88 variety. No need for more that 50 or so watts/channel tube power in the small room even with my Magnepan SMGa's.

Alternately, a nice combination it to use a Wyred 4 Sound ST-250 amplifier with either a tube line buffer or a good tube preamplifier (that doesn't run hot). Good luck, it can be done, and done well.

overhead ceiling fans works quite well along with nude listening.