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Tube amp on/off: best practice?

My main system, with a tube integrated, is in my studio where I work 10-12 hours a day, interrupted by the occasional offsite meeting or errand.

What's the best practice/rule of thumb for powering it up and down as I duck in and out of the studio? Just leave it on all day?
How long do I need to be away for it to be better to power it down?

Right now I'm firing it up and cooling it down about 3x a day, running it a total of 6-8 hours a day.
soundgasm
mechans
3,048 posts
 
The best advice by the tube sellers I buy from is to conserve tube life by turning the amp off. I also asked about the power up cycle as potentially leading to excessive wear on the tubes. The answer is that most amps nowadays have a soft start cycle to blunt whatever the power surge may damage. The other concern for me is that I am fond of old stock tubes which as everyone know have become scarcer and scarcer. Therefore I really do my best to preserve them.
raquel
841 posts
 
Generally speaking, unless a tube amp has a sentry circuit that automatically shuts down tubes in the event of tube failure (very few tube amps have such a circuit), it is not a great idea to leave a tube amp unattended, as the above posters are correct - output tube failure can resemble the 4th of July in a worst-case scenario. My tube amp has a sentry circuit and I generally leave it on all day, and at times unattended, if I intend to listen at various times during the day.

Regarding the specific question of whether tube life in tube equipment is best extended by 24/7 operation or turning it on and off, this subject has been discussed in great detail in many threads. The short answer is that tube power amps should be turned off when not in use because output tubes (the big tubes) pass a lot of current, which is hard on them (cathode stripping). The answer for small-signal tubes (i.e., the little tubes found in preamps, DAC's, and the little driver and splitter tubes found in tube amps) is more complicated, but I generally advocate leaving them on 24/7. This very recent thread about two high-end preamps includes many of my thoughts on the subject, as well as those of the founders of Atma-Sphere and BAT, but you need to read through the entire thread because the discussion of how best to extend tube life is not the actual thread topic:

http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?aamps&1282891541&openfrom&1&4#1
afc
141 posts
 
Turn tube amps of when not using them in general. If you're going to space listening sessions by 30 minutes or so, best to leave the amp on. Tubes have a finite life. In a perfect world, you'd leave them on all the time...but it's not a perfect world.

Sequence- in "Get Better Sound," Jim Smith is pretty emphatic about "amplifer ON last, OFF first." Something about getting any junk out of the system by turning tube components other than amps on first and off last.....
jallen
502 posts
 
If you lose a tube while you are out, the speaker may get fried. Jallen
devilboy
1,176 posts
 
I agree with Elevick completely. I've had many tube amps over the years. One of which had a output tube go bad. Music was not playing, but there was a god-awful screech coming out of the left channel, then I saw a red flame shoot up through the top vent, followed by smoke. Thank god I was home. I lived in a condo and I don't want to think what could have happened to the seven other families in the building. I've been using digital amps for a while now.
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