1. Home
  2. amps-preamps
  3. 1201944756

The everyday use of a tube amp

Hello everybody,
I know this seems to be a stupid question but hey! still have to learn... I am working at home, listening to music all day long. Until now, things were like that :
Day use, SS integrated, tunrned on the morning with the radio or music server, turned off in the evening. Muted when I need to stop the music or during the meals.
In the evening, tube amp and Turntable for 2-3 hours, serious listening or during Fly tying sessions up to late night.
I will build a new system, all tube (Dodd pre and 50Wmonoblocks), so my question is:
Excepted for the tubes that I will have to change often, is there limitations leaving the system turned on 18 hours a day? I think that it is better to leave it and to mute when I need, even for an hour or so, than to turn it on-off and so several times during the day. Thank you for the help!
ovnifou
steakster
720 posts
 
If the amp is Class A, depending on the tube type and the amount of heat it generates, the spring clamps that grasp the pins in the socket might wear out earlier. Replacing these sockets may or may not be expensive to replace depending on how easy it is to get to them. Sometimes they are attached to circuit boards that buried in the chassis. Owners of your model amp can best offer their experiences.
happynick's avatar
happynick
58 posts
 
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
ovnifou OP
1 posts
 
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...
emailists
607 posts
 
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.
honest1
572 posts
 
I would not wait for a tube to completely stop functioning before replacing it. Tubes can get dull sounding and still function. I have had this experience. Some tubes in a particular design may be more critical than others. The manufacturer may be able to tell you which. This happens with video CRT tubes also. Users wil be happy with a CRT for years, until one gets replaced and it is much brighter than all the others. They lose brightness over the years, but so slowly, you don't realize it. The net result si that when you own tubes, you end up constantly wondering if your system is going dull, and when it's time to re-tube.
More to discover