How can do you extend the life of your tubes?

Preamp tubes last for years,as a matter of fact I have antique radios that are over seventy years old with the original tubes and they are fine. Power amp tubes are more apt to wear out so I would not keep them on. Don't worry about it just enjoy it.

I use all tube equipment, amp and pre. I listen to music on the weekends. So i put on pre-amp on Friday leave it on till Sunday night. The amp stays on only when listening, then off she goes.

+1 Jmcgrogan, Yogiboy & Ryriken.

A comment: Light bulbs... IF you run a light bulb off a dimmer, and never run the light bulb at 100%, rather always at 50% or so..(and ramp it up slowly from zero to that 50% 70% etc. it will last nearly forever.
I would bet tubes which are very lightly stressed, like in some preamp designs will last for many many years.
(Some preamp designs which used 6dj8 s used to burn out tubes maddenly fast!!)

So how the tube cicuit is implemented matters a great deal for tube life.

I have read slightly under-biasing the output tubes will extend the life. Does it affect the sound? Yes in my opinion. That being said with most of my tubes I have to 'squint' to hear it. Another thing when the unit powers up you should let the tubes 'bias up' before playing music. I have found with under biasing the tubes it generally takes 2 to 3 min to bias up and when biased to spec it may take 5 - 7 min. Anyhow that's the routine I go through. My integrated is an Octave V70se which has standby and soft start. Soft start turns on the input and driver tubes first and about 20 sec later it turns on the output tubes.