[vcoheda]

just browsing around the Cary site and read this:

Quote:

When is it best to turn my equipment off? This brings us to an ongoing debate. Which is better-leaving the product on 24 hours a day or turning it on and off? Both will shorten the life of your tubes. So what should you do? The answer lies somewhere between the two. If you listen faithfully for several hours a day then leave the unit on. You do not want to turn it on and off several times a day. This is worse than leaving it on 24 hours a day. If you listen two or three times a week or just on weekends, turn the unit off when not in use. In this case, allow one hour for warm up time. For the weekend listener, turn the unit on Friday and turn it off Sunday night. This will optimize tube life for your amplifier. Preamplifiers and CD players should stay on all the time. The tube replacement cost for these units is considerably less than amplifiers. Most of our amplifiers have a Standby feature. The Standby is there to pre-warm the tubes before operating. Tubes generally last longer if they have only a few minutes of warm up time. Most tubes will last for many years. Some will fail after a short period of time. As more tubes are being manufactured, the quality is excellent and the life is longer.

i guess my question is: does anyone who uses a tube-based amp leave it on *all* the time or for extended periods of time (days or weeks)?

 

[senns&nonsense]

Thanks for the quote.

I have a Cary Pre-amp and I have been turning it on/off as I use it, typically just once or twice a day. I guess I will have to rethink this, though it seems odd to leave it on and it does generate some warmth.

I am glad Cary thinks the preamp tubes are cheap - perhaps they would like to refresh my Paypal balance!

 

[senns&nonsense]

I should add that this unit, the SLP-2002, does sound it's best when it is toasty - more so than other tube gear I have used. Leaving it on would mean the best sound is always immediately available which would be nice.

And to be fair about the tube costs, there are a lot of choices in the 6922 and especially the 5814s that are not too $ painful. Just a little salt-in-the-wound to hear them extolling inexpensive replacements after what I just spent to re-tube mine......

 

[Skylab]

This was covered recently in another thread with no real agreement. I would never leave a tube amp on overnight, but I do leave them on all day once I turn them on, and then turn them off only at night, unless I know for a fact I won't use them again that day.

 

[vcoheda]

^^ could you link that thread if you know where it is.

thanks

 

[Skylab]

http://www.head-fi.org/forums/f5/tub...-times-351123/

 

[vcoheda]

there are some responsive posts there but the thread on the whole is a different issue. i am still curious if anyone actually does something like this.

Quote:

For the weekend listener, turn the unit on Friday and turn it off Sunday night.

 

[breakfastchef]

If I plan to listen to my amp on any particular day, I will turn it on about 30 minutes in advance. When I am through listening, the amp is turned off. A very simple routine.

 

[Spareribs]

I can't imagine leaving an amp on all time but I do keep my Sonic T amp on all the time for the most part....but it's just a $35 amp.

With tubes and heat, it makes me nervous so I can't imagine keeping on all the time. Here's my question:

When burning in Blackgate caps in an amp, do you play music through the amp on repeat mode in your CD player or just simply turn the amp on ? What what you do?

 

[AudioPhewl]

^Depends. Are they in the PSU, or are they in the audio signal? If they're in the PSU, I can't see it making a difference. If they're used for coupling, then you should be playing music.

~Phewl.

 

[nikongod]

For my own tube amps (lol the SS amp is now the exception) I dont generally leave them on 24/7 although I have.

I usually turn whatever im going to listen to on when I get home from work, and off shortly before I go to bed.
On the weekends, I turn on in the morning, and off in the evening.
Quote:

Originally Posted by Spareribs /img/forum/go_quote.gif With tubes and heat, it makes me nervous so I can't imagine keeping on all the time. Here's my question: When burning in Blackgate caps in an amp, do you play music through the amp on repeat mode in your CD player or just simply turn the amp on ? What what you do?

I always keep the music going whenever my amps are on. ESPECICALLY when im burning stuff in.

For signal caps you have to have some signal going: play music or noise or whatever.

For PSU caps, they should get pretty well burnt in with the amp simply on, but playing music could present some ripple which could help.

Even if you dont have black-gate signal caps, other electrolytic coupling caps can burn in too, so just keep the music playing! It is not too much work to set the CD player to repeat...

 

[BIG POPPA]

I would leave my tube amp on all the time if my didn't turn it off when I went to bed.

 

[Uncle Erik]

The problem is that tubes are NOT the only wear item in a tube amp. If you want to see how long capacitors and resistors last, pull some up on Mouser and Digikey. You can often find the number of hours they are expected to last. They do not last forever. Neither do transformers.

Further, tubes are the usual victims of cap and resistor failure. If you're trying to preserve your tubes by keeping them on, that becomes pointless if you cook off a cap which then toasts the tube. So what's the point?

Heat kills internal components. Even if they don't fail, they drift in value after long term heat exposure. Leaving equipment on doesn't make sense to me, and that's aside from wasting electricity and fire hazards.

 

[vcoheda]

^^ that makes sense and i agree. that's why i was surprised to read that information posted by Cary on their website in the FAQ.

personally, i couldn't imagine leaving a tube amp on overnight.

 

[cooperpwc]

I'm no expert (although I play an expert on TV). Actually I'm just learning myself. What I am finding oddly is that it makes sense for me to leave my amp on all night on week nights. That way when I wake up early I can grab my cans and listen to an album in bed before facing the day. I don't have half an hour to warm the tubes up. However, my amp is then off all day as I go to work. In practice at least 10 hours, usually more.