[Thump]

I'm a new owner of my first piece of tube equipment-an AudioValve RKV headphone amplifier. I tend to use it several times a day. My question is what rule of thumb should I use for turning the amp on and off-ie, if I'm gone 15 minutes, an hour, etc? I'm concerned about both maintaining equipment quality and sound performance.

 

[Ebonyks]

The key question is what tubes are you using?

Tubes take a good 10 minutes to an hour to warm up, however, leaving them on will lower their life. Now, if you're using stock tubes, and don't mind replacing them every so often, then by all means, leave it on 24/7. If you're using rarer NOS tubes, the question becomes a little more difficult

 

[Hirsch]

This has been repeated many times...


There is no right answer. You've got two main issues to deal with. Tubes eventually wear out. The biggest stressor on the tubes is the power/on cycle.

If you leave the amp on constantly, the tubes will wear, but slowly. The amp will also be ready to play. If you only turn the amp on when you want to use it, you'll have to wait for it to warm up...and you'll be putting the tubes through many more power cycles. Sooner or later, you will replace the tubes.

My own compromise is to turn on tube amps that I plan to listen to when I get home from work. I then leave them on, and turn them off when I'm done listening for the night. One power cycle daily, and they're only on when I'm planning to use them. Other people may have different strategies that are equally valid, or better.

Exception: If changing headphones, turn the amp off, unless the manufacturer has specifically said that the amp is safe to run without a load. It doesn't matter how many extra power cycles you have to go through. (In the case of the RKV, you can simply plug a headphone into the second jack before removing the headphone from the first jack, to insure that there is always a load on the amp.) If you leave a tube amp running without a load, you will damage it (unless is has specifically been designed to operate that way)

 

[HanssoN]

Quote:

Originally posted by Hirsch ...If you leave a tube amp running without a load, you will damage it (unless is has specifically been designed to operate that way)

Hmm?

very interesting! In what way, and why, would this damage the amplifier? (Sorry if I'm just plain stupid, but I'm quite a noob when it comes to HiFi/HeadFi.) Thanks!

 

[scottpaul_iu]

Tube amps tend to get unstable without a load present. So normally you don't want to run tube power amps without speaker wire and a speaker hooked up to them.
Most tube headphone amps work the same way.

My rule of thumb is this:

Live it on if you are going to listen to it. If you know that you will not listen to it for a while (more than one day from when you will listen) turn it off. If you have rare/expensive NOS tubes, then I would do what Hirsch recommended.

YMMV.