12-hour tube warm up?

Some tube pre amps and tube CD players have a standby mode in which the tubes are always on. Those tubes have a long life span unlike power tubes, so leaving them on 24/7 should not be a concern in that aspect or of them burning down your house. I've left gear like that on or in standby for years and years without any issues. However, tube power amps should always be turned off if not around to monitor them.

Never.

The power draw of a tube pre amp and/or a tube CD player in standby might cost a few extra dollars a year. What that means in relation to a carbon footprint I have no idea and could care less.

 

Why is that do you think?

I have never given it any thought.

Is this just the amp? Or do record players and CD players also benefit from this?

 

Iv'e owned many tube components, they all sounded there best after a long warmup and not just the preamp. Nothing unusual about what your hearing.

 

Everything, but especially things like clocks in DACs and CD players and also semiconductors will have performance that will vary with temperature, but presumably are designed around an operating point based on the temperature they'll heat too after a certain period of time when they reach thermal stability. I don't know that that takes hours though. There's gotta be a goldilocks temperature -- not dead cold, not overheating -- at which these devices are designed to operate at spec.

 

What I listen to is a Fisher 800B (which was gone over and had all coupling caps replaced and had the pots, switches and sockets cleaned a year ago), a Sansui 2000x and a Sansui 7070 that have both been gone over and cleaned.
While I do not feel comfortable leaving on the Fisher when I am not in the room for a long period of time especially after noticing a 7591 tube starting to redplate a while ago.I have not used it since and will get it checked first.
So should I assume there is no safety problem and preferably leave the Sansui's on all the time for better sound?

 

I blew one of the sh!tty Chinese rectifiers that came with my Manley NeoClassic 300B and that sent it into the shop for service.

D.D.

 

My VK-75 takes about 45 minutes to warm up. Many years of listening to the same amp.
Tim

 

I went back to a late friend's house, Bob Griffin, who inherited his fathers audio business, Griffin Audio in Birmingham, and ran it all his life. When I went in to the lounge with his widow, 8 months after he passed, the turntable was still spinning. Everything was still on. She said he left it on permanently when alive, so that table had been spinning for 14 years, and that was 8 years ago (although he would service it every couple of years, probably, as he rang me to remind me to bring my Sondek in ). I bet it still is now, as she continued to listen to music on vinyl with their daughters. I suspect it was an all solid state quad of Linn set up, most likely.

I should add also that my home made valve phono stage with vintage telefunkens definitely improves after many hours of staying on. If I forget it overnight (as it is out of sight below the table on the stand), I feel compelled to put an album on before turning it off, as it will sound great!

 

I find solid state stuff sounds best when I leave it on all the time.
My valve amps (Prima Luna, Quad, Croft) take about 3 songs to sound great - I notice no difference after
6 or 8 hours.

 

I owned an Audible Illusions Modulus 3a for 17 years and have owned a 3b for two years and I have noticed the same phenomenon. The 3b has a standby mode that keeps the tubes warmed up. My cd player and solid state amp are always on, also. The preamp is supposed to be fully warmed up after 30 minutes but I have found that the sound does seem to improve and become more open and natural throughout the day. There have been times when I have left the preamp on overnight and the next day the system sounded even better. I know I can't prove anything scientifically as far as this goes, but I've been listening to this system for many years (the speakers are 31 years old!), I am familiar with it and can only say that I know what I am hearing. It could have something to do with the change in quality of the power delivery through the day, but who knows.

 

Except for a few short service procedures, my Naim system has been on for 15 years since I moved
to my current location. My dealer says that turning it off and on is harder on the components
by going though the heating and cooling cycles, although for the most part nothing ever really
gets "hot" like tubes, my 250 amp might get a little warm if I'm really pushing it.

 

1hour and my system sounds good but after 6 hours it's amazing. However i would never leave it on if I wasn't close by. Turning tube gear or any gear for that matter on and off shortens it's lifespan

 

Was it a hazard or just bad sound?

 

Both.
It was a hazard to the unit followed by no sound as it took out a diode when the rectifier tube failed and that was all she wrote until the unit was repaired. I was in the room and was able to shut off the unit quickly when the tube went into China Syndrome mode. No way would I leave tube gear on 24-7 unattended - not even a pre-amp and certainly not power amps. Especially after going to the time, trouble and expense of finding either really good NOS ( expensive & rare ) or current production ( expensive ) tubes to replace the stuff that these units often come with.

D.D.

 

I might have been guilty of saying things like this before but it's better to mention the brand of the tube rather than the nationality of the tube. China makes a huge amount of the worlds tubes these days and not all of them are "sh!tty".

 

One of the reasons I stopped using SS gear was that it just took so long to warm up and sound 'right'. Once powered off, it'd take a least 3 hours for it to begin settling in and about 8 hours to start sounding good and tight. I'd leave it on 24/7 but the heat bothered me (as well as the wasted electricity) and I began avoiding amps that played hot - especially Class A. Tubed gear takes at least 45 min to start sounding good and about 3 hours to really settle but my DAC and preamps have 'Standby' modes that cuts that warm up in half (or so). SET and OTL designs seem to warm up faster than Push Pull but that may be attributed to wattage as I used +100w monos to drive the woofers (vs 2w and 10w respectively). The advent of digital amps was a godsend for me as now I can leave them on 24/7 without suffering the guilt of wasted energy and the excess heat and the bass is tight and ready to go. Now, I power up the tube gear (pre, DAC, xover, amps) and play a CD or stream music for an hour while I fix dinner or attend to some chores and the system is warmed and ready when I sit down for a listen. A couple of albums later, the image suddenly becomes focused and the soundstage expands - like someone flipped a switch.

 

Cupla things here, inperson...

a) On many of these forums, calling out a particular brand gets you banned and /or your post deleted. Not sure if that`s the case here yet but I weighed the importance of the message based on actual experience rather than conjecture ( don't leave tube gear running unattended ) vs. taking a swipe at a tube manufacturer and decided the message was what counted more.

b) It's not about the national origin of the tube. There are good and bad coming from China and elsewhere. At one point Manley put a warning against the use of the Russian Sovtek 5AR4 rectifier in the 300B preamp right into the unit manual and on their website because of it's predilection towards early failure and other issues that created. Most of the current production tubes available today are coming out of China and again, there are good and bad. And even some of what are supposed to be premium are haphazardly made - I have a pair of supposedly "Premium Grade" Shuguang Black Treasure 300B's ( happy now ? ) for example where the bottles aren't even straight on the bases. Sh!tty. I have Psvanes which are fine.

So before you go all PC on me, at no point in my post did I say that all Chinese tubes are ****ty and your post infers that I am a bigot. Which I am not. And I take offense at the inference.
I am not anti-Chinese. I am anti-sh!tty. It's different. So you can climb down off your high horse and give it a rub-down and some water. It must be exhausted.

D.D.

 

Things get a bit more rosy in the wee hours. Six plus hours into today's session, sound is pretty optimal.

 

It would be better to mention the brand that were bad. It's a fair warning to the rest of us and I don't believe you would be banned.

You read way too much into my post. I am not on a high horse since I said I have been guilty of slamming "Chinese" stuff too. For you to think I am calling you a bigot is so ridiculous, you can be offended, I don't care, but it isn't what I was saying at all. I hope you can accept that. I am far from PC.

 

I "feel" my system(s) sounds better the longer I listen to them right up until some magic moment where things fall apart. It is my ears/brain that may be tiring. Five to 6 hours seems fine but much more than that, especially if I'm listening critically, seems a good place to call it quits. Today I've been listening off and on since early this morning and all is well but I'm going to stop and watch some TV (gasp) with the Lovely Bride.

 

I do notice that listening critically (evaluating some component for example) wears me out WAY more quickly.

 

Net-Neutrality kids......
it gonna kill us all....

just sayin....

 

D#$@ right! 5 minutes it plenty of time.

 

Don't have anything tubey in my system (but when I win the lottery......................), but my Arcam amp and Arcam CD player have been switched on for the last 18 and 5 years respectively. Turned off once a year for the plug/fuse/input/IC cleaning for about an hour then straight back on.

 

It would be a good idea to consider listening fatigue and if you listen to very loud pop music for extended periods your perception will change - you'll hear less HF and you'll imagine the sound becoming more rounded, warm & satisfying. You could imagine the equipment is changing flavour during this time but give a thought to the effect the sound is having on your ears.

And each time you switch it back on listen from fresh, it will start by sounding sharper, edgier and exactly the difference you might be ascribing to burn in when it's possibly your unbombarded ears that have changed.

However, if the equipment is always on and it's only you who are beginning each listening session from cold, differences will be in you as the system has remained stable by being left on.