1st Tube amp question

Back to the OP question.  As others recommended, best to keep all plugged in while breaking it in.  Letting the caps and even new tubes settle in for a bit will give your new amp a chance before drawing hard conclusions on how it sounds. Best of luck.  Patience typically pays off as we've all learned.  Let it play for a while.   

@decooney 

for sure.  I don't particularly want to trash out people or companies in public, but I don't mind relating the good experiences I have had.  I always thought that DH was great (it blew my mind when I called Cary to clarify something not long after I bought my V12 and I found out I was actually talking to DH himself), and that Kirk Owens (when he was there) was the absolute BEST. 

And, as I typed previously, I repaid that great customer service and tech support with loyalty as a consumer.  And I will say that I really like the preowned preamp that I recently bought from Cary.  It is just too bad that (at the present) if I experience issues with it that I cannot figure out by myself, it will be me sending emails and waiting for replies, or seeking help on an a forum such as this.  (The latter is how I troubleshot & repaired my Cary V12 when it went down about a year ago.)

@immatthewj no, after DH left. There were other super capable designers that took over after Dennis. Capable ones too. I was just super disappointed more autonomy and empowerment was not given to a few individuals. The last one was truly helping customers to resolve issues on older amps and eventually helping to guide others to new ones too. Somebody could not see the big picture and value of it from a strategic advantage. We can share more offline. I hope the keep it together. I like my older Cary stuff too. Went in another direction with my amps as a result. 

@decooney 

Were you referring to Dennis?  Actually that was not Dennis that I talked to the last time.  That was in the fall of '17 I took that amp out of mothballs & felt the need to call Cary to clarify something, & I think by then, Dennis had already left.

I remember after I bought my first Cary amp in (I think '94), Cary provided great customer tech support (thank you, Kirk Owens, wherever you are), and because of that tech support, I bought 3 other Cray products & had them do upgrades and even also bought tubes from them.

I had sworn Cary off, but recently I couldn't resist a preowned SLP 05 from their site.  Oh well, it probably isn't just Cary; I wouldn't be surprised if that's most of them now-a-days. 

NO! 

@immatthewj ...support guy from Cary (this was a few years ago when you could actually speak to someone from Cary on the phone about issues) related to a Cary V12...".

It’s a bummer, isn’t it... argh. That helpful person left the Co, I kept in touch after. He was getting a lot of customer calls, with pressure from his boss to stay off the phone to finish up on other design projects. A balance is always needed I guess. As a company, what they misunderstood is customer service is king and employee retention of key employees is critical. And now, to your point. Lesson learned there, one can only hope, in time. Now he talks to whoever he wants designing and building other products. Be respectful to all employees and helpful to your high performers, or they’ll leave.

Just hook up the system and play music.

You may very well observe changes in the SQ (both bad and good) over the next 200 hours, or so.

I just did this with some oddball gear for a newly put together mini system for our spare bed/computer room.

The SQ has improved considerably over the past 3 weeks.

DeKay

always have a load on a tube amp.

Why would would you want to waste tube life (a very finite thing) breaking it in. Just sit back and enjoy the music.

speakers connected to protect the amp/transformers

Brent Jesse Instructions: no source needed for tube burn-in, just leave it on for 60 hours.

You would not want to have a source on a tube amp that is not hooked up to any speaker blasting away so that the amp is trying to output high power but has no load on it.  But, if it is just sitting there with nothing playing, it is okay not to have a speaker hooked up to the amp.  

But why?  Don't worry so much about burn in.  Hook it up and enjoy music while it is supposedly burning in.  I think it is crazy wasting a substantial portion of the life a tube to a burn in phase that does not involve listening and enjoying the amp.

I had a telephone conversation about biasing with the tech support guy from Cary (this was a few years ago when you could actually speak to someone from Cary on the phone about issues) related to a Cary V12 that I was taking out of hibernation, and in the course of the conversation he told me that it wouldn't hurt it at all to bias it without a speaker load hooked up.  That typed, I put a load on it anyway.

Also, I remember a couple of ARC VTM120s I used to own, & the guy from ARC told me to NOT have the preamp turned on when I biased them.

Not knowing at the time a load was needed, I've accidentally not had speakers connected when biasing my tube amp, but that was quick (1-2 min) and thankfully, no damage occurred.  I wouldn't do it again.

You don't necessarily need an input, but you do need a load on the output transformers.

Everyone eventually accidentally turns on their amp without a load--well most of us at least.  

the problem occurs when you hear no music and turn it up, putting harmful currents into the transformers.  

If you keep the volume down or on mute or have no signal going in, you won't do any damage.  But there is no reason to do this other than by accident.  This won't help significantly with burnin although time on the tubes with heat will help them settle in.  I'd just wait and do it with music so you can hear the improvements.

Jerry

Tube amps need a load on the outputs, whether a speaker or resistor.

You can damage the output transformers with no speakers connected.  This applies to all the tube amps I've used.    Won't hurt most transitor amps , but bad for tube amps

You need stuff going in and coming out. Quality level isn’t critical… could be an iPad in and an old set of speakers.

A true ,"burn in" optimizes the electronics to music.

Hook anything up...

Depends on the amp but you should have the speakers hooked up on most.