300B Warmup versus other tube or SS amps?


Anyone have experience in warming up their 300B SET amp?  My push pull tube amp comes on duty after about 15-20 minutes or so of warmup.  My 300B sounds distinctly better after 60-90 minutes of warmup.  If it's on for several hours it may even marginally improve from there.  It sounds a bit flat out of the gate (no warmup).  My other amps are not as sensitive to this.

I am just curious to what folks have observed in there setups.  
128x128jbhiller
I have Canary M350 mono's and warm them up for 10 min and run the system on low for 30 min. After an hour it sounds better. I don't know how long these amps are supposed to be warmed up before using. Love the sound.
Does a longer warmup time have to do with the amp being Class A?

For optimal sonics my Class A push/pull takes much longer to warm up than my AB amp.
 
 I ran (run) a Cary SLP 98P  Pre with a Cary V12R then a Cary Cad 120's and the manual calls for a 5 min warm up for the pre and 3 min warm up for the amps. Not sure on the Canary M 350's so I warm them up for 10-15 min. All the amps seem to sound better after 30 min.
@lowrider57,  Great question! Maybe someone with more tech experience than us will chime in. 
I'm sure it depends on your amp's my 300b SET seems to be fine after 10mins or so depending also on the time of day as I live in the city so supper time it sounds not great after much better.
I turn my tube gear on ten minutes before listening. Solid state you can leave on all the time.
Perhaps there is no easy answer for tube amps. It might depend on design, size of transformers, caps, type of wire, tube type.

One of my SS amps took hours to sound its best, so I left it powered up.
With tubes it's easy to hear the SQ increase as it warms up.


I let my ANK interstage monos warm up for about 30-45 mins usually while preparing and enjoying dinner. There is some slight improvement after that but not much.
That is surprising.  The heater in most SETs should get the tubes to optimal temperature within about 10 minutes.  I wonder if the heater isn't working right.  
5-10 minutes max for all 300B SET amps I used (and that’s a really long list), idle is fine.

Solid state tend to take more time to be optimal in my prior ownership: 30 minutes minimum (low volume listening needed, idle isn't good enough). The classic Krell and Aragon Class A amps took longer (an hour of low volume listening).
@bsimpson, a bit off topic but can you share what 300b amps are your favorites? You intrigued me with your note that you’ve owned a few. 
What I owned before:

Audion Silver Night

Granite Aspen 800 (2nd best of the brunch)

Audio Note Conquest Monos (best of the brunch)

Mastersound 300B (complete joke of the brunch --- and it's very hard to get this status if you read my VAC 30/30 experience below)

ICL 300B (Softone, from Japan)

An custom 300B push pull from ebay seller chang39 from South Korea (I forgot the brand badge he attached to his creations) (3rd best of the brunch)

CAD-300SEI

An Ming Da (don’t care to remember the model ... still trying to forget the brand name)

A few DIYers ... my (strong) comment is ... don’t buy any DIY 300B amp, period, if you ain’t that interested in paying for any education.

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What I loaned before:

My bullying audio friend (ex-colleague, rather) once loaned me an Zanden Audio 7000 (??) for a few weeks to prove that this is the one and only tube amp to own: The amp from God, he proclaimed. Unfortunately I only had the Vienna Acoustics Mahler speakers at that time, a truly woeful mismatch. I didn’t dare to listen to it much as I worry about any damage to his amp. So cannot comment on that.

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Hope this helps
Oh I almost forgot!!!!

The VAC Renaissance 30/30. I had an original and an Mark II at the same time. That cement my complete disdain toward Kevin Hayers and VAC.

Well, the VAC Renaissance 30/30 blown me away when it worked, but rarely it works right. Ground loop and hum abound. Can’t get rid of it. VAC blamed the tubes, my home circuit, my ears, my intelligence. But I had the Lamm L1 and M1.1 at the same time.... not a hint of ground loop and hum!

The 30/30 Mk II was a beautiful dixie clock ... no matter what tubes I put in, the tubes went on their fire dance ritual. The same tubes didn’t behave like that on the original.

Both are auto-bias. No control in that kind of deal. My plan to bi-amp using two 30/30 blown up in my face. Lost crap load of money to sell them as-is (the money I lost in the sale was still less than the cost to ship them one-way to VAC’s Florida shop, nuff said). Absolutely hated them.

(both VACs were working fine when the seller demo them with all WE300B tubes... which obviously not included in the sale... 8 x WE 300B tubes.... you do the math... I had no choice but sell them and disclose the caveats ...)

In general, due to the questionable QA consistency and wild derivation from the Western Electric 300B tube spec, I’d stay away from any 300B amp that uses auto-bias. The only 300B tubes (outside of WE 300B) I’d use would be from Sophia and Psvane (I love Vaic 300B+ blue bottles too, but they are impossible to find)

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