Best Way To Maximize Preamp Tube Life?


I would love to learn how to best maximize tube life. Tubes have a limited lifespan, of course. So when you're not listening for a time, is it best to shut everything off to preserve the "hours" left on the tube's life? OR does the act of powering off/on itself shorten tube length as well? If so, by how much? Something like "powering off/on costs 3 hrs of tube life, so taking a music break of less than 3 hours, better to just leave it powered on." Or 1 hr, or 10 minutes, 6 hours, etc? Where is the tradeoff point?

In my system FYI, I am running a Don Sachs preamp with 4 6SN7s and 1 6BY5 rectifier.  Don says the preamp is only running the tubes at 40% of their rating. I would greatly appreciate some input from people with tube knowledge. Thanks in advance!
sid-hoff-frenchman

Showing 1 response by lucky_doggg7

Man, a fella can learn a thing or two off this forum.  If you don't want to worry about tubes forever, see if you can home audition a Pass Labs preamp, which has that inviting midrange bloom, smoothness of a tube amp, and that lit from within sound; the imaging is layered deeply, which if you like that sort of thing, is nice, but if you're say more an "old Krell" fan (before DD'Ag left) of up-front imaging where music is in the same plane as the speaker's front, then Pass is likely not a good choice.  The front ends configured in the three box set-ups are awfully good, even spanning back to the X0.2, then to the XP-30, and now the current XP-32 front end.  About the current XP front ends, I just bought the current Stereophile most recommended components issue and the XP-22 and XP-32 made the "A" List.  Have a good day all.