How to extend tubelife in bedroom system?


I used to listen to the music when I was in bed and let the amp run overnight a lot.

Sine I got the AES SE-1 SET amp (300B and 6sn7 Tubes) and AES AE-3 (6sn7 and tube rectifier, don't remember which one). I had to refrain myself a lot not to do what I did in the pass as most of my tubes are NOS and fairly expensive to me to replace.

Still I miss my listening session before falling asleep a lot.

Is there anyway I can do it without sacrify the tubes life? I know if I let it run over night I waste pretty muc 6-8 hours eveyday and it adds up to over 2000 hours per year.

Here is what I can think of:

1. Get SS amp => not possible as I am alreay in to the tube!!
2. Wake up during the night to turn it off => possible, but a pain in the butt. to have to wake up from deep sleep every night.
3. Just let it run and don't worry about it => at my expense, sounds good, but bad for the wallet.
4. What are approximate tube life for 6sn7 and 300B (AVVT) tube?
5. I was thinking about adding the timer at the outlet. As my amp consume less than 100W of power, any timer should do the job. As I have to turn the amp off before the preamp or it will "pop the speaker so I may need two separate timer sets to turn the amp off before the preamp. Timer is relatively cheap.

I am very interested in the last idea. Could some one let me know if any one has tried this approach? If not can anyone think of the ill-effect that will coase the problem to my set up? The only thing I can think off is probably the impurity of the power that has to run through the timer first. I use my amp straigt from the outlet with no conditioner anyway so I wouldn't think it would hurt much.

Any thoughts are really appreciate.

Ake

The rest of my system is CAL Ikon2 CD player and Maggies 1.6s :)
ake
When I asked UHF magazine how to extend tube life they said the first thing to make sure of was that the tubes stayed as cool as possible. So make sure your amp has adequate ventilation and maybe invest in a silent-type fan.

You might want to try a heavy-duty timer that will shut off power to the amp after a preset interval. I have no idea about the possible consequences to sonics of such a unit, though.

And finally, a joke : aging may solve your problem ! Lots of guys over 50 have to get up and pee in the middle of the night. That's when I turn off my wife's bedroom system.