I listen to tubes I roll as they burn in, and here's what I've noticed in my system: Power tubes and rectifiers 25 to 50 hours, signal tubes 50 or more....all of my signal tubes are mostly 50s and 60s NOS. They all sound good out of the box, but I won't listen critically until about 50 hours
Simple question, probably stupid
Is it necessary to have sound (music or white noise) playing through the speakers when burning in new tubes? I have bought a matched quad of Shuguang KT88 Z Black Treasure tubes to compare with my current Gold Lion KT88 and Tung-Sol KT120 tubes in a Rogue Stereo 90 amp. Reviews of the Shuguang tubes indicate that they need around 200 hours of burn in to reach their true potential but I am not looking forward to having to listen to 200 hours of crap sound.