No one, as of yet, has come up with a deinitive statement, on whether leaving them on, will make them last longer, or continuously cycling them on, and off, will last longer. The manufacturers, gave a 10,000 hour, minimum service life, for these tubes, but their testing, was based, on always on.
Strategies for preserving tube life
I have a First Sound tube line stage with expensive (and glorious sounding ) Siemens Gold Pin 7308 tubes. I want them to last. My question is, what are the tradeoffs between wearing out the tubes by leaving the pre-amp on vs. stressing them out by powering up and down too often. So, for example, I power down when I leave town for two days. Should I also power down when I leave the house for 4 hours? Or when I go to bed at night? -Dan