If I recall rightly our Albert Porter, leaving his Aesthetics front end on all the time, has reported here, that the deterioration of his NOS tubes within the course of one year was minimal. I can come up with the same message, regarding my Jadis PrePre stocked with Tele ECC83s, which still measured good after three years. The same holds good with the stock powersupply tubes. By the way, I've used the Ensemble socks in the Teles. If that did any good, I cannot say.
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
7 responses Add your response