Stupid but burning question!

AVcrazy

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So I was at my friends place yesterday to check out his newly acquired Jolida Fusion 3502 tube amplifier. Apparently he got it for a steal during his last visit to the States.
Anywho, we were listening for quite a while when suddenly we stumbled onto this track from Philip glass. I like this album 'glassworks', some of the tracks I listen to at night to help me sleep.
Now I'm prone to doze off in the first two tracks itself and this leaves my setup running for about an hour or two. Naturally it stays ON for the rest of the night.

So I told him this and he remarked that I should definitely never get a tube amp coz I'll end up frying the amp in a weeks time if I leave it ON throughout the night. I argued that that's nonsense since I've left lots of amps on for days and nothing happened. Heck I had a Norge amp which I had attached with my TV and it never turned off for months!!

He gave me all sorts of reasons and after some time I gave in, stating that I'll go home and search for a scientific answer.

So here I am. I know it's a stupid question. How bad is it if I leave a tube amp ON for a considerable amount of time? Does it decrease the life of the tubes? If yes by how much?

I searched on the net but there doesn't seem to be a very clear-cut or scientific answer to this.

Thanks for your help!
Kind regards
AVcrazy
 
not an answer to your question ... but..

what was the jolida paired with ?

how was the sound ?
 
So here I am. I know it's a stupid question. How bad is it if I leave a tube amp ON for a considerable amount of time? Does it decrease the life of the tubes? If yes by how much?

I searched on the net but there doesn't seem to be a very clear-cut or scientific answer to this.

Thanks for your help!
Kind regards
AVcrazy

i dont know the scientific answer but yes in my experience tubes definitely have a finite life. It varies with type of tube, bias setting, design etc. I noticed power tubes seem to fail faster than preamp tubes. I would say a new power tube may last 1500-2000 hours, so if you leave it on all night say for 7 hours every day it will last 6-7 months. I have had 6h30 tubes last quite long about 3000 hours, though they are specd. for 5000 hours. Also there has to be ventilation around tube equipment, if they are shoved into a closed shelf then again tube life and even equipment life will decrease including other parts failure.
I have also been told that tube life decreases even if they are not used and stored - not sure about this one though.
Cheers,
Sid
 
The amp was paired with wharfedale Denton speakers.

Hmmm. That is interesting and big downer for me. Even I was thinking of getting a tube amp too.
I still haven't found a white paper, research article or a good blog post about this issue. Maybe it's just me: dozing off to songs! Hahaha!
 
Agree with Sidvee completely. I have an Audio Research tube amp and ARC state categorically in their manual that the typical tube life of about 2000 hours would get exhausted quite soon if the amp is left on at all times.

Hope this helps.
 
Not a stupid question. It should be on every tube-amp user guide FAQ.

Tubes used in Tube amp are consumables with finite life. How long they will serve depends on how much use they have seen plus what is the bias current they have been used with. Higher the bias current lower the tube life.

Tubes losing life without actually being used is a myth.
 
Tubes have a finite operating life.
About tubes losing life without usage, not true. How else would we have NOS products :)
Cheers,
Raghu
 
An addendum to what others have shared already ...

Constant switching the amp ON/OFF will also shorten tube life.
So in the end the way you have used your tubes is ideal.
Switch on and off as least number of times as you can ....

Regards
 
Another noob question - how does one realise that the tube has lost its "life" ? Does the sound change dramatically to notice or does one change based on number of years and usage (I have read 2000 hours somewhere)....
 
Another noob question - how does one realise that the tube has lost its "life" ? Does the sound change dramatically to notice or does one change based on number of years and usage (I have read 2000 hours somewhere)....

Tubes don't fail at once. They start giving troubles. If you feel the sound is worsening, the tubes might be aging. The sound becomes dull, or transients don't come out like once they used to. In more severe cases, you may notice Hum, Muffled sound, Intermittent failures, One channel going partially quite or completely silent and so on. These are some of the many symptoms tube amps show when they are going/gone.
 
Thanks a lot for all the answers! Really appreciate your help!

I was searching the other day and I remember reading a similar discussion somewhere where a member was saying that in the olden days people had valve radios only and they used to keep their radios on for almost all day, everyday. In fact the army used valve based communication devices and they could never shut them down.
I'm so stupid I didn't save the link. But anyway, does this mean that the tubes we get today are underperforming? Or did the tubes fail then too?
 
Thanks a lot for all the answers! Really appreciate your help!

I was searching the other day and I remember reading a similar discussion somewhere where a member was saying that in the olden days people had valve radios only and they used to keep their radios on for almost all day, everyday. In fact the army used valve based communication devices and they could never shut them down.
I'm so stupid I didn't save the link. But anyway, does this mean that the tubes we get today are underperforming? Or did the tubes fail then too?

Military Specifications or "milspec" are highly valued tubes in the industry.
Tubes that were built for military were held to a higher spec and inspection etc.

Today the problem is more about getting a reliable source of tubes and not getting rip offs.
You can still get good tubes that are made today for sure - you just need to know.
 
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