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New Tube Amp Owner - Do's & Don'ts

ChckenLeg

ChckenLeg

New Member
I just purchased a Boyuurange Reisong A12 EL34 12AX7 (ECC83) tube amp from Amazon. This is my first tube amp. I purchased this amp because it’s an upgraded version of the A10, the A10 received mostly favorable reviews, and several YouTube content providers recommended the A10 as a good amp for someone testing the waters as a first time tube amp owner.

I have only owned SS amps in the past so I don’t have a clue about the basic do's and don'ts of using a tube amp. Where can I find beginners info on how to use tube amps, specifically the do's and don'ts. For example, I have read that I should not power on the amp without speakers attached. As a SS amp owner, I would not have known that. It seems to me that I read somewhere that I should not touch the tubes with bare fingers when installing them. Also, I read that new tubes need about 30 to 40 hours of break-in time. Where can I find info on other do's and don’ts that I should follow so I don’t inadvertently damage the amp?

The A12 amp has an Auxiliary input and another input labeled as CD. I will be using this amp to play my Pro-ject Carbon Debut EVO turntable and my old Yamaha 5 CD carousel player. I have a phono pre-amp on order and I am guessing I need a DAC to connect the CD player. I will using this amp with my Klipsch Chorus II speakers in a 12’ x 17’ room and approximately 10’ away from the speakers where the speakers are about 10’ apart. The speakers are 8 ohm impedance and 101db sensitivity. I don’t listen to music as loudly as I did when I was younger so I am guessing (hoping) that the volume will be sufficiently loud for my taste.

Any advice or helpful links is much appreciated.

Thanks,
Chkenleg
 
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They're not that difficult. You can install tubes with your bare hands. Just not when they are hot. :yikes::biggrin:

The reason tube amps don't like a no load situation is that some tube amps tend to start oscillating without speakers connected and that can destroy the output transformers.

No DAC needed for the CD player. Just plug it in tp the CD input.

Use your phono with the preamp in to the AUX input. That's it.

As for the speakers, put 'em where you think they sound the best. Same way you would with a solid state amp.

In my humble opinion (and experience) don't worry about burn in, just turn it on and enjoy! As long as there is no distortion, you should be fine.
 
You presumably saw the Amazon description with its admonition, "Please confirm that your speaker is a bookshelf speakers [sic; that is, not a big floor-standing model] with a sensitivity 89db or more." The stated power is 6 watts. To the best of my knowledge, that means it will not drive speakers to more than moderate volume.

Your speakers might quote a power rating, such as 25 to 120 watts. The minimum is as important as the maximum. If you turn a 6-watt amp up to its highest gain while the speaker wants more power, the amplifier - so I read - will clip the output signal, which can blow the tweeter if the clipping goes on for extended duration.

This is with "ordinary" speakers. Electrostatic speakers have very different characteristics and work well with low-power amplifiers.
 
What you want to look at is the efficiency rating. 95db or better is ideal. 12 watts is a nice amount for a tube amp. I have three and my largest is only 7.5 watts. I have another at 3 watts and a little flea watt at 1.2 watts. I drive DCM Timeframe TF 600 speakers nicely with any of the three and it is only rated at 93db. There are several options from Klipsch, new and vintage, that would be great but another consideration is your budget for speakers.
 
Thanks to everyone who has responded. A lot of good info.

I saw the statement on Amazon about not using large floor standing speakers. But they did not say why. Since I don’t listen to loud music anymore and the high efficiency of the speakers, I would have thought the amp could drive the Chorus II's at a low to moderate volume easily. However, I have a spare set of older Infinity RS-125 bookshelf speakers packed away, around 90db I recall correctly. It might be worth giving these a try.
 
And its not recommended to turn the amp off then right back on. Give a minimum of maybe 5 minutes between.
I use my A10 with 89 db spl speakers. Plays loud enough for me.
 
Do allow your amp a side to warm up and come to temp before making any judgment

Do compare it to a good Push pull, a good solid state amp, and a class D amp using your speakers.

Do save the box and packaging.

Don't run the amp without speakers.

Don't run the amp when you're not home, or not paying attention.

Don't expect the sound to drastically change, transform, open up, or wisk you away to never never land after the recommended burn in period. It's far more likely you've become accustomed to the sound of the amp, than it is the amp had a personality change.

Do be aware, that if you hang onto it long enough the "free return" period from Amazon expires...

Do be honest with yourself.
Nobody's opinion matters, facts matter.
If you enjoy what you've got, keep it.
Dont make the decision based on the opinions of others especially those on the internet.
Instead, do what we did.

Invite some pals over and put your new amp up against 3 or 4 other amps, see what people who might actually come listen to music at your place think about how it sounds in your space with your gear.

Our audio club did this very thing with the bouyrange A50, a Eico hf87, my pair of rebuilt MC30s a class d brick and a solid state Mac amp.

Most of the club was rolling on the floor laughing at one point.

I took my portable test setup and started testing things, I set up basically a little mac clinic right on my friends kitchen table.

There was nothing funny about the results.
People were shaking their heads, wow.

Do make it compete, for a chance to stay.

Do have your friends over for a listen.

Don't put too much stock in what people on the internet say. A lot of it is just plain false.
In large part it's meant to solicit an emotional response that parts you from your hard earned dollars.

Dont let their rhetoric manipulate your emotions.

Put your favorite music through that amplifier and see if it moves your emotions...
 
trainbuftony said:
Invite some pals over and put your new amp up against 3 or 4 other amps, see what people who might actually come listen to music at your place think about how it sounds in your space with your gear.

Our audio club did this very thing with the bouyrange A50, a Eico hf87, my pair of rebuilt MC30s a class d brick and a solid state Mac amp.

Most of the club was rolling on the floor laughing at one point.
Click to expand...

The A50 really does have problems, the same ones I ran into trying to use that topology. I'm not sure this applies to all their amps and these other EL34 A10/A12 amps seem to be much better. We can't assume because the A50 is flawed these others are bad too.

On the floor vs bookshelf, the reason they say not to use floor speakers is most old floor speakers are very inefficient. if you have efficient floor speakers, by all means use them!
 
I don't have much tube amp experience. In my A10 I rolled in Tungsol EL34s. I didn't give the stock EL34s a long trial to evaluate them.
The stock Chinese input tubes had some glare. So I tried a couple different pairs of NOS 6SN7 tubes. I think that improved sound. It lost the glare, I was hearing. Since your amp has different input tubes, I don't know if or how much my experience can apply to your amp.
Maybe you could peruse the AK A10 thread. There were posters there who used 12AX7 to 6N2 input socket adapters. I don't know if those adapters and 12AX7 tubes would exactly equal the A12 circuit.
 
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Congrats on the new amp!

I have the A10 - same amp except that the A12 is wired for 12AX7 tubes. I have to use adapters to use 12AX7 on the A10. I am using Klipsch RF-35 floorstanders, and it powers them nicely.

The amp took about 25-35 hours before the sound opened up. Sounded kind of dull at first.

Make sure and leave the cage on - especially if you have kids around. They always try to touch the tubes.
 
Your Klipsch speakers will be far better than the bookshelf speakers for this amp.

The only thing I'd add is don't power cycle the amp (turn it off and then back on again right away), once you turn it off give it 30 seconds or so before turning it back on. Because of the high voltages in a tube amp relative to SS, power cycling can lead to very high spikes that damage parts of the power supply.
 
opnly bafld said:
For a do and don't thread I think so, no reason to leave the cage on unless you have a reason to keep it on.
I don't buy no stinking tube amp to look at a cover.
Click to expand...
I here ya… none of my amps are run with covers. Started to put the cover on my ST70 for my grandson, daughter said “don’t do that, he will learn”. I am totally cool with using Darwinism :)
 
Their bookshelf speaker comment is likely just sloppy language, probably poor translation to English (which is the norm with Chi-Fi documentation sadly :(). I haven't really seen any correlation between speaker size and efficiency. My Yaqin MC-84L is 13wpc and it drove Ohm Walsh's (not very efficient speakers) without any problem. My daily 90db sensitivity speakers weigh 100lbs each and they go plenty loud with the tube amp.

My advice:
1. Replace any generic Chinese tubes -- you will likely hear a considerable improvement
2. For the first tube change, use quality "new issue" tubes (e.g. Mullard or Tung-Sol reissues), rather than NOS, so that you have a "known" baseline to evaluate the amp
3. Once you have the known baseline, then you can try NOS if that is of interest (or you may find that you are happy with new issue that you don't have a desire to try NOS)

When I got the Yaqin MC-84L, I was really disappointed with the sound on original tubes. A month or so of burn-in didn't really help. Mullard reissue preamp tubes made a huge difference. I did the power tubes a month or so later (also Mullard reissues) and it was another bump up in sound quality. With stock tubes, it was considerably worse than my high-end SS amp, but with upgraded tubes, it's better. The difference is in the clarity with the tube amp -- I won't be going back to solid state for my main 2-channel system.
 
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Thanks to everyone who responded. Lots of good info which is very helpful to a newbie like me.

After reading some of the responses, I am less concerned about the amp being able to drive my speakers with A12 amp. I think I will start reading up on some tube replacements as suggested. This seems like the first necessary and logical upgrade. A lot of this is still Greek to me but I am learning as I go.
I received a message from Amazon today that my amp will arrive tomorrow, a day early. :banana: However, my phono pre-amp won’t arrive for another couple of days. I can still connect and play my CD player though. This will be my first experience with hearing a tube amp. I am not expecting to be wow'd with the stock Chinese tubes but I think I will have some of that tubey sound.
 
The amp arrived this morning. It was packed really well. I didn’t get a chance to set it up until after work this afternoon. The fit and finish are pretty good for the price point. I have no complaints on the initial quality.

My phono pre-amp arrives tomorrow so I have been listening to CDs for the past 3 hours. I listened to Dire Straits - Brothers in Arms, Miles Davis - Kind of Blue, Eagles - When Hell Freezes Over, a couple of Hans Theessink CDs. The amp has plenty of power to drive my 101db speakers in my 12’x17’ room. The volume knob is just under the 10 o'clock position for normal listening volume. At the 12 o'clock position, it's starting to get pretty loud for my taste.

I can tell that the music is more detailed after 3 hours of playing. The bass is not quite as punchy as my solid state amp and the highs are not quite as high either but, to be honest, the Chorus II's are a little on the bright side. The A12 voices much better than my solid state amp and the speakers' brightness has been tamed a little, which is what I wanted. The amp seems pretty quiet too. I don’t hear any hissing in between tracks even if I place my head right up next to the speakers. Overall, to my novice ears, this amp sounds really good. I am really digging the sound.

On my solid state amp, I have to adjust the EQ settings to get the sound adjusted to the way I like it. With the A12 amp, the CD is running straight into amp with no means for adjusting bass or treble and it sounds really good. If I had my druthers, I would like a tad more punch on the bass. Don’t get me wrong, it has plenty of bass (Chorus II's have a 15” woofer and 15” passive radiator) but not as much as I am used to having. I am very happy with my purchase so far and would purchase it again if I had it to do over. Hopefully, my opinion doesn't change a couple of months or year from now.

Thanks to everyone who responded with a lot of good info. I was really nervous that I may inadvertently do something wrong to damage the amp or the amp may not produce even power to drive sufficiently drive my speakers.
 
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Shiite sells an active tone control unit called Loki if in the future you feel you need tone controls. Or, you can add a tube preamp with tone controls, lots of options to choose from. Some tubes can be more punchy that others also.
 
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