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Warm up time...tube vs solid state

tomlinmgt

tomlinmgt

Lunatic Member
If you're in the "gear sounding better after warm up is a myth" camp, please oblige all of us and keep walking. For the rest of you, I'm curious if you've made any consistent observations regarding the time required before a solid state piece gets into its sweet spot compared to the same for a tube piece. Or has it been entirely dependent on the piece with warm up times being all over the map regardless of type?

I'm curious to hear your experiences for the sake of general interest, but there is another reason behind my query. I recently pulled an Audio Research LS2B MkII I've had sitting around out of retirement and since it's a hybrid I have warm up for two sections that has to be considered. It seems to take this thing about an hour or more to hit its sweet spot which is more than any of the tube preamps I've used (around half an hour for those) and I can't really speak for SS preamps since I leave those on all the time...but it's left me wondering which is taking longer to warm up, the ss or tube section? It has had the popular Multi-cap mod and makes some white noise at start up that fades away to dead silence after about a minute, but I don't think that's affecting warm up time (changing tubes has no effect on this). I'd like to just leave it on all the time, but don't want to be burning up a $100 tube prematurely. I'm hoping it's the ss section that's taking so long to warm up...in which case I'll just leave it on all the time and swap a cheapo tube in there when not listening.
 
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nope never have never needed to. all my SS life just turned on and played. by the time I got the cd or lp or station set , it was warm eunf.
for tubes I give them time to warm up by picking the cd or the lp then let er rip.
never worried about better sound. always sounded good to me.
sounds like you got problems.
IMO best to not leave tubes always on.
 
Solid state gear I will play shortly after I have hit the power button. I like to give tubes a 15 to 30 minute warm-up period.
 
I run my gear 12 hours a day no warm up time for tubes or SS but I do notice after about 5 hours both starts to sound really good.
 
Interesting. I have a bespoke/diy Triode type Pre that requires ~5 mins to get 'on step' so to speak.
Have / Had a pair of Arcam SS power amps that Noticeably improved their clarity after ~ an hour's on time.
But those were poor sounding amps overall .. not putting too fine a point on it.

Beyond that.. I've not yet heard/noticed such improvements from power up to many hours of use... in ANY other SS amp I've had. Since '66
There might be SOA issues related to temp accumulation. But perhaps that speaks to ...condition ...and/or poor circuit design imo.
 
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I power down my equipment when I don't use it, and turn off the wall outlet at night.

My preamp, sounds better once left on for a while, but how long that is, I'm not sure.
Going by how long it takes for the bias and DC offset to stabilize, my preamp takes about an hour to warm up, judging by the sound, it's hard to say.

My power amp is quicker, it takes about 15 minutes before it has settled down, and another 30 before it's at it's best, beyond that I don't notice any changes.

My DAC doesn't change much, it's as good as it gets within a minute or two after powering it up.

The only tube experience I have is with CRT monitors, they HAVE to be warm to perform well.
They even have a built in heater to make sure the electron gun runs hot enough, and at a stable temp.
It takes about an hour for the Trinitron tubes I have owned, to warm up, get proper blacks, color balance and geometry.
If analogue electronics don't need warmup time to perform their best, I must be hallucinating.
 
My tube gear took around 20min to get up to speed. My ss gear, never noticed any kind of warm-up.

I remember reading on Rod Elliot's site that he considered ss gear that required warm-up a indication of poor design. Heat is the enemy of silicon.
 
I am a true believer that they sound better when warm. I usually power up everything and just play the radio on low volume. Usually let it run 15 min or so.I still feel it truly doesn't warm up until you throw some volume into it. Maybe just powered on quietly doesn't warm it up enough?
 
ferninando said:
nope never have never needed to. all my SS life just turned on and played. by the time I got the cd or lp or station set , it was warm eunf.
for tubes I give them time to warm up by picking the cd or the lp then let er rip.
never worried about better sound. always sounded good to me.
sounds like you got problems.
IMO best to not leave tubes always on.
Click to expand...

Oh yeah, I definitely got problems. But they don't have anything to do with gear and warm up time.
 
My Fisher 800C (powering Wharfedale W90's) takes 30-45 minutes, depending on the room temperature. It's obvious when it happens. All of a sudden, my ears perk up and I start thinking to myself, "Dang... That sounds pretty-good there." (When I am thinking to myself, I apparently have a southern accent. :rolleyes: ).

I've wondered occasionally if my speakers have a warmup time, since they do have two 12" woofers per cab as well as some rather-large-sized oil capacitors. Hard to tell without warming up the Fisher PRIOR to turning on the W90's. I'll have to test that theory out some time once I get the Denton reissues hooked back up. Once I move, I'm looking to get some proper stands and hook the Dentons and W90's up in the same room so I can switch back and forth, and then I can warm up the Fisher and then warm the Wharfies up.
 
I have 2 main setups, 1 is all SS (Pre-Tuner and Amp) the other is Tube Pre and Hybrid Amp.

With the tube gear, I usually let it warm up for 5 minutes. The sound does change if you play a disk the moment the standby goes green on the amp, but you can hear the sound change as it warms up. I'm sure the tubes in the pre change as much as the tubes in the amp from cold to normal operating range.

With my SS setup, I will usually spin a disk or setup Pandora as soon as I turn it on. But, along with some sound change, you can also notice it gets louder as it warms up.
 
Eh, with most of my tube gear it seemed to hit best sound after 15 minutes and the sand state sounds fine after 5 minutes.
 
All tubes. Play softly for an lp's worth. Haven't got a clue if there's a difference between hot or cold.
 
tomlinmgt said:
I'm curious if you've made any consistent observations regarding the time required before a solid state piece gets into its sweet spot compared to the same for a tube piece.
Click to expand...
My Threshold Stasis needs a good hour for warmup. The VTL MB 450 amps need closer to two hours before the bias fully stabilizes.

tomlinmgt said:
but it's left me wondering which is taking longer to warm up, the ss or tube section? It has had the popular Multi-cap mod and makes some white noise at start up that fades away to dead silence after about a minute, but I don't think that's affecting warm up time (changing tubes has no effect on this).
Click to expand...
Good question. My inclination is that it is circuit related, so not necessarily about one type of output device or another.

tomlinmgt said:
I'd like to just leave it on all the time, but don't want to be burning up a $100 tube prematurely.
Click to expand...
I have two hybrid ARC preamps, a trusty SP9 MKIII and a new SP20. While I'm hesitant to burn through four 6H30 tubes quickly with the SP20, I run the SP9 24/7. You hear conflicting stories about small tube life - whether its closer to 5000 hours or far more if it is not getting power cycled frequently. I'm running some Amperex 7308s in it presently and plan to see just how long they last!
 
I noticed my tube system does sound a whole better after it's been playing for about a half a hour. Though the first few minutes sounds really flat and bright. After. 10 minutes the brightness goes away and by the 30 minute mark the sound is way more dimensional and the frequency response expands as well. Musical instruments sound more lifelike and vocals sound human.
 
My IcePower gear stays on 24/7. I generally give my tubes anywhere from 5 to 30 minutes. Does it make a difference? Not that I can tell.

*My tubes can't heat a room either. Must be something wrong with them

cubdog
 
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Preamp & Phono Pre = tubes , everything else SS

I believe they as a system sound best with 30min playing time
 
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