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Tubes Asylum Questions about tubes and gear that glows. FAQ |
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Tubes Asylum Questions about tubes and gear that glows. FAQ |
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In Reply to: I am going to follow your suggestion... posted by crooner on September 17, 2004 at 18:43:40:
Look those tubes would last the longest if we never applied power to them at all. So the question becomes one of not absolute longest life but instead longest life while still performing up to specs. And I would submit to you that at 11 volts on those tubes they never ever performed up to spec and hence the sound was always compromised.IMHO any measure of increased tube life has to be done at conditions where the tube still functions normally and I am sure if you put most tubes in a tester and slowly decreased heater voltage somewhere around the 90% mark emissions would start falling off.
It may interest you to know that once upon a time the army, because they used a lot of tubes in important roles, conducted a study and published a guide to tube life under proper conservative operating conditions. In that publication (IIRC) a good quality 12AX7 was estimated to last about 70 years when operated 8 hours a day. By conservative operation I mean keeping the current the tube dissapates at the middle of it's ratings. The current the tube operates is the biggest determining factor of tube life.
Russ
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Follow Ups
- About lasting as long - Russ57 07:36:50 09/18/04 (0)
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