How long is the break-in time for a Sophia Electric Blue 6SN7 tube?

Leave the player turned on 24/7. When the day comes you realize it sounds just the same now every day, its burned in. "Manufacturer says" can mean anything. Especially since it wasn’t even the manufacturer who said this. No one who manufactures tubes ever talks to anyone. Its the people who sell them talk to people. Key distinction.  

Also you probably know this but the reason you are so happy with your system is its so well tweaked out with SR and PPT. If you still have some TC a thin coat on the tube pins and around the base of the tube will do wonders. Just be sure as always to keep the thin coat around the base from running all the way to the pins and creating a short. I’m assuming you pretty much used up all your TC coating caps and transformers and outlets? How much if any do you have left?

Tubes gradually get worse with time.

Hey Chuck,

I have no more TC left and quite a bit of stuff to either touch up with TC or do the first time. I have made some very good changes in cables over the past couple years since applying TC. Would I be correct in that you have no more either? I have about 50-60 individual tube pins, spades, bananas, splitters, RCA pins, cartridge pins, and IEC prongs that need the treatment. I’d love to have about 0.3-0.5 ml. to get this all done. I still remember quite vividly the jumps in performance near the 4 and 8 week periods, and maybe a little bit after that, too. I have about several different products from PP that all made a significant difference in the reality of my system. Anyone with extra? I’d be a buyer at about 100 bucks.

Bob

Tubes gradually get worse with time.

In a well designed valve system, valves work WELL until they don't.

Does that make sense? As long as they BIAS out, and have no physical problems. They work well until failure or pulled when they get close in a routine maintenance check.  If the valve needs to be balanced, and they are. Your good! 

The pin treatment thing, is always good. Just BE CAREFUL. Tube base can get hot, no excess, no drips, none of that.
Great stuff though, contact enhancement, gue.. carbon base stuff, very conductive, graphite, graphene, some type of snazzy stuff.

I use Rislone and cotton balls, and plunge the pins several time into the lightly soaked cotton wad, a light wipe, and they work perfect...Be clean don't get oil everywhere. The gue shouldn't be moved right, what happens if a valve gets bumped... weeks to settle back in... The Rislone way, plug and play, they sound good, they sound the same, until the next maint cycle. It's a mechanics way, and a very OLD way...

Regards

At 50 hours, they are sounding even better now.  Sophia said 100 hours will be the mark when they reach their best.  Sue at Sophia also told me to start shutting off the Modwright player at night so the tubes last their longest.  The 24/7 except for storms will be coming to a close it appears.

The blue SN7s are good tubes.  I bought C grade tubes, which are fine for my application.  At $99/tube, these are still pricey tubes.  I had one go bad at about 6 months.   It went microphonic an had 60 Hz hum issues.  I would not leave these tubes on 24/7.  Most of the ModWright stuff I have owned does not require a very long warm up time compared to other pieces in my system.  When possible, I turn everything on about an hour before I plan to listen and that seems to do the trick. 

My experience with Sophia tubes in general is 150 hours is the optimal point but I will admit, I have never had an amp with the 6SN7s in it.  I would trust Sue.  

Can't see any reason to leave an amp on 24/7 unless you have very restricted listening windows and you need to make every minute count.  Otherwise, you are just burning away money.  I can't speak about Modwright but my amps take 20 minutes to warm up.  

You'll notice change and settling between 100-150hrs.  No need to leave them on 24/7, and 20-30min warmup seems to be fine.  I run the former TJ Full Music 6SN7 previously noted as being one of the OEM for Sophia 6SN7s but may have changed over the past few years . They are nicer tubes than some of the other re-issues and vintage N7s I've tried, still running them now. Hope they last longer than a year or more.  

Thanks everyone for your information--much appreciated.  I may just start turning things off between sessions.  I've had the 3 tubes in my DUDE on other than during storms 24/7 for about 4-5 years with no drop off in performance so far.  The MW 5400 had been unchanged in the same way since about 4 years ago.  Still has the same NOS Mullard GZ34 tube in the PS.  

Bob

Thanks all for the helpful information.  I must eat crow on a couple things I wrote:  1.) There was an incredible difference in sound quality when I finally replaced all 5 tubes in my TRL DUDE was NOS RCA tubes from Andy's Vintage Tubes in Michigan.  The sound was so much better than when I first got the DUDE from a previous owner that I'm not sure he even knew what the DUDE could really sound like.  

2.) I am now turning off the system between listening sessions to conserve the tube life as best I can.  It doesn't seem to take that long before the system sounds near its best--then subtlety gets better from there.  

Bob