Had a VTL TL 2.5 myself for about two years, and I pretty much left it on all the time except when I knew I was going to be away for a couple of days or more (and then I'd usually turn it off and unplug it). From all that I've heard from VTL and read about their gear, they seem to recommend such an approach. Now I've got a Rogue 99, and they've got a deliberate soft-start circuit to protect the tubes at power up and explicitly suggest that you turn the thing off when you're not using it in order to prolong tube life -- so that's what I do. Which is right? No idea. I've blindly deferred to the fellows who designed the stuff on this one.
Is it OK to leave a tube preamp on all the time?
I just recently purchased a used VTL 2.5 preamp that I'm using along side with an Adcom home theater processor. I've had to do this because I can't find a processor under $2500 that keeps me happy for two channel music. I'm currently going from the Adcom processor front pre outs, to the processor input on the VTL, then out to the amp inputs. I connect only my CD player and turntable to the VTL, and all video sources to the Adcom.
My wife has become very frustrated with this arrangement because it's much too complicated to figure out what to turn on and off, and which volume to adjust- so I've had to constantly leave the unit on and turn until the volume so it's balanced with the centers and rears. Does anyone know if leaving on constantly (but without passing any signal through) shortens the tube life? The logical answer would be yes, but I'd like to know for sure. Or is there another way that I can feed both the VTL preamp and my processor to the amp input without losing sonic quality (like a very high quality Y connector)?
Any advice would be appreciated. I know the easy answer is to get rid of the wife, but that's not an option right now ;)
Thanks!
My wife has become very frustrated with this arrangement because it's much too complicated to figure out what to turn on and off, and which volume to adjust- so I've had to constantly leave the unit on and turn until the volume so it's balanced with the centers and rears. Does anyone know if leaving on constantly (but without passing any signal through) shortens the tube life? The logical answer would be yes, but I'd like to know for sure. Or is there another way that I can feed both the VTL preamp and my processor to the amp input without losing sonic quality (like a very high quality Y connector)?
Any advice would be appreciated. I know the easy answer is to get rid of the wife, but that's not an option right now ;)
Thanks!