The heat of tubes...


I have been auditioning some tube amps in the last few months and now that the weather is getting warmer, I am noticing something very important....MY ROOM IS AS HOT AS HECK!!

How do you tube lovers handle this? I tried turning on the AC, but during soft passages, the sound of the AC just bugs me.

I need therapy...
matchstikman

Showing 1 response by all_ears

Some good suggestions here, especially locating the amps outside the listening room. Most often that's not an option, so make sure there's adequate room around them for ventilation. Some big tube amps throw off a lot of heat - a friend had two pairs of Atma-Sphere MA-2s behind his speakers for years, until a few months ago he replaced them. I imagine his air conditioning bill this summer will be quite a bit less. Other amps that come to mind as putting out a lot of heat are big Audio Research amps such as the Ref 600's - 'how much heat' is the number one question they get on them - and Tube Research Labs amps. The TRL 800's could just about heat a house in the dead of winter, being class A, as I recall feeling the heat from them at the '92 WCES from 15 feet away...

I can't wait to see what the heat output is from the Atma-Sphere MA-3's to be introduced somewhere down the road, with 42 output tubes each, running full bore...might set a record and make people want to live in Minnesota and leave the windows open just so they can listen to them without roasting...