Your question is more an example of too much information on the internet.
"Broken in " tubes are just an enhancement(if at all)to an already good piece of equipment.
Enjoy your new amp and limit audio forum time.
Simple question, probably stupid
Is it necessary to have sound (music or white noise) playing through the speakers when burning in new tubes? I have bought a matched quad of Shuguang KT88 Z Black Treasure tubes to compare with my current Gold Lion KT88 and Tung-Sol KT120 tubes in a Rogue Stereo 90 amp. Reviews of the Shuguang tubes indicate that they need around 200 hours of burn in to reach their true potential but I am not looking forward to having to listen to 200 hours of crap sound.
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+1 @larryi Just inset your tubes press play and enjoy the sound steadily improving. |
Thank you to all those who read, understood and responded to my simple question and to all those who chose to answer a completely different question ie do tubes need to be burnt in? With regard to that latter issue, as it has been raised, I might as well add my 2 cents worth. If Brent Jesse, a guy who has extensive experience with almost all types and brands of tubes, says they need burn in then in my view they need burn in. If anyone on this site claims they have more experience than Brent Jesse please raise your hand. Also why would all reviewers of the Shuguang tube, who generally responded favourably, make a point that they need an extremely long burn in time? In my experience over many years (too many years ) I have found that some tubes need about 10 hours burn in and others much longer. I have never encountered a tube that needs 200 hours so when I start to use the Black Treasures I guess I will find out. |
With new tubes from China, Russia 50 hours is pretty close to runin and not anywhere close to NOS tubes which take 2 x to settle in any last much longer the tube standards were far better ,such as 98+ % vacuum vs 92-94% today , the metal recipe quality is not there back in the 50-60s grids many times inspected every 100 pcs now many every 3000. the new Gold lions they bough5 the name ,not even close to the originals. Tungsol made the Best 6550- today called kt88, even GE much better or Japanese made from the 70s. That’s why I only buy or have custom built by RaduTarta SET or transformer ,choke coupled preamplifier ,for quality throughout no China or Russian Anything. Emission labs makes nice tubes as well as Western Electric 300B orTaks from Japan. |
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