Anyone else use crappy tubes?

[Michaels HiFi]

Over the decades I've come to find most gear needs between 300ish hours up to 500 hours to sound its best.

For instance horn speakers are typically closer to 500 (the Tobian 15's I have here are just waking up now approaching 400 hours).

I used to think it was 150 hours, however my experience with three pieces of Luxman all had a noticeable improvement on all three at 275 hours (must be using a similar part that takes that long). And the Aqua DAC needed 600+ hours.

Also I have found many cables need 300 hours, and even Stealth will say 300+ hours.

So while I use a cheap $100 Fosi amp to run in speakers and such usually, for the tube gear I can't do that.

To deal with this, I have a full set of cheap new tubes such as Russian and Chinese tubes to replace the vintage tubes with during burn in.

In this pic I am replacing the vintage 6SN7's with Russian tubes to do just that.

 

[gadawg]

Yes … Now that I am on the NOS bandwagon those tubes will be spared break-in of other components. That said I have managed to gather quite the collection of my favorite NOS tubes but don’t want to waste them regardless.

George

 

[Bones13]

Same, I will typically use the manufacturer supplied tubes for break in purposes.

 

[luizamarns]

Over the decades I've come to find most gear needs between 300ish hours up to 500 hours to sound its best.

For instance horn speakers are typically closer to 500 (the Tobian 15's I have here are just waking up now approaching 400 hours).

I used to think it was 150 hours, however my experience with three pieces of Luxman all had a noticeable improvement on all three at 275 hours (must be using a similar part that takes that long). And the Aqua DAC needed 600+ hours.

Also I have found many cables need 300 hours, and even Stealth will say 300+ hours.

So while I use a cheap $100 Fosi amp to run in speakers and such usually, for the tube gear I can't do that.

To deal with this, I have a full set of cheap new tubes such as Russian and Chinese tubes to replace the vintage tubes with during burn in.

In this pic I am replacing the vintage 6SN7's with Russian tubes to do just that.



View attachment 35729

Spot on! Wasting rare vintage 6SN7s on a 300+ hour burn-in is just painful to watch nowadays. Good NOS tubes are getting impossible to find and the prices are through the roof. Using cheap Russian or Chinese glass for the initial capacitor warm up and break in is the ultimate pro move. I've noticed the exact same thing some gear simply doesn't open up or settle into its true tonal character until it crosses that 300-400 hour mark anyway. Solid approach