Tube amp questions....

Rancid Rumpboogie

Blues Mangler
Youse guys are SO FUNNY! My Quilter is about as real as it gets. Certainly isn't a figment of my imagination. Sitting right here in front of me. Very real indeedy. More real than my three tube amps if "real" is defined by great tone. Ask CVTOT ... he got a Quilter, now his Nace is up for sale. :):) I'm keeping my tube amps just to keep me from being swayed by all the tube bias and hype. If I ever find myself seriously listening to that again, all I have to do is turn one of them on and A/B it with my Quilter, then turn it off again for another couple years. :) What I expect to happen in Boise when I start going to jams is to have a bunch of guys saving up to buy a Quilter. If not, I'll just assume they are all tone deaf. :whistle::ROFLMAO::Beer:
 
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PapaRaptor

Father Vyvian O'Blivion
Staff member
Geez, I thought your Quilter was the thing you keep showing your guitars lying on... you know, that thing with all the patches on it. Like this one.
rr-quilter.JPG
 

CVTOT

Blues Newbie
Congrats on the sale of your house Jim, always a relief. Good luck with the move and relocation.
 

Rancid Rumpboogie

Blues Mangler
That's my fuzzy blankie. I'm like Linus in the Snoopy cartoons. Can't get to sleep without my fuzzy blankie. And that thing laying on top of it is one of my Quilter Motivators. You know, like the trigger mechanism for my big gun. :) All of my old little guns are parked along the back wall of my music room looking sad and neglected. :Beer:
 

Rancid Rumpboogie

Blues Mangler
I know how attached one can get to certain things. I had a bedspread nearly identical to that on my waterbed in the 80's. (Honest) It had black crushed velvet all around the outside.
Funny. I had this same blankie on my waterbed back in the 80's. Still have it, still use it. The blankie, not the waterbed. A few years ago my waterbed sprung a leak. Woke up having a royal wet dream. The plastic waterbed liner kept all the water in so it didn't flood the joint. But I had to buy a shopvac to get all the water out, then damn near got a hernia getting that #&*@! heavy waterbed bladder out of there and out into the dumpster. Took all day and exhausted me. Said "Never again" and bought a good Posturpedic mattress that fit in the waterbed frame. But I still have that same fuzzy blankie.
 

Rancid Rumpboogie

Blues Mangler
Congrats on the sale of your house Jim, always a relief. Good luck with the move and relocation.
I went looking for a realtor to sell my little joint as-is. Picked one and sent her an email. Gave her a detailed description of my joint and everything it needs (literally everything except the siding, windows, sheet rock and roof) ... told her it would make a great "flipper" for someone, told her what my outstanding mortgage was and what the most recent tax appraisal was. She replied with a cash offer that was right in the ballpark of what I was hoping to get it sold for. No appraisal, no need to have it cleaned, no repairs, no contingencies, no realtor fees, NADA, just get my stuff out and close. She manages three rentals in my development so knows the homes in here very well, her son is going to start college at a school about a half mile from here and he can do most of the labor to fix it all up and will live here while in school. I took her up on her offer. Can't get any easier than this! I can leave here totally free, no waiting months for it to sell while paying the mortgage, utilities and home owners association fees, no appraisal, no contingencis, no repairs, no bickering, no anxiety, no stress. IT IS A GOOD OMEN! My entire retirement journey has been like this. I had a royal stroke of luck when I found the place I bought in Nampa for about 60K less than what I thought I was going to have to spend. Then I had another stroke of dumb luck when I found a handy man over there who used to be a general contractor and who has been flipping houses for 30 years and who only charges me $25.00 an hour for labor. We totally remodeled the whole joint for 15K including labor. So I ended up with basically a new home for 45K less than what I had expected to pay after watching that market for three years. And now this. THE FORCE IS WITH ME, YODA!!! Even if I am a traitor to toobdome who went and bought a Quilter. :ROFLMAO::Beer:
 
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Telypaul

Blues Newbie
I use a Peavey ValveKing 20MH that has stby switch (solid state rectifier) but rarely if ever use it, the amp is on daily for 4Hr or more with no ill effects. As for power switching I have the option of 1,5 or 20 watt this is achieved via a resistance network on the output, so the output stage is drawing the same currant no matter what setting (no energy saving)
 

JestMe

Student Of The Blues
I use a Peavey ValveKing 20MH that has stby switch (solid state rectifier) but rarely if ever use it, the amp is on daily for 4Hr or more with no ill effects. As for power switching I have the option of 1,5 or 20 watt this is achieved via a resistance network on the output, so the output stage is drawing the same currant no matter what setting (no energy saving)

That has been on the wishlist for a while also... I don't see many of them in the stores around here... Sounds like it has some good features. Do you love it?
 

ingog

Started in 2009
Tubes have filaments, similar to incandescent light bulbs. They have a life expectancy. Eventually they burn out. The more you use it the less time is left.
 

OG_Blues

Guitar Geezer
Tubes have filaments, similar to incandescent light bulbs. They have a life expectancy. Eventually they burn out. The more you use it the less time is left.
While this is true, the length of time it takes for a filament to fail due to depletion of the chemical layer that emits electrons is usually many thousands of hours - more time than your guitar amp will ever be powered up, so that is not a very common failure mode. Mechanical failure due to the stresses of repeated cycling of power and the associated thermal stresses is more common.

Consider the following tidbits of interesting information:

"A heater's failure mode is typically a stress-related fracture of the tungsten wire or at a weld point and usually occurs after many thermal on/off cycles. One way to mitigate this of course is not to turn off the heaters at all (one of your options). Another is to employ a negative temperature coefficient (NTC) device such as a thermistor in the power supply servicing the heaters. to allow the heaters to reach operating temperature more gradually.

When the ENIAC computer was built in 1946 using over 17,000 vacuum tubes, the failure rate was initially several tubes a day. Of course they were already on all the time. They derated the voltage (and current) going to the heaters and reduced the failure rate to one tube every two days (longest time recorded without failure was five days).

Leaving tubes on all the time can accelerate failures which occur over long periods of time (thousands of hours of operation). Cathode depletion is the loss of emission after thousands of hours of normal use, as it is poisoned by atoms from other elements in the tube. However, according to page 34 of the 1960's era book getting the most out of Vacuum Tubes, this is fairly rare since by the time the cathode has lost its emission, the tube is pretty much dead for other reasons."

In addition, the biggest enemy of filaments is over voltage - even 5% overvoltage can be detrimental.
Ignoring power consumption, you are better off just leaving your tube amplifier turned on for longer periods of time rather than turning it on and off frequently over the course of a day.
Consider power consumption part of the price you pay to be a blues/rock god guitarist.
 

CapnDenny1

Student Of The Blues
I wonder if turning it on and off to save power and having to replace the tubes sooner actually costs less? Power isn't free.

If your amp is going through tubes it's not your fault. It may be biased too hot, or there may be some other cause like a leaky coupling cap (seen 2 or 3 of those), or a bad bias adjust pot (seen one of those).

If not, then enjoy playing and don't sweat the amps.
 

ingog

Started in 2009
While this is true, the length of time it takes for a filament to fail due to depletion of the chemical layer that emits electrons is usually many thousands of hours - more time than your guitar amp will ever be powered up, so that is not a very common failure mode. Mechanical failure due to the stresses of repeated cycling of power and the associated thermal stresses is more common.

Consider the following tidbits of interesting information:

"A heater's failure mode is typically a stress-related fracture of the tungsten wire or at a weld point and usually occurs after many thermal on/off cycles. One way to mitigate this of course is not to turn off the heaters at all (one of your options). Another is to employ a negative temperature coefficient (NTC) device such as a thermistor in the power supply servicing the heaters. to allow the heaters to reach operating temperature more gradually.

When the ENIAC computer was built in 1946 using over 17,000 vacuum tubes, the failure rate was initially several tubes a day. Of course they were already on all the time. They derated the voltage (and current) going to the heaters and reduced the failure rate to one tube every two days (longest time recorded without failure was five days).

Leaving tubes on all the time can accelerate failures which occur over long periods of time (thousands of hours of operation). Cathode depletion is the loss of emission after thousands of hours of normal use, as it is poisoned by atoms from other elements in the tube. However, according to page 34 of the 1960's era book getting the most out of Vacuum Tubes, this is fairly rare since by the time the cathode has lost its emission, the tube is pretty much dead for other reasons."

In addition, the biggest enemy of filaments is over voltage - even 5% overvoltage can be detrimental.
Ignoring power consumption, you are better off just leaving your tube amplifier turned on for longer periods of time rather than turning it on and off frequently over the course of a day.
Consider power consumption part of the price you pay to be a blues/rock god guitarist.
What a great, scientific, well explained answer. I learned a lot.
 

Telypaul

Blues Newbie
That has been on the wishlist for a while also... I don't see many of them in the stores around here... Sounds like it has some good features. Do you love it?

Sorry for being so long to reply, just looking back at some old posts.

The answer is yes it’s my go to amp although being a74yo bedroom player I never get the best from it, as well as the fact I have hooked into my Fender super champ speaker, but for me its fine, although I would like to have it on a good 12” cab. I find though that boost channels are a bit ott but I’m not much of an overdrive fan a bit of breakup when I dig in is good for me.

If you like clean well balanced sound it does the job nicely.
 
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