Amp Left in the cold - What affect on the tubes

[mikey383]

As long as you let it warm up to room temperature, it should be fine.

If you don't let it warm up, you may break a tube when you turn it on, and the tube heats up.

 

[Silverwulf]

My old band used to rent out a storage unit to practice in at a place called Uncle Bob's. It was cold as hell in the winter because there was no heat. So, your practice spot in Dec and Jan pretty much turned into a freezer, and the lovely tin walls just helped trap the cold even more. It would get down to 0 degrees sometimes, and although I always took me amp with me (left my cab though), there was probably about 20-25 bands that rented out units to practice there, and hardly none of them took their amps with them. They left them in zero degree weather 24 hours a day all winter. I never heard of any of them ever having a problem with any of their gear.

Not that I'm advocating doing it or saying it's not potentially harmful. Just saying I saw countless bands leave them in the equivalent of a freezer the whole winter and never have any probs...

 

[123thefirst]

Well, you can consider that one of the high-priced options at some tube boutiques is called cyrogenic treatment. They super-cool the tubes using liquid nitrogen. Supposedly that realigns the molecules in the conductors to produce noticably better performance and longevity.

 

[stokes]

To subject an amp to such extremes on occasion would not be too bad as long as you let it warm up slowly before turning it on,as mikey383 pointed out.To do so on a daily basis,as the case Silverwulf mentioned could be catostrophic.The amp will build up some condensation when it goes from extreme cold to hot and to do so on a regular basis will cause some components in the amp to absorb moisture,certain desth for electronics.

 

[fishyfishfish]

People sometimes forget that tubes used to be in everything and every where from Battleships and Submarines to my Grandfathers old battery powered portable radio. As long as all the parts acclimate to the environment it shouldn't be a problem. Who knows where that 40 year old Fender or Marshall has been, but they still sound good.

 

[stokes]

People sometimes forget that tubes used to be in everything and every where from Battleships and Submarines to my Grandfathers old battery powered portable radio. As long as all the parts acclimate to the environment it shouldn't be a problem. Who knows where that 40 year old Fender or Marshall has been, but they still sound good.

Yes tubes are able to take some extremes,NOS tubes that is.They were made in the old days for a wide variety of applications,and one of the sweetest contracts a tube manufacturer could get was from the military,so the competition and pressure to build tubes that would last and perform in extreme environments was greater then.Nowadays tubes are built for basicaly one market,us.We abuse them anyway,and change them more often than they did in the old days,so there really is no incentive for manufacturers to build them as good as they used to.If that 40 year old Fender or Marshall was kept in an extremely damp environment or allowed to collect condensation as I described,you would know it by the snap crackle and pop from those carbon comp resistors that absorbed all that moisture.The point is,amps aint bulletproof and the tubes aint what they used to be,so dont discount the damage that can be caused by being careless about where and how your amp is stored.

 

[Rocky]

I think people worry about how tough tubes are WAY more th an they should.

 

[phyrexia]

they can operate in outer space. i'm sure somebody up north has played their amp on their back porch out in the country in winter when it's cold as hell just to scare up some deer or something. I wouldn't worry about it (although I wouldn't leave my amp in the car for fear of theft but that is a different issue).

 

[dennq45]

Well believe it or not along time ago car radios had vacume tubes in them. I remember in an old car I once had, I would have to drive several miles in the winter and the radio would finally come on...

 

[domct203]

The tubes will most likely come up to ambient temp faster than the rest of the amp. Condensation would most likely be the biggest problem. Things may start to rust prematurely, and you could risk a short somewhere.

Dom