POWER TUBE LIFE...How long are they lasting? a year?

[Adambomb]

I was just wondering who all has retubed their V yet and how long the power tubes lasted them. I use 6L6's. I'v had mine for right at a year. At first I played every day for at least 2 hours, did that for about 2 months. Played a couple gigs a month every month and band practice once a week. Use it at LOUD show volumes at least half the time its been played. I'd say I have jammed it pretty regular about 6 hours a week for a year.

But my amp still sounds great with maybe only a small amount of sound degradation.
Should I just stick with the "If it ain't broke done fix it"?
You never know, I could change the power tubes and be blown away.
Is there any way of doing a test to see if I need to re-tube?
I usually just wait till the volume goes way down and the clean channel to sound harsh with no punch.

And finally, would it be best to just order Mesa tubes or try some other? I have had the different tube battle with my Recto, and after blowing several tube sets...(The SED 6L6's sounded great but expensive and blew 2 tubes cause Recto has circuit board problem). The ONLY tubes that stood the test of time and didn't blow out was the Mesa tubes.

 

[SteveO]

If it still sounds good to you, don't mess with it! I have a Peavey Classic 50/50 power amp (circa 1995) that still has the original power tubes in it, and it still sounds great.

 

[jb's 52]

I was just wondering who all has retubed their V yet and how long the power tubes lasted them. I use 6L6's. I'v had mine for right at a year. At first I played every day for at least 2 hours, did that for about 2 months. Played a couple gigs a month every month and band practice once a week. Use it at LOUD show volumes at least half the time its been played. I'd say I have jammed it pretty regular about 6 hours a week for a year.

But my amp still sounds great with maybe only a small amount of sound degradation.
Should I just stick with the "If it ain't broke done fix it"?
You never know, I could change the power tubes and be blown away.
Is there any way of doing a test to see if I need to re-tube?
I usually just wait till the volume goes way down and the clean channel to sound harsh with no punch.

And finally, would it be best to just order Mesa tubes or try some other? I have had the different tube battle with my Recto, and after blowing several tube sets...(The SED 6L6's sounded great but expensive and blew 2 tubes cause Recto has circuit board problem). The ONLY tubes that stood the test of time and didn't blow out was the Mesa tubes.

This is the age old question of tubes. I'm roughly in the same boat but I changed my power tube six months ago from 6L6's to EL34's. I went with SED Winged C's.

I'm not hearing the volume loss that's the dead kicker for a tube going but I don't think I'm getting the punch I use to get from my pre-amp tubes. My pre's are almost a year old so I'll be experimenting in the near future. I have some extra pre-amp tubes to fiddle with though.

 

[MrMarkIII]

I still have the originals from 1990.
Preamp tubes don't wear out like power tubes. They can last many hundreds of hours. What kills any tube prematurely is mechanical failure, i.e., shaking, dropping, vibration, etc.
Use the standby switch. 30 second warmup before full power.
Doesn't matter at power down. Just turn everything off.
It helps to let the tubes cool down before packing up, loading into the U-Haul in freezing weather, etc.

 

[Adambomb]

Yea the preamp tubes only need to be changed if one goes out, or if you just want to experiment with other brands. I put a Tungsol 12ax7 in V1 spot like I do all my amps and it really smoothed things out. Made the bass tighter and tamed the highs quit a bit.

Dang SeveO, a Peavey Classic with the same power tubes since 95!? Now that's mojo magic goin on with that amp.

 

[SteveO]

Dang SeveO, a Peavey Classic with the same power tubes since 95!? Now that's mojo magic goin on with that amp.

It doesn't get a whole lot of use these days, and the cost of replacing EIGHT EL84s prevents me from doing it "just because"!

 

[rabies]

General rule of thumb is 2 years for pre and 1 for power but obviously depends on many factors, mainly how loud and how often you use the amp. I talked to eurotubes (cool guys) about the Mark V and they said it's biased very hot for an EL34 mesa amp.

I have E34L and =C= in my rivera (stereo head) and they sound decent and both reliable. I think Diesel ships with =C= so those are probably a good bet. Mesa tube seem to match very closely (at least according to one reading from my weber bias rite) and I think that eurotubes told me that the industry average is within +/- 2 mA on the matched pairs.

anyways, I think that the mesa tubes are overrated and overpriced (but they don't void your warranty if you take out a screen grid resistor)...