Lampizator Valve / Tube Rolling Review Thread
- Thread starter Zero000
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Any reason to leave the Pacific on 24/7? I shut down mine at night and turn it on the next day, which is what Lukasz recommends. I haven’t tried the Sophia’s on my Pacific, which currently has a much pricier WE 274B.
Sophia Electric Aqua 274B or 274B Mesh Plate , I wonder which one should be better fit for a B3 ?
I find the mesh plate far better. It’s their premium line. But, YMMV. I’ve only compared them on my Triode Labs 45M monoblock amplifiers. Also, the Aquas are quite a bit cheaper.
steve williams
Site Founder, Site Owner, Administrator
Thanks for your thoughts on, to shut off or not shut off. A quasi-Shakespearean dilemma! I was thinking the daily on-off would diminish tube life versus just leaving the Pacific on. Doing some listening today and the Sophia is really opening up with only 18 hours. Beautiful mids fostering a very life-like presentation with coherency across the tonal spectrum. I think SET fans would love this tube!
My understanding (and experience) is yes, just having the tubes on is sufficient. I think it was Lukasz or someone at Lampi that wrote or told me that. Likewise, if it’s the unit that’s been upgraded but not the output circuit itself, such as with these Engine 11 upgrades, I’ve sometimes left the unit on overnight on to save a bit of wear when I don’t expect to be using it until later the next day.
steve williams
Site Founder, Site Owner, Administrator
The think to remember as to why you should leave tubes on is because tube failure occurs most often with either power on or power off. Having said that I turn mine off when not in use. I do however always say a little prayer whenever I turn on or off my gear
That is so interesting. I do exactly the same thing, especially when changing tubes. I had some initial problems with tubes in my Lampi Pacific, but fingers crossed, it’s been working blissfully for the past few months. I have learned also not to tube roll excessively. My default is the KR 242s with the WE 274B.
I think Lampi has a bleed through circuit where tubes are gradually turned on or off to prevent tube failures.
The following is from the Pacific manual. As I recall, the TRP has a similar though shorter version (haven’t found a GG one). Except for burn in or dealing with a problem, I’ve followed the once a day approach. That way, if not used the next day or longer at least electrical costs are saved. Rectis can be pulled while the unit is on if necessary but not power tubes, and a five minute wait for cool down is considered good for the tubes.
Power on-off cycle
The tube lifetime, almost like the life of a car engine in cold climate – is determined largely by the on-off cycle. The heat expansion coefficient of the glass is so much different than that of the metal, that the air-tight seal of the metal pins can leak oxygen inside the tube and eventually kill it. Even if it is just one molecule per day. So in other words it is better to keep the DAC always on, than to switch it on and off more than necessary.
The lampizator DAC with tube rectifier has a slow start feature which brings the high voltage supply gradually up, at the rate of two- to five volts per second. The PSU reaches 250 V DC after 90 seconds. This helps to extend tube life. The DAC is also equipped with voltage down feature (bleeders) which reduce the power voltage upon switch-off at roughly the same rate.
On top of that – the tubes are operated always around 25% of full nominal power, which greatly increases their life expectancy. Combining all the factors together, the tube lifetime should be anywhere between 10 and 20 years, assuming the player is switched off only once per day, for the night.
Additionally all our DACs have special heater circuits that slow down the inrush current by the factor of 10 and protect the heaters (cathodes) from developing spots and blemishes that cause metal erosion and eventually death (of the tube). Our circuit goes way beyond the tube datasheet recommended protection. It extends the tube life at least double versus the datasheet specs.
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I don’t know if my Big 7 is different than the other Dacs talked about here, but it seems turning the Dac off or to standby is much different than turning it off via the rear switch, the affordable tubes I’ve been using only last about 1 year Ive thought about trying much more expensive tubs, but not if they only last a year so I’m thinking of switching the dac completely off at night
seems like lots of different opinions?
My Lampi Pacific has no volume control. I think the only way I can shut it down is using the rear switch. I’ve used a lot of ARC tube products over 30 years and their standard recommendation is to shutdown their tube preamps, amplifiers or CD players when not in use. In fact, their latest ARC Ref Phono 3SE that I use has an auto shutdown in 30 minutes if there’s no signal detected. I think McIntosh uses a similar auto shutdown on its newer products. I can’t think of a good reason to leave tube gear on all the time. It’s a waste of power and of course tube life. There’s a warmup time, but usually it’s only 15-20 minutes or so. With solid state gear, it’s a different story. I remember 30+ years ago, I had a solid state Classe’ DR-5 preamp that HP raved about in TAS. It sounded horrible when you first turned it on. It took a few days before it sounded coherent. HP noted that in his review. Naim recommends leaving their gear on permanently. But their amplifiers largely run in class B and consume little power.
I get the sense a couple of things are getting mixed together here. Don’t all Lampi dacs have a power button on the front panel, volume control or not? And isn’t a major benefit of using it (or the remote), i.e., going into standby mode, to extend the life of the electrical parts inside, e.g., capacitors? That way they don’t have to go through full start up and shut down cycles each time, which shorten their lives, if not also degrade their quality on the way. I think that’s what the manual’s car ignition analogy is getting at, which most directly is the equivalent of turning on and off the dac’s back switch each time. I’ll leave it to someone who knows more electronics to explain this more fully and to what degree going into standby mode affects the tubes. Generally, the manual seems to suggest that once a day is not a bad compromise given the limited nominal power output.
My Lampi DAC does not have a power button on the front. The front button is used for switching USB/ Spdif inputs. Only an on/off on the back.
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