Lamm has lytics in the power supply at that price? Would doubt it. I understand some add Black Gates, but usually anything expensive replaces lytics apart from those who prefer the Black Gate variants
I think so. SET usually use electrolytic capacitors in the power supply. As they do not have the intrinsic ripple rejection of push-pull amplifiers they need high capacitance in the HV supply and this can only be obtained using electrolytics.
Lamm lists "Cornell Dubilier and United Chemi-Con electrolytic capacitors" in the parts list of the ML3. They also use "Highest quality film capacitors for the high voltage power supply that feeds the output stage" , probably to decouple the electrolytic capacitors in the power supply. Please note that I am just guessing, we do not have technical information from the manufacturer and I am not dissecting my Lamms!
Same here. I have never heard from any other manufacturer of tube gear that you should leave it on. Never. Claiming that you should is the weirdest thing. Also, I don't want to set my house on fire.
Yes, concerning tube equipment all we read is mostly the opposite. Some even show some quantitative arguments to prove how frequently you will need to change tubes if we keep them all the time. To discourage it Lamm writes in the LL1 manual : "Remember., your preamplifier will be at temperature and sound its best after approximately 25-30 minutes."
A known fact is that many tubes have quality operational life shorter than official manufacturer life time. I have a set of 10 tubes 6H30 coming from an used ARC preamplifier that had a use over 6500 hours and measured good. But they sounded miserable - when the owner replaced them with fresh tubes the preamplifier gained a new life! Hours of operation counters should be mandatory in tube equipment - would you buy a car without a mileage meter?
(...) I suspect the correct technical question for each tube in each piece of equipment is: how much wear and deterioration from keeping the component on continuously in hours is equivalent to the wear and deterioration of a single on/off/on cycle?
You can be assured that occasional on/off cycles, such as a few per day do not affect tube life of properly designed gear, as I assume yours to be. However, if you switch it off, always wait a few of minutes before switching it on again. Some electronics react poorly to being switched on while power supplies are not fully discharged or the filaments are hot.
I think so. SET need electrolytic capacitors in the power supply. As they do not have the intrinsic ripple rejection of push-pull amplifiers they need high capacitance in the HV supply and this can only be obtained using electrolytics.
Lamm lists "Cornell Dubilier and United Chemi-Con electrolytic capacitors" in the parts list of the ML3. They also use "Highest quality film capacitors for the high voltage power supply that feeds the output stage" , probably to decouple the electrolytic capacitors in the power supply. Please note that I am just guessing, we do not have technical information from the manufacturer and I am not dissecting my Lamms!
Electrolytics are not necessarily "needed" for SET- film caps are generally superior but come at a cost of size , capacity and price. Film caps have intrinsically lower ESR and other favourable properties that make them, most of the time, superior to Electrolytics.
The Wyetech amp for example uses pure film caps and and film and oil caps in the HV supply no electrolytics. Yes, you can hear---- and measure the difference in this instance.....
Good questions. I'm not Peter but I have long time tube experience. There are periods of time when my tub electronics are turned on 24/7 -- sometimes that is 3-4 days, it can also be 3-4 weeks. Your electricity bill will go up.
The more difficult time for a tube is when it is changing state -- when it goes from cold to fully operational and vice versa. Warm up time depends on the tube and circuit. Lamm recommends a minimum 45 minute warm-up. If cold, I will give the system 90 minutes warm-up before critical listening.
Imo, keeping tube gear on is not hard on the tubes. It is how they are meant to be used. Many tubes can last for years at their operating temperatures. However performance will drop over time for certain tubes. In the ML2/2.2 amps Peter and I use there is a pair of tubes (6NCP output driver) in each monoblock that Lamm suggests changing out once every year or two years, depending on whose documentation you read. The large more expensive 6C33C tubes will last 2-3 years of constant operation assuming plate voltages are properly maintained; best to keep those a bit under maximum. The large GM-70 tubes in the ML3 amps have a recommended 1-1½ year change out period.
Nonetheless heat is the enemy of any electronic gear. It is important to keep tubes clean. Handling them with your bare hands can transfer skin oils and dirt onto the glass. If the glass gets dirty, heat dissipation goes down and internal temperature goes up. Wipe them off with a cloth lightly dampened in alcohol and hold them with a cloth when inserting or removing. Wait for a fully dry surface before turn-on.
Decent ventilation in-rack is very important. Lamm front-end components are ~5½ inches tall. I suggest at least that much room above the component in a rack. On my SRA Scuttle racks there is ~10 inches above the component to the bottom of the shelf above. Optimally racks/shelves should be open front and back. It is not unheard for people to use small fans in tight racks when not listening. I will not put amplifiers in racks.
Given the variable availability of present day manufactury I suggest having two complete replacement tube sets for each component. Perhaps expensive but worthwhile peace of mind and you'll be thankful when/if a tube is no longer available. Russia cut off tube export when the Ukrainian conflict began. Among others, the popular Svetlana 6550C used in ARC power supplies and other gear remains out-of-stock at most US tube dealers.
You can certainly run well designed gear in well ventilated space 24 hrs a day. It is however and inefficient use of electricity and detrimental to the life of the tubes. Their life is finite based on hours of operation. To each their own.
On off cycling in "normal" consumer operation is not going to be fundamentally detrimental to the overall life of a tube.
Heat is indeed an enemy of electronic components but high voltage is more of an enemy for other reasons. One area I would be concerned with is tube socket life - especially those 6c33c types - with constant 24 hr use. Tubes are a commodity but sockets are labour intensive and expensive to repair/replace.
Finger prints on receiving tubes have no effect on their life- we are not talking halogen bulbs whose envelopes are made of quartz and whose operating temps can be up to 4x that of a receiving tube . The mechanism at play here with finger oil is that the more light is absorbed by the oily surface which increases heat which leads to hot spots and failure. I Iike clean bulbs like anyone else- don't eat ribs and roll your tubes for example. Keeping your equipment clean is good practice for certain.
Having spare tubes is always a good practice for trouble shooting and replacement of aged sets when you need to do the maintenance.
Electrolytics are not necessarily "needed" for SET- film caps are generally superior but come at a cost of size , capacity and price. Film caps have intrinsically lower ESR and other favourable properties that make them, most of the time, superior to Electrolytics.
The Wyetech amp for example uses pure film caps and and film and oil caps in the HV supply no electrolytics. Yes, you can hear---- and measure the difference in this instance.....
Wow! Considering the cost of the Lamm selected eight 6H30 it is an expensive option for permanent use - I think you will need tipically two sets per year. I am happy with the Lamm sound after 45 minutes.
There are other SET designers who prefer not to use lytics too. There are vintage film caps, PIO, as well as industrial grade modern ones (some can be large). Some who use lytics bypass them with a film for sonic reasons.
You guys seem to know a lot about tubes. I do not know anything about them. I just enjoy the sound of this gear and am following the direct advice of Vladimir Lamm who designed the gear and of DDK who knew Mr. Lamm extremely well and who sold the gear to me.
I appreciate that you are reading my system thread. What do you think of the essay about my listening impressions of the new phono stage?
I would still turn off the equipment when not used, as most tube gear users do including most of those posting here, for three main reasons, all of them already discussed:
1) Tube life
2) Life of the gear carrying the tubes -- heat is an enemy to long life of electronic equipment
3) Safety of your house
(Another reason, conserving energy, could be added if one wishes.)
I leave my transport and DAC on forever. They are solid state and produce practically no or very moderate heat, respectively. Power consumption is low as well. The DAC manufacturer recommends leaving on the unit all the time, for sonic reasons (better sound at equilibrium temperature).
I leave my transport and DAC on forever. They are solid state and produce practically no or very moderate heat, respectively. Power consumption is low as well. The DAC manufacturer recommends leaving on the unit all the time, for sonic reasons (better sound at equilibrium temperature).
SS DACs MUST be left on to stand a chance at sounding good. My Kinegetics Research KCD-55 Ultra didn’t even have an on/off switch…you plugged it in and it was on.
SS DACs MUST be left on to stand a chance at sounding good. My Kinegetics Research KCD-55 Ultra didn’t even have an on/off switch…you plugged it in and it was on.
Electrolytics are not necessarily "needed" for SET- film caps are generally superior but come at a cost of size , capacity and price. Film caps have intrinsically lower ESR and other favourable properties that make them, most of the time, superior to Electrolytics.
The Wyetech amp for example uses pure film caps and and film and oil caps in the HV supply no electrolytics. Yes, you can hear---- and measure the difference in this instance.....
As the last condenser he uses an oil cap. It is perfectly legitimate to use electrolytic capacitors with a voltage divider. Please find 100uf or more oil cap with dielectric strength more than 1000VDC. If you find any please let me know, I'd like some too...please
P.S
exsample (cd)100uf 900dc elko then you can imagine how big an oil cap would be. Of course you could switch several small ones in parallel, then the power supply housing would have to be bigger.
I would still turn off the equipment when not used, as most tube gear users do including most of those posting here, for three main reasons, all of them already discussed:
But this simply begs the question as to what ages tubes. You seem not to be acknowledging the significant aging effect on tubes of the on/off/on cycling process.
But this simply begs the question as to what ages tubes. You seem not to be acknowledging the significant aging effect on tubes of the on/off/on cycling process.
How significant, that is the question, and voices on the internet, not just here, cannot agree. And it is established that just keeping tubes on without music does wear them out. I do not suggest that each time you don't listen to music you turn off the tube gear. That might result in 4 or 5 on/off cycles a day, which even I would find excessive. If I listen only in the evening, I go through one on/off cycle. If I listen a whole day, I might go through two, at the most three, on/off cycles. But keeping the gear constantly on including at night seems, frankly, unreasonable to me.
It also depends on how the tube gear is designed. Mine has an elaborate soft-start function which gently gets the tubes going over a span of 2 minutes. That makes going through an on/off cycle a no-brainer (again, within limits, avoiding excesses).
@PeterA
Add my name to the list of those who enjoyed your description of the new phono stage (and for that matter the entire thread about your system evolution). What I find most interesting about the upgrade to the LP 1 Signature is how such major improvements in sound quality could result from going to true dual-mono power supplies in separate chassis. At least it appears from photos that the power supply changes are the principal difference from the 1-chassis LP 2.1.
@PeterA
Add my name to the list of those who enjoyed your description of the new phono stage (and for that matter the entire thread about your system evolution). What I find most interesting about the upgrade to the LP 1 Signature is how such major improvements in sound quality could result from going to true dual-mono power supplies in separate chassis. At least it appears from photos that the power supply changes are the principal difference from the 1-chassis LP 2.1.
Thank you Salectric. I appreciate that and for bringing the discussion back to the topic of the LP1. I do not know all of what is responsible for the improvement in sound. The control unit is now also dual mono.
The mono typology and more robust supplies seem to lower noise and increase the sense of drive and energy in the music. When I first switched from Pass to Lamm, I asked DDK for his recommendation for the phono/pre combination. I wanted only five boxes. He suggested the four box pre and one box phono instead of the two box pre and three box phono. He told me that would sound better. I had the Micro Seiki at that time. Perhaps that table would not have taken full advantage of the LP1. I will have to ask him if he would have made the same recommendation had I already owned the AS2000.
I heard the two box and four box preamps in different rooms in Utah but have not done a direct comparison to know the degree of improvement. I think without the benefit of hearing the direct comparison, one cannot appreciate the delta in sound quality. The 2 series sounds excellent and is a great value.
I leave my transport and DAC on forever. They are solid state and produce practically no or very moderate heat, respectively. Power consumption is low as well. The DAC manufacturer recommends leaving on the unit all the time, for sonic reasons (better sound at equilibrium temperature).
I remember Romy find an interesting design concept in Lamm pre-amplifier and called it x-factor . It was like Magic sound, it seems Lamm used a special method to get very fine and spacious sound and this is the link :
I remember Romy find an interesting design concept in Lamm pre-amplifier and called it x-factor . It was like Magic sound, it seems Lamm used a special method to get very fine and spacious sound and this is the link :
