[katza]

I bought the dual mono active pre-amps with 6db gain, from Nic, few months ago. Each has dedicated power supply with BPS tranny added.

Is anyone else in this forum using such a tube buffer?

My question: if I keep these powered up all the time, will it wear out the 6N1P and 5Y3 valves? What's the normal life of such valves? Is it better to keep a pair as spare? Guess its power supplies draw lot of current. Should I power them off when not using?

Can someone bring-in more clarity, please?

[Brown]

Never a good idea to leave tubed gear on 24/7. tubes should last 4 to 5 thousand hours. A spare is always prudent as well as different brands to try. if you really want to improve its sonics change the caps to Mundorf silver/oil. How long did you wait for your piece ?

[katza]

Well, I was patient enough to wait long, close to 7 months, for the four-box solution. Nic tested and tweaked it for quite sometime.
It was worth the wait. This gear's of reference class. Nic's very busy man who pays lot of attention to the sound quality of the gear that goes out of the door.

Currently the setup is: Marantz 6000KI Signature as transport > Benchmarkmedia DAC-1 > Active Pres' > NAD C372 > Yamaha NS-1000Ms.

Soon the NAD'll be replaced with the Emotiva XPA-1s. The OPTs for NS-1000Ms, Energizers for the XPAs, and Dual Mono double c core TVC'll arrive from Nic.