[Spirit]

Do newly installed tubes in a Preamp require break in?

[bacobits1]

I do believe tubes have a bit of a settling in period.
I dectect a bit of a smoother presentation after some time on them.
Most Pre's are not hard on tubes so you should get some lifespan out of them.
Although Audible Illusions M3's have been accused of being hard on tubes the one I had for 6 years
never showed that.

D

[aerius]

Most pre-amp tubes settle in nicely after a few hours, though some claim improvements up to around 50-100 hours.  In my experience pre-amp tubes such as the 6SN7, 6DJ8, and 12A_7 are about as good as they'll get after 3-10 hours.  There might be some miniscule improvements after that but I never noticed any.

[JimJ]

Even with speakers, I've never understood the term "requiring" break in.

Any breaking-in that takes place will happen in the natural course of using it, you don't need to do anything special.

[Imperial]

Some tubes do have a coating on central elements that must burn off or evaporate for the tube to start to work 100%...
That could be deemed as a burn in...

Other things to consider is that the surface of the elemets that make the tube do what it does...
Emit electrosn as a baseline function will increase in it's effectiveness after a certain time...
say the time it takes for the emittor elements to reach the optimum temperature...
this is dependandt on the "torr" vacuum, and the distance of the elements... and the current and stability of this current and the therein voltage...


Imperial.

[chgolatin2]

Everything in regard to the "audiophile" world requires some sort of break in period some will recommend numerous options  however, you will need to do your own experiment to find out what will work best for you.  To my knowledge tubes do require a break in period for them to fully work to their full potential.  For example, when you turn on your pre amp, amp etc that has tubes you tend to hear the difference between a cold tube and a warmed up tube that has been running for a while.  I dont have the best ear to hear all the little differences that everyone raves about but I'll be honest you do hear a bit of difference between a new tube and a tube that has some hours on it the same goes for pc, speaker wires, ic's. 

I was once a solid state type of guy but the beauty and sound of tubes captivated me and brought me back to life 

[1000a]

i see you have the newer version of my amp the 1000a>1000rc, you may want to consider trying some tube dampers on it from Herbies Audio, 90 day return policy can't go wrong.  The very best improvement I have made to my system for 140.

Substantial improvement

[chgolatin2]

where do you try those dampers at the power tubes or pre amp tubes?  I have a set of tube dampers however they are not herbies but rubber type ones  :scratch:which are round. 

[BrianM]

I'll second JimJ -- if something "requires" breaking in there's nothing you can do about it other than play the equipment. Since no one will agree on when the magic break in moment will occur (does something happen after 50 hours that didn't happen at 49?) you might as well just sit down, listen and enjoy what you're listening to from the get go. If you're evaluating whether to keep a component based on whether or not what you're hearing is "broken in" or not, I would submit that any component can and should be judged on its merits out of the box. Even with speakers which involve moving parts this should be the case. I've never experienced a break-in that amounted to a deal-maker (i.e. something that would be considered inferior prior to break-in and acceptable/desirable afterwards).