[stump4545]

thinking of picking up the ultra 550 and the ultra EC pre amp in a van alstine/salk 2 channel rig that i'm putting together for my listening pleasure.  the only thing is this system is in my living room and my wife will also be using this system to play kids music for the kids and to leave on as background music for many hours a day. Will i burn out the tubes in the pre-amp and amp quickly if i use this setup for say 4-5 hours a day?

[JerryM]

Probably not. AVA circuits are designed to go easy on tubes. The valves see no stress that they can't handle.

I have run my 550 for at least that many hours per day without issue. Then again, I rolled in a set of NOS Telefunken ECC801S valves. Definitely worth it. These are rated at 10,000 hours, so very little maitenance indeed.

The 6n1Ps are rated for 5,000 hours. Again, not much maintenance.

What lucky kids!!!

Have fun,
Jerry

[TjMV3]

If you're worried about it,  just have Frank (test and ) provide you with two pairs of replacement tubes;  for each component before he ships them to you.  Even three pairs,  if you want.

That way,  if the tubes start to go on the power amp;    you'll already have back up tubes that have been tested and are in bias with your amp.  No need to ship back to Frank to have the amp re-biased.   Just remove the cover and replace them yourself.

IIRC,  pre amp tubes don't require re-biasing of the pre amp.  You just replace them yourself,  no worries.

Just a suggestion.

For all the tech guys.  Is there a problem with this solution?  Should work,  right?

[martyo]

Welcome "stump". I think 4-5 hours a day is probably a "normal" day for many folks. At 5 hrs a day that's roughly 18K hours a year, so with the stock tubes we're talking about 2-3 years. And yes, I always have a back-up pair. As TjMV3 already posted, no worries.

[turkey]

I have an old FETValve amp that uses 5751s. I've had it for years and it has never needed to be retubed. I originally bought a pair of replacement tubes for it so I'd have them, but that was 2 or 3 moves ago, and I don't even know where they are anymore.

I don't know that I've used the amp 5 hours a day, but it's been used a fair bit and it's well over 10 years old. (Closer to 20 if I remember.)

I don't think that you gain much by going with old tubes that have been sitting who knows where. (Unless you can send them to Frank first so he can make sure they're actually an improvement over the tubes he supplies stock.)

Buying a spare set of tubes for each component is probably a good idea. Just make sure you keep them in a safe place.

[Carl V]

I have  been using a cj PV5 & two cj MV52 amps.
I bought them new in ??85 or 86.  Yes, they've gone back for
'tune-ups' & yes I've replaced the tubes....but not very often.
perhaps 3X in 20+ years.  That's pretty darmed good.  And
they still sound good.  I bought Vandersteen 2Ci back then.
They too played backgorund music for hours & hours & hours.
While my father was fighting cancer he played them many hours
at night while he couldn't sleep.

So I imagine Frank's stuff will do just as well.

Nice Combonation  BTW

Don't worry too much.