do you have to bias guitar amp preamp tubes

We recommend not pulling tubes in and out a bunch of times to compare tubes. What is the best way to compare my tubes? Tubes may get hot to the touch, but your finger oil will not cause the tube to break when heated up, nor will it affect tube life or sonics. The ends can tear right off easier than you would believe and some people prize the boxes.Īs for the glass itself, despite what some people might tell you, the oil on your fingers will NOT damage the glass or leech through it. If the box is an original vintage box, open it carefully using a butter knife under the flap. So do not touch it! If you get it wet at all, it may go away right in front of your eyes, and just shipping and pulling it in/out of the box can damage the logo. Many vintage tubes were labeled with ink designed to fall off easily. What is the proper method for handling vintage tubes? If they don't sound a lot better, put in the old ones and suck every bit of life out of them.

The best approach is to buy a new set of tubes, and install them. Using a tube tester may or may not tell you if you need a replacement. Small signal tubes with numbers like 12AX7, 12AU7, and 6922, and rectifier tubes like 5AR4 may go 10,000 hours. But may go longer in an amplifier with a conservative design. Power tubes like E元4's and KT88's are good for about 2500 hours or more. How do I know when my tubes need replacing? You might also try gently twisting the tube in its socket, to make sure it's getting a solid connection on all the pins. Many times, just the act of removing a tube and re-seating it, either in another position or back into its original spot, can alleviate the problem. Also, make sure your sockets are clean and tight. make sure your tube pins are clean before plugging them in. Remember: Tube sockets are not highly reliable connectors! If the sockets are dirty or not tight enough, or if the pins are slightly 'thinner' than your original tubes, or have a little grime on them, it can cause one or more pins be unable to make solid contact. In fact, the majority of tubes we have returned to us for warranty replacement, are not noisy at all! Many times when a piece of tubed equipment is noisy, the cause is a bad connection between a tube and the socket, not a noisy tube.

I know this one's not really a 'question' but we get it so often that it needs to be addressed anyway. When I put my old tubes back they worked fine.

Do you have to bias guitar amp preamp tubes