Warm-up for ARC amp

[sacdfan]

I've been thinking about trying a tube amp but always afraid of two things. Warm-up time and maintenance. Please excuse me if I sound so dumb. I have no experience with tubes. Do I really have to warm-up min. 30 min before playing music (CD or whatever the source is)? How often do I have to replace the tubes? Any other thing I have to consider before going for the tube amp?

thank you

[Harbapapa]

You can start listening right away when units "start up warm up" has passed (30s - 1 min). Sound gets better after 30 min - 1 hr. With tube gear you can start doing 30 min lasting "ritual". You power your gear and do something ritual during first 30 min (make coffee, clean some of your LPs, sellect music for listening). It makes listening more special.

Since I haven't had to change tubes yet, someone else can give advice about that. But in general, preamp tubes last longer and poweramps shorter.

ARC makes some great tube gear!

[TMcD]

The ARC amps I have had sound good right on start up and after around half hour they are all set.
Tubes last around 2000 hours and little maintenance other than biasing tubes when they are new and maybe checking them once a year.
They are wonderful amps the new Ref series are phenomenal.
Good luck.

[cmalak]

Sacdfan...just to be clear, the power output tubes (KT-120s now in ARC's amps) have a suggested life of 2,000, though they can last longer (or less) but 2K is typically what is suggested. The smaller signal tubes in your preamps or source components for example will last 5-10K hrs, again ARC suggests 5K useful life but they can easily mast longer than that.

[taters]

From my experience I always let the amp and pre-amp warm up 30 minutes before listening. The output tubes should be changer every 2000 hours. The input tubes should be changed every 4000 hours.

[djcxxx]

My experience w/ older ARC tube amps has been rather different, noting that they were driving inefficient Magnepan speakers. With both the VT100MkII and VT200MkI (both all tube, 6922 front end and 6550 power tubes) after 500-600 hrs of use the sonic character of the amp began to slowly decline. At 1000-1200 hr I always changed tubes rather than risk a bad tube taking out the associated resistor and trace on the board. I had this happen to me w/ the VT200 which I purchased as a dealer demo, likely due to more tube hours than advertised. The new KT120s appear to be driven more conservatively than the previous 6550s in the currrent ARC designs. If ARC is still using 65mV on the bias of the KT120s that will probably also contribute to increased tube longevity. Bias adjustment on the new amps appears far easier than on the amps I owned. I do believe that the sonic characteristics decline w/ tube age regardless. My experience w/ tube amps is that one needs to accept a "pay to play" philosophy to ensure best sonics and worry free usage. IMHO many of the complaints directed against the VT series were due to owners pushing the lifespan of tubes they were reluctant to pay to replace.