Here are a few general tips for care and feeding of tube amps. Seven tips for the price of one!
- Try to let your amp warm up some before use. If your amp has a separate power and standby switch you should turn on the power at least two minutes before switching on the standby.
- If you replace output tubes always replace the whole set, preferably with tubes of the same make. Never mix tube types. So if your amplifier has EL34 power tubes you must always replace them with EL34s. If it has 5881 or 6L6 tubes you must use those. Always make sure that the pins on the base of the tube line up exactly and fit the tube base on the amplifier perfectly.
- If possible, always allow the amp to cool down 15 or so minutes before moving it.
- Always use high quality signal and speaker leads and check them regularly. Many guitar and bass cabinets use 1/4-inch connectors. A 1/4-inch connector always shorts out briefly when plugged and unplugged. Therefore you should always connect your cable to your cabinet before you connect it to the amp. That way you’ll never put a short on the output of your amp. The same principle works well for signal lines. Plug the cable into the source (your guitar) first, and then plug the other end into the amp.
- Never store your amp in damp or overly humid conditions. Garden sheds, greenhouses or garages – not a good idea. These conditions are also not very helpful for speakers.
- Impedance and loading are very critical in some tube amp designs. Always make sure that the amplifier has the correct impedance selected to match the cabinets being used. Make sure you never load the amp down with too low an impedance by connecting too many speakers in parallel.
- Needless to say? Tube amps (mainly the tubes and sockets) don’t typically deal with bone crushing shocks very well. You may get by with dropping your keyboard’s road case off the back of the truck (though we don’t recommend it), but your tube amp is not likely to survive that kind of impact, even if it is in a padded road case.