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Tube Amp Question


Tony Balls

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this may not be the right board for it, but i'll give it a shot....

A buddy of mine in Western Massachusetts has a house that is too small to hold all of his amps, and so he's considering constructing a separate practice space/storage space for them. It'd be a barn-like/garage-like structure. What he's curious about is if the cold weather will be damaging to the amps, or if he would have to keep the room at a regular temperature.

I'm tempted to say that it won't matter much, and if anything you might see a shortness of life from the tubes.

Anyone agree? Have any input??

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I agree with all the above. Temp is not a major consideration, except with condensation/moisture when dealing with Tube Amps. You also want to try to let your amp warm up to room temp before turning on the power to the heaters because anything stressed from extremely cold to extremely hot takes a beating. You may cause stress fractures/cold solder joints that sort of thing.

I store some of my tube amps in an outside shed type of thing and have had no problems, but you do want to be careful of moisture and condensation problems. The same would apply when shutting down your amp. Try to turn it to standby for a few minutes. Then shut down the power/pack up the rest of your gear and then after the amp cools it is better to move it then. A hot amp doesn't like to take a lot of hits, as does a cold amp.

Indeed you are correct, the hot/cold cycles will most likely affect tube life.

Peace!

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