Been using a 300B SET power amp for a few years now, had 4 sets of 300Bs on it, so familiar with the running in thing.
Had a set of the Good Lions, nice 300B’s.
My takeaway?
Just use as normal and a enjoy the journey.
Switch on in the morning and keep on till your finished listening at the end of the day.
No need to switch off and on every hour, think of the valves as lightbulbs!
Importantly, leave space in your head to enjoy the wonderful sound and enjoy the improvement as it comes along, don’t stress about how it’s gonna sound in 3 months.
Some points though, some touched upon already:
- Switching on and off frequently...never a good idea, especially if your amp doesn’t have a ‘soft start’ (no inrush) circuit.
- Don’t move your amp when it’s hot...ever.
- With a Triode amp it’s less of an issue, but I’d not take the chance disconnecting speaker cable with the amp on, keep a load on.
main thing, enjoy your system now and not be thinking about Months down the line!
AC POWER
Hardwired 10kVA balanced mains powering entire system
AMPS
Meridian 557 power Amp (Modded) / PS Audio BHK Preamp (Modded)
SPEAKERS
Wharfedale Evo 4.4
DAC
PS Audio Directstream (Modded)
TURNTABLE
Pro-Ject X8 balanced output via XLR / Ortofon Quintet Blue cartridge
PHONOSTAGE
Pro-Ject DS3 B balanced Input (TT and Phonostage powered by Pro-Ject Power box RS2 linear psu)
DIGITAL
OPPO 203 (Modded: Linear PSU, i2s output to Dac) - Roon Endpoint, HDMI input used for all things Streaming/ PS5 /AppleTV ... also good for movies apparently?
MUSIC PLAYBACK
Tweaked AP-Linux based Roon Server into Oppo 203 as Roon endpoint
Ipad Roon Remote.
Apple Music/ YouTube via AppleTV, fed to Dac via Oppo HDMI input/i2s output to Dac.
SPEAKER CABLES
Biwired: Duelund DCA10GA (Bass) Duelund DCA16GA (mid & treble) Duelund 12DCA used as jumpers (On "Blackcat Cable" Chris Sommivigo's advice - yup, even with biwire it sounds better - and it does)
INTERCONNECTS
All Balanced: Ghost+ recording studio XLR cables