2 posts
Page 1 of 1
Hey everyone,

So I bought a firestudio tube a while ago (used) and I always leave the unit on in my studio because my computer is temperamental to external hardware power cycling. So I was reading that leaving a tube unit on all the time is bad for the tube life. My question is, when that time comes, how will I know that the tube has gone bad and what tube should I get? I vaguely remember reading that it is one tube with 2 filaments... true? false? Has anyone modded the tubes?

Thank you all in advance!
User avatar
by cristofe on Mon Jan 19, 2015 11:18 am
If the tube is blown you'll have no sound. With age it will get weaker and you'll begin to notice some degradation in sound. But, for the most part with the majority of "tube" preamps the tube warmth is an illusion at best, since they're not really tube amplifiers. Instead the tube is a starved plate design and the tube is driven with a fraction of the voltage needed to really run a tube properly. And, as a result, such tubes rarely wear out. I'm not entirely sure this is the with the Firestudio Tube but is indeed the case with the BlueTube & TubePre. I would say that it's very unlikely that you're tube(s) need replacing. You may notice some small improvement if you replace them with higher quality tube(s). You're unit likely has one or two 12AX7's and they are likely either Russian or Chinese. Replacing them with higher quality tubes like Mullards, Amperex, GE, JJ etc....may give you a slightly noticeable improvement in sound quality.

https://soundcloud.com/cristofe-chabot/sets/main

PC'S: HP XW6000 Dual 3.2GHz Intel Xeon, 8GB RAM WinXP SP2 HP 6005 Pro AMD Athalon X2 B24 3.0Ghz, 4GB RAM Win8 Pro Dell Latitude E6410 Laptop Intel i5 2.67Ghz 8GB RAM Win7 Pro x64 Audio Interfaces: Terratec EWS88MT PCI (2), Audiobox 1818VSL USB & Firestudio 26x26 Firewire, Line 6 PodXT, Roland GS-10, NI Rig Kontrol 3

Monitors: Yamaha HS50M's DAW: S1 3.2.1 Pro

To add your software and hardware specs to your signature to make it easier for us to help you, click HERE.

2 posts
Page 1 of 1

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 4 guests