Covers on or off?

Children and or curious pets, and maybe for shielding on a preamp is the only reason I'd run any cover that makes things run hotter. Heat is the necessary evil with tube gear. It kills stuff like caps and resistors IMHO, so I try to get by with as little as possible.
 
Naked as naked can be. I had a little computer fan that would blow "cool" (miami beach) air across them when they were on. And you just can't beat that tube glow!

My reasons are two-fold. I like the way it looks and I believe they will run cooler and last longer. I don't know if that second part has any real technical merit though.
 
What about tube covers?
I only use those as needed, but I am guilty of using some of the fancy type heat dissipating jobs from PC. I think they look cool on a custom build that has the preamp tubes exposed, plus they would do some shielding I guess as well as getting rid of heat. That said, tubes like 12AX7s just don't make much heat. I can't begin to count the Mullards and Teles that I've tested in old Dynaco gear that had NO vents in the covers at all. Talking about stuff like PAS preamps and such. They always test good?
 
Cover on with the preamp I built. No cover an any of my amplifiers. Three are console pulls, so never had covers. The SET I built doesn't. And I didn't buy one for the ST-70 I put together. If the bias adjustments were on the front of the ST-70 like the test points are I would probably have bought a cover for it.
 
Cover on with the preamp I built. No cover an any of my amplifiers. Three are console pulls, so never had covers. The SET I built doesn't. And I didn't buy one for the ST-70 I put together. If the bias adjustments were on the front of the ST-70 like the test points are I would probably have bought a cover for it.
 
I leave the cover on my ST-70 for the most part. The last thing I want to do is bump a tube, or worse the driver board, and blow up the amp or myself or one of my friends. It's in a medium traffic area in my living room, not a dedicated listening space. The wife says she likes it better with the cover too, so there you go.
 
I leave the cover on my ST-70 for the most part. The last thing I want to do is bump a tube, or worse the driver board, and blow up the amp or myself or one of my friends. It's in a medium traffic area in my living room, not a dedicated listening space. The wife says she likes it better with the cover too, so there you go.
Mine is in a corner, so no traffic. But my wife would like it better if I bought a cover.:D
 
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