Metropoulos Forum

Just curious...Breaking in the amp. Can this be done just by leaving it on for 100 hours or must it be fed a signal or played through. Thanks!

the best is feeding it some signal and power up and turn of quite some times. merely turning it on will help a little

Leaving it on all day won't hurt though right?

.....uh right? Maybe I ought to turn it off.

leave it on the whole day but watch for redplating

What is redplating? Thanks for the responses. Seems like I can hear a difference in sound coloration every day. Very interesting.

Redplating is when the tubes are run hot (underbiased) and the plates on the tube literally start to glow red. When things are settling in you need to watch the bias current closely to make sure you don't get 'runaway bias' which has happened to me before (a couple of times actually).
Never got to the redplating stage though.

This hasn't happened yet. I'll keep my eye on it though. Thanks!

Can is be acheived by using a signal generator into the amp plugged into a dummy load? I see photo's of amp companies "burning in" amps and it looks like that is what they do.

Guitar Adjuster wrote:Can is be acheived by using a signal generator into the amp plugged into a dummy load? I see photo's of amp companies "burning in" amps and it looks like that is what they do.

yes, as long as you look for oscillation and redplating

I played mine 4-5 times per day for 20-30 minutes at a time. I also ran some tunes from my I Pod into it for a couple of hours at a time using a Hot Plate set to load. I checked the bias every couple of hours and watched for red plating. The amp was burned in within two weeks. I broke my Scumback speakers in by the same method minus the Hot Plate but put a few blankets over the front to help keep the volume reasonable.

Just wondering what considerations are to be made with a LAR/MAR master volume installed? Does have the amp at lower volumes via the master volume not break it in as well, or has it already hit all the right components before hitting the master volume?

its better to turn up the master

Roe wrote:its better to turn up the master

Thanks. Strapped a Weber Mass to the back of this puppy, and turned the master volume all the way up...