Modern wall voltages, am I just overthinking this?

I made a comment once about how I have put a resistor before the first filter cap from the secondary to knock down my plate voltages on a BF princeton I used to own. Someone asked what I did about the increase in filament voltage, something I had not thought of (insightful comment BTW, whoever said it).

Is this really an issue? Should I lug around a variac or maybe place 2 opposing diodes on the filament line to knock it down (haven't actually measured the voltage but its gotta be high, right)? Should I just add a big wattage resistor at the primary to get it all at the source? What is a safe filament voltage range?

Like I've said before, I ain't no amp guru. Just an old electronics professional who taught himself tubes and works on my own and repairs others at a music school where I take lessons and friends amps.

Ideas? Input? Mucho thanks in advance. Just trying to increase my understanding and prop up some of my weaknesses.

Placing two opposing diodes in your heater circuit will certainly knock the voltage down a bit... all the way to zero. :mrgreen:

Some amps are voltage sensitive. Does the amp sound okay? If so, just use it, you're doing no damage.

Placing two opposing diodes in your heater circuit will certainly knock the voltage down a bit... all the way to zero. :mrgreen:

Some amps are voltage sensitive. Does the amp sound okay? If so, just use it, you're doing no damage.

I should have been more descriptive on that one. I have seen on a couple of sites where two parelleled diodes were put in series with the heater lines to knock the voltage down about 1.5vac (.7vac voltage drop across either diode on the positive and negative side of the ac signal). I can see now how the term "opposing" could be confusing as I read my op.

Funny how I'm not practicing what I preach here. I've worked on my princeton and princeton reverb, tried 3 different sets of tubes, new and NOS, and noticed the bias with all 3 sets, fell well within the tolerance of the original bias resistors. Put in a bias pot just for fun on my pr. set the bias, measured the total resistance, and they were all within 1k of the original fixed bias resistor.