10 years of decent sound vs 1 year of tonal nirvana?

About the tubes in TV's in the 50's and 60's, they wore out as well. My Dad and I would go to the local drugstore, which had a tube tester, we would check two or three of the suspect tubes and purchase the tube type that was faulty. Oh, and no biasing those tubes. HA, HA..

 

could be bias, running too cool, best solution would be a heat gun

 

After a while, wouldn't a tube reach a certain temp and stay there (not get any hotter). Seems like that would be WELL before 20hrs, but heck if I've left a tube amp on that long.

 

Those things were always on the fritz when I was a kid. Born in 1964 most of my TV watching was in the 70s and the sets were already old. I remember one set losing its magic smoke one Saturday morning. The old man was just cheap when it came to TVs About 1976 he finally buys a new set, 12 inch black and white. That was the family set untill my grandparents gave us a huge old RCA color set with a radio and record player. They'd bought that new and it must have cost a fortune in the 60s. The TV was all tubes, I remember that because I swapped out the TV part from another RCA that was just a TV but the same one. I was probably 16 at the time and somehow it worked after the swap. If I would've know anything then, I probably could've swapped one stupid little tube and fixed it.
No days if kids gotta watch anything smaller that a 50 inch screen, they'll call child protective services.

 

Modern amps are pretty safe but some older tube amps can get hot enough to start fires. It depends on the condition of the wood in the cabinet and just how hot your running the amp.