Amp/Guitar Temperature Sensitivity

[Mbwa]

I keep my guitar and amp in my bedroom, but during these winter months it gets quite cold in there.

Should I be concerned about what the cold is doing/has done to my stuff? Should I take any precautions, like covering them with a blanket at night? I don't have a temperature reading, but my room is especially cold because I keep the door closed and I have only one window, I think.

Thanks for reading.

[Jazz P Bass]

Temperature difference

I would think a temperature swing "may" be a cause for concern for the instrument.
Like a freezing cold car into a warm club.
If the room is warm & toasty during the day, a blanket will help retain the heat, that is all.
I don't think tha amp will suffer.
(think about your car when it is -11F. You turn on the radio & it works fine.
Of coarse the design specs on automobiles have to take severe temperatures into account.

[Mbwa]

Okay. The temperature swings aren't really that fast. It's still a little cold early morning, and gradually warms up over a few hours.

[stokes]

As long as you arent talking cold that would cause frostbite in your self they should be okay.Or as Jazz said a severe swing.A blanket wont really help much,a blanket keeps you warm by retaining your body heat,your gear has no body heat.It'll keep the dust off it,tho.

[Gtr_tech]

What they all said. As long as the temp is a gradual change the amp won't care. Just don't bring it from way cold into a warm environment and turn it right on. Electronic equipment needs time to acclimate....so if condensation forms it has time to evaporate.

Gigging musicians especially need to pay attention to this fact. Allow extra time at setups, take the covers off racks and flight cases to let the gear warm quickly so the condensation "burns off". When its no longer cold to the touch its probably ok to pwr up.

Guitars......temperture affects them less...with the exception of nitro lacquer finishes. Let the nitro finished stuff warm gradually in the case...don't just bring it in from the van in the winter and plop the case open....that causes the finish to crack or craze. Temp changes will affect tuning, but won't hurt anything.....it just won't hold tune until its stabilised to its environment.

[Mbwa]

I didn't notice condensation, but I wasn't specifically looking for it. The amp was a little cool, but not cold, cold. I'll check, but I doubt my room is freezing or below. And I turned on the amp and played today, and it didn't explode, and I didn't notice any extra crackling or anything like that.

[J M Fahey]

Dear MBWA, very short answer: if *you* can live in that room, your gear can too, definitely.

[tubeswell]

Hi Mbwa

A blanket for your amp aye? (Can I say?) you poor dude - you have got it real bad.

Temp definitely changes the tone of amp amp - when it heats up - but that is due to resistors drifting in the heat etc. For the sort of ambient temperatures that you typically get almost anywhere people can live on the planet (i.e.: -20 to +36 deg Celsius), it won't hurt the amp.

[Enzo]

Just remember, when you do go outside to your car, and it is 10 below zero out there, the computer in your car works, the car starts, and as soon as the ignition is turned on, your car stereo functions from that moment on. The electronics in those space probes going out past Jupiter and Saturn are living in an environment undreds of degrees below zero. Yet they can beam back pictures. ANd tubes? Remember all those fighter planes and bombers in world war 2? All those radios, and radar sets were tube based, and up in those planes at altitude, that stuff wasn;t heated, yet it worked. Darn cold up at 30,000 feet.

I don't think your room is much of a challenge for the amp.

[Jazz P Bass]

Radar

As an aside, the current radar units still use vacuum tubes.
Traveling Wave Tubes

[Enzo]

Yep. I had in mind boxes full of 6SN7s and stuff, but you are right.

[J M Fahey]

Well, all those Iraqui tanks, Third World Migs, AA quad machine guns, many missiles and the like, *still* use tens of thousands of tubes , maybe even 6SN7s, but they still definitely make a lot of those 6N1Ps and those "reinforced military" EL84 that Sovtek sells and Peavey (and others) use.
There are also those incredible big bottle double pentodes, controlling more than 1000 mA with less than 100V supplies, incredible for a tube.
Why do you think the Chinese and Russians kept making them non-stop .... ? Specially in the 80's, before the "tube revival", when Peavey Bandits and the like were kings.
Certainly not hoping that in the future they would supply Gr**v* T*b*s.

[gbono]

Yes, don't forget that tubes are "immune" from the effects of EMP if that helps justify continued production of tubes

[Enzo]

I worry more about the guitarist in those cases where EMP is present.

[gbono]

I worry about us all if EMP is present