Hot swapping output tubes?

[Deke609]

Will I hurt the amp (SII) or output tube (45's) by hot swapping (amp powered on but no signal playing).  Is hot swapping no different for the output tube/amp than powering on/off or is there some sort of soft-start/gradual build up that I'd be bypassing and consequently causing damage?.

45's seem to warm up fairly quickly, and for comparing different pairs, it would be great not to have to power down and then wait 20+ min for the output transformers to recover (I think I read a post from PJ to the effect that OT's take about that long after a off/on -- something about saturation or residual magnetization?).

Many thanks,

Derek

 

[Paul Birkeland]

This is not a particularly safe practice.  I, for one, am not going to try and predict what will and won't break, because this is just such a bad idea that I don't want to offer anything that can be misconstrued as encouragement. 

 

[Deke609]

Thanks PB.

this is just such a bad idea that I don't want to offer anything that can be misconstrued as encouragement.

That made me laugh. I have no shortage of such ideas and I can interpret just about anything as encouragement (think Dumb and Dumber: "So you're telling me there's a chance"). 

 

[2wo]

Terrible idea, even if it didn't kill your amp you'd probably still need to wait the 20m for the trans to recover, maybe even longer...John   

 

[Deke609]

Thanks John. It is unanimous: a terrible, horrible idea.  But I thought I'd ask on the off chance that it would be fine.

Appreciate you and PB responding to save my amp and tubes.