Question for all the audio experts… recently thinking of purchasing a pair of BHK 300 monoblocks, I have several questions and/or concerns.
Even when off, they are in a standby mode and the heatsinks are slightly warm. When in the on position and playing, they do get warm to the touch. Will this degrade them over time?
How many years can one expect to get out of these amplifiers, assuming a couple hours of listening a night.
Is the design really that complex compared to other amplifiers, that there is more room for failures?
Does anyone have these units to double duty to use while watching movies as well?
I had the BHK 300’s doing double duty. I played them much more than 2hrs a night sometimes they ran all day. I never had any issues and they never got too warm where I couldn’t touch them. I had my on amp stands away from other equipment so that helped a lot. The 300’s have two tubes and I only changed them to get a different sound I never felt I was losing sound quality with extended hours. Long story short they excelled with music and movies no issues for me.
I’ve got a pair of 250s. I had to change the valves in one of them after about four years of occasional use. The valves started making weird noises but this didn’t affect the music. I bought a quad matched set of valves which I’ll use the next time i feel a valve is playing up.
I’ve had my 250 for 4 years or so, and no issues. I replace the tubes every year though, as I do hear some degradation in sound quality over that period of time.
I have two BHK250s because I have an active system (digital crossover). The BHKs do the mids and tweeters and I use a pair of very high power Crown amps for bass.
The 250 has been recently discontinued so I wonder about the spare parts situation. Has anyone run into an inability to repair? Not worried about tubes, those are a consumable as far as I’m concerned. If there’s a microprocessor on board or some rare mosfets then I would be concerned.
Also curious why the 300 is not discontinued since they are very similar in design, just more of it.
If I remember correctly from when I had a pair, the standby only turns off the tube stage, to save some precious tube life. The output stage is always on. Also, I remember Paul stating that turning on and off too frequently could do more harm than good, given the current inrush.
So, use the standby and leave it be. Should it not be used for longer periods, turn off the switch on the back.