I had always assumed that turning off audio gear when not in use was the best way to maintain its performance and lifespan, however recently my audio salesman/technician told me that he leaves all of his gear on for two reasons - the first being that the initial power surge of turning on the equipment does more damage than leaving it on ever would, and secondly - the gear should sound better if it's left on.
after a few weeks of leaving on my HK 3380 receiver I have noted that the warmed up sound of the receiver is subtly clearer than the sound of it when it is just turned on.
also, when i leave the power to my turntable on, it plays at a more consistant speed than when i first turn it on. (i don't mean that i leave the platter spinning, i just leave it's power switch in the "on" position)
i'd like to hear people's thoughts and experiences on this issue.
what your experiencing is true of warmed up components. weather they are left on or after warming up from being just turned on.
to me it depends on how much you use the equipment. the more you use it the more you may want to tend to leave it on.
i presonally shut my stuff off when i'm done. i just feel safer.and personally feel i will get more life out of the unit as their may be a few days i don't even use it.
Brad: while solid state electronics are much less sensitive to heat (warm up) than tubes were, there is "slight" benefit from leaving things turned on.
The first benefit is something referred to as "in-rush". This is the burst of current that hits your components when you first turn something on. Motors are well-known for sucking in many more amps (current) at startup than during normal operation. This is just fact, not necessarily a bad thing. When does a light bulb usually burn out? Usually when you turn it on or off (during current changes).
In any event, a bunch of computer users leave their computers on most of the time. This came from the old hard drives which suffered significantly from the motor startup of the spindle (holding the platters). The other problems from hard drives was the lubricant used on those spindles which, by centrifigul force, would remain away from the platters and the read/write head(s) during spinning (normal operation), but when turned off, would settle on the surface of the platters. The mean time between failure (MTBF) of most hard drives these days is pretty good and the concern is almost gone. Not only that, we're trying to advocate using green PCs and Monitors to save energy when not in use. (I.E. spin down drives, turn of display.) I happen to leave all my computers on ALL the time, but that's because I have 9 servers at home (I host websites).
The second benefit, and I'm going to be brief, is component warmup. As I wrote earlier, most electronic components which use electricity go through some stress and "warm-up" when current is first applied. Very generally speaking -- please, no flames -- alot of these solid-state component problems could be attributed to cold soldered joints or other production problems (tolerances, component quality). In any case, solid state components -- as are in today's receivers -- do not require any "significant" warm-up period compared with previous tube based products.
That is not to say that some warm-up is good for them. I think my H/K AVR-525 sounds better after a few minutes (from a cold start), but that could just be me. The heat generated by the components having power applied to them, does, generically, bring them to an operating state where they perform nominally. Even nominal is subjective, but for this discussion, a nominal operating temperature could be reached in seconds once power is supplied.
Does your computer work better once it heats up for a while?
I'm not saying that to be funny, it just crossed my mind. Because audio is so subjective and it's output is analog as compared to a computer whose primary output is digital, this will have some factor... even if it's still subjective.
I don't use my audio equipment that often, I travel alot, so I turn it off when I'm done. This increases its lifespan as well.
I use my audio gear about 4 or 5 hours a day, at various points in the day.
I went away last weekend for 3 days and I turned it all off then, but normally I've been leaving it on.
J. Vigne
Unregistered guest
Posted on
The issues above are the best reasons to leave components on as much as possible. Heat is the largest enemy in the war on terrorism among the coalition of the components. Not only will the components sound better since the voltages are stabilized and values for transistors, resistors, etc. have stabilized but maintaing the same temperature lenghtens the life of a component. The reason the light bulb burns out when you zap it with a burst of current and voltage is the filament has become brittle from constantly heating up during use and then cooling down after the voltage is removed. The same thing happens to all electronic components as they heat and cool. How much will this increase the life of your gear? Hard to say. But one thing is for certain, it will not help one bit if you are not protecting the gear from power surges and lightning strikes. Power surges are the equivalent of turn on/off cylces even if you leave the gear on constantly. If anything, they become more dangerous if the equipment is on at all times. And power surges are just a fact of life if you live in a normal house in a normal community. (OK, we can debate normal for years, but let's just let that one pass.) Though it is ridiculous to expect the 1/32" gap of a switch on a reciever to stop a lightning strike of 70,000 to 400,000 volts that has already traveled several miles to reach ground, leaving your equipment on while you are away from the house will only give you unnecessary worries. The bottom line here is to leave the equipment on once it is plugged in to a REALLY GOOD surge protector. This means spending more than $10 at the outlet store. Go get a good unit and you will find the protection it provides is cheap insurance. The other benefit of a VERY GOOD surge protector is the RFI and EMI filtering it will provide. I used to sell the Pananmax line with the option that the customer could bring it back if it didn't make their system look and sound better. I never had a return. I'm not saying you have to buy a Panamax, though they are exxcellent, but go buy a REALLY GOOD unit. Expect to pay about $100.
