Threat of fire from audio equipment

Thanks for calling the article to our attention, Howard. Regarding your questions, IMO all that can be said is the not particularly helpful common sense notion that in general the risk is very small (perhaps less than the risk of driving a car), but it is not zero. And I would expect that leaving a component in standby mode reduces the risk greatly, compared to operating mode, but again not to zero.

Personally the only component I’ve ever owned that I left on 24/7 was a vintage Mark Levinson ML-1 preamplifier, from the late 1970s, which had no power switch, was designed to be used that way, and had a fully enclosed metal case without even any ventilation slots. And was not located near anything particularly flammable. Between me and the prior owner it ran essentially 24/7/365 for more than 30 years, before developing some functional (as opposed to safety-related) problems.

FWIW, with that exception my own policy has been to play it safe, and just allow time for my components to reach a stable operating temperature before doing any critical listening. That means no more than an hour with any component I have owned, and less than that in most cases.

Best regards,
-- Al

Well the question of whether to leave Amps on 24/7 has finally been answered.  

Over the many years I had my stores, I never had anything like this happen.  We left most equipment on 24/7 in all the stores and I still leave solid state gear on at home.

I did have a few pieces blow-up/catch on fire, but they were operator error situations, not the unit's fault.

Toasted quite a few drivers in my time also...

Wellll. lightning can do crazy things, with the unit on or off.
But a) it should be fused so that the fiuse protects you. I under-fused all my products - they would not pas full power on a test bench the way we shipped them. But in real life, you can barely get 10% out on a steady state basis - the peak to average ratio in audio is like 20:1
Sadly i still get calls "my amp wont turn on". me: did oyu check the fuse?"Why did it blow a fuse?" me: to save its ass and maybe yoursok, i didn't quite say that.

Next, never put a product that is open with vent holes on a flammable surface. Put it on a piece of metal, a block of wood..... (its not that flammable) - but NOT carpet.
If the unit has standby - do it. Mine did - only the low power circuits were on 24 x 7. The rest warmed up in 30-60 minutes depending on how fussy one is.
YMMV
G

I hear the that most solid state amps catch fire.