To turn off or not to turn off


That is the question. I have always left my components on, because I heard that they would pay me back with greater reliability. The theory goes that electric/electronic hardware takes a big hit every time it is turned on.

However, I don't listen to the equipment through the night. And the equipment is using electricity and converting it to heat while idling. Besides the waste, would it be better for the equimpent to be turned off when not in use?

What do you think?

Dan C.
dancarne
Couldn't agree more. Some people have strange ideas. Sure enough your gear needs to warm up but leaving it on all the time is a recipe for frequent and expensive re-tubing or worse.
Solutions
1. Turn system on and take dog for a walk so you don't have to listen to cold system.
2. Wear ear plugs for first 20 minutes.
3. Play your least favourite LP or CD 'cause it always sounds crap anyhow.
Some people worry about their electric bill go high. In reality it is not that high at all. When amp/preamp idle, it is like having a 60W bulb on all the time. Couple bucks a month.

With a tube gear it is NO-NO since they may overheat and tubes life will be very short.

Dan, it is up to you if you will turn them of or not. If you have never done it, try it for a couple of weeks. The big plus on doing this? Many modern SS equipment take several days or even more then a week staying "on" to get to the best sound, even if they have "stand-by" mode or fully broken in. If you hear no sonic improvement, start turning them off. I never do.
My blue circle dac did not come with an on/off switch. If it is plugged in it is on.
I have a Hafler 220 that I built from a kit in 1979.About 6 months after I built it, the power switch quit working,leaving it in a power on condition. I got a new switch from Hafler but have never installed it.The amp has been on continuously ever since and it sounds great.
I would say that this supports the theory that (for ss amps) keeping temperature more constant makes for more reliable electronics.
My Audio Alchemy DLC preamp has been on since 1993.

e
That is to be correct and I even more verified that SS equipment idles at very low power and need not to be turned off unless there's threats from power surges. Tube equipment is the best to turn off since the worm-up time is much faster than with transistors.
On my VTLs tube life drammatically increased since I started to turn them off. I would turn off the power especially when I leave or to the degree that I would only run them on when I play music. When something's happening I would immediately hear and take actions on time. Despite the figures stating that tube life won't be different if tube equipment is always on, the life of DC capacitors will be and the ones that go bad or off the normal operation scale will shorten the tube life so quick that it's enough to realize that buying more and more tubes becomes an issue. I'm speaking from my own experience with my tube amps that I analytically examined with open PCB what's realy happening and why my tubes blow so fast... As I mentioned above, DC caps in some tubes drained the voltage too low outside of bias adjustment tolerance or too high and after some time of idling biasing was not possible. In the result I recapped the units and NO MORE I keep them on without listening.