Amp burn-in..Best technique

Put the amp through normal paces and verify that it is working properly before messing with anything else. Throttling the amp hard will break it in the fastest as it pulls the most current and generates the most heat / temperature swing. Leaving the amp play on a steady state basis, even at lower volumes, also helps. The cycling of the amp, especially if it is of a high bias design, may also help. Lower bias amps will benefit the most from leaving them on and playing them as much as possible rather than cycling them off and on. That's because they don't get nearly as hot, so there's not much temperature swing from being off to being powered up and running.

All of the above is for SS amps, NOT tube amps. Tube amps should be played as needed with sufficient warm up time prior to throttling. Not only should tube amps be allowed to "warm up" prior to cranking on them, they need to be allowed to "heat down" prior to turning them off. One can do this by putting them into "standby" mode when done listening and letting them cool for 15 - 30 minutes. This will increase the lifespan of the tubes and longevity / stability of the circuitry too. Sean
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Yes, the amps should be connected to the speakers whenever turned on unless there is a dummy resistance load simulating speakers being used.

There's a much simpler approach, which I take with most of my gear. Just play it normally, and accept that it will take a while before it starts to sound its absolute best.

I agree Gliderguider. If I am buying a piece of equipment that I know I am going to keep for a while. I will do exactly that. The McIntosh MC501 is one of the best, great sound! By the way I have one coming my way. Noonan, you will certainly enjoy it. Just let it break in naturally and enjoy the music.

Greetings everyone

Sorry to bump this old thread but I need some help.

My question is when doing amplifier burn-in is it better to have the amplifier put out varying wattage or put out stable wattage? I’d be keeping the volume at the same level.

Some background.

I have a Kavent P-3300 solid state amplifier that has meters in the front that show how much wattage the amp is putting out. When I have my CD player playing music at a reasonable volume level the meters would show .04 to .06 watts and it would stay that way throughout the songs.

Now when I stream the same music from my laptop via the Outlaw Audio OAW-3 Wireless Audio System the meters go wild. I’ll see the meters go from .02 to up to 7.0 depending on the parts of the song. I play good to high quality recordings on youtube. When I saw the difference in wattage I kept the volume the same on my preamp when I played the same music from my laptop and on the CD.

Info on the Outlaw Audio OAW3.

http://www.outlawaudio.com/products/OAW3.html

So would it be better to burn-in the amp by playing music that will make it put out varying wattage or steady wattage? If I do one way or the other would I be doing the burn-in for the same amount of time?

Thanks in advance and if I’m missing some details let me know.