solid state gear- leave on?

Samuell,

Having been in the electronics field for a number of years. Sean is on the money. The on/off switch is harder on the equipment than years of leaving the equipment on.

Remember to take the system as a whole.

So here's one. Say you have a SS amp and a tube linestage and/or phono stage, etc. Rule of thumb is amp last on - first off. So, if one wanted to leave the SS amp on "all the time", but wanted to turn off the tube component to conserve tube life, does one turn off the SS amp briefly before powering down the tube component then off again before powering up? Seems odd.

Thank you 4yanx - you've discovered for me why I have solid-state preamps and tube power amps! ;^)

When I drive my car, I don't turn it off at every red light and back on when it turns green. But if there's a major traffic delay and I'm just going to sit there awhile, I'll turn it off. Same with my electronics. There was an article in one of the Mags a while back where the author hooked up some monitoring device to his house electricity and recorded 100's of short duration spikes each day. Nothing that killed anything but could shorten their life over time. I'd say, if you're worried about it, look at your lifestyle and turn it on/off during the times you don't listen that much like during the week and leave it on when you do like the weekends. Ah, the comprimise

One issue that does'nt seem to be discussed is fire risk. I am told that one of the commonest causes for house fires is TV's left on standby and not turned off at night. Has anyone heard of fires started by Hi Fi gear left on. I would be worried by my Pass Labs Aleph 3 which of course runs pretty hot in standby, nevermind the 250 watts of idle power consumption. As others have mentioned, we do have to consider global warming and finite fossil fuels. Another point occured to me, if you do reduce your amps life expectency slightly by turning it off, how would that compare with years of higher electricity bills?