i have an all in one streamer/integrated amp from naim that i leave on 24/7, and recently tested out a NAD c 3050 LE- noticed this amp turns off after 15 mins or so of being left on standby w no music playing, which i thought was a little weird. do you leave your integrated amp on or off? thanks
You must log in or register to comment.
Save that power it makes a difference
dac ye, amp no
Off.
My Marantz 2330 from 1977 stays on all the time. It seems to like it
My beast class A/B Rotel amp visibly dims room lights when turned on - I can’t imagine leaving that sucker on or why anyone would want to.
Your amp is not an efficient way to heat a room.
No, of course not.
I have a Schiit DAC and there is no power button and the manual recommends leaving it on.
DAC yes. Amp no.
My gear is always left on. I’ve got friends and family deep in the hobby and some of them have had their gear left on for more than 10 years. Only gets powered off when leaving for extended periods like for vacations.
No. There are benefits in turning it off – it offers some protection from voltage spikes and from premature aging of the circuitry, and saves electricity. It may offer protection from someone messing with the speaker wires and creating a short when you’re not around.
I design electronics. Any decent modern amp or preamp is electrically warmed up in tens of seconds, that is, further changes in temperature don’t make any meaningful difference in its performance – measured or heard.
Really ancient stuff? There could be a kernel of truth. Tubes have heaters that take time to warm up of course. Ancient solid state (like early '70s and before) sometimes had janky bias spreader circuits that weren’t well compensated for temperature.
In newer solid state gear, the output stage bias current should be within 20% of the final level within tens of seconds after power on. There’s enough feedback around the output stage that you’re not going to hear any difference while it stabilizes, and it stabilizes pretty fast, much faster than the temperature of the heatsink settles at its final level.
Don’t worry about warm up. Worry about what happens to your powered up gear when you’re asleep or away.
I was always warned about wear and tear from expansion and contraction when heating and cooling between power cycles. Is that old school and less of a concern with modern electronics?
Actually a very good point. I guess this is highly dependent on the component itself. I noticed that leaving my tube gear on did wear the cathodes very quickly compared to their theoretical lifespan (they were used tubes but the glass became shinier visibly over time), so I just switch off the system considering the points of the post above. It does take a few minutes to warm up the tube dac but in practise that’s irrelevant.
I had a transistor with a cold solder joint on a Pioneer record player once, but it was an easy fix and I can’t say what caused it because I got the thing second hand.
If I had to guess I would say heat cycling causes the issue. I would also say it’s likely most modern quality gear won’t have heat cycling cold solder joints often…
Maybe? There certainly could also be longevity/reliability benefits of reducing power cycles. Mostly for the power switch I would guess. (Thank God for the triac mod that saves the power switches on vintage gear.)
I’m mostly saying there are no sonic benefits to leaving it on.
Triac mod?
Since you’re here, what’s your take on using a power strip to turn everything on and off? Assuming the gear has a physical switch to cut power at the main 110v and not a relay standby switch?
Great information. And it makes me wonder about my 5 year old integrated tube amp. Would you leave that on 24/7?
Hey there. The C3050 manual goes into quite bit of detail on this but this is why:
Auto Standby feature is an integral feature of C 3050 that conforms to European ecodesign regulations
Thanks for this
Thanks for this. Gotta love our over consumption on this sub 🫠 Planets dying and we’re out hear leaving shit on for no reason wasting electricity
Off except when someone forgets. Not religious about it but why would someone want their hardware on all the time?
Not sure about amps, but turning your PC on and off all the time is more harmful than just keeping it on all the time.
That is not true at all for PCs. Where did you hear that??
I had about the 8th edition ifScott Mueller’s Upgrading and Repairing PCs - he discussed the pros and cons of keeping them constantly powered.
At the time, I think his take was that the alternating heat and cooling-off on and off cycles would cause more wear than keeping them constantly on and warm.
I have a Sony AVR that’s been on most of the time since about 1993. Sounds and works great. Even after falling out of my closet to the floor in the '97 Northridge earthquake.
Yeah, keeping your PC on all the time causes less wear on the components. If you shut down your PC once a day, this will not cause any problems tho. It doesn’t really matter for a regular user.
Yes and no. It’s good to let it stay on for some time if it’s used sporadically, but a periodic off/on cycle is good as it helps “clear its head” if you will.
I guess some want to keep it warm. Whether it helps on class AB and under is up for debate it seems.
I don’t leave any of my gear on unless I’m about to listen.
Gear that is left on all the time requires Twice as much service.
Source:Serviced several studios for over 20 years.
Always on. Always ready to stream from my phone
I leave my amplifier on standby. It’s a beast and takes a few hours to warm up. I’ve also heard that big caps will last longer if they are held at a constant voltage.