Stephen328 Posted February 10, 2003 Share Posted February 10, 2003 Man I think its kindof cruel to leave your amp on all day. I dont even leave mine plugged in all day(Turn of my power strip). Although sometimes I do warm up my components for an hour or two. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fish Posted February 10, 2003 Share Posted February 10, 2003 My parasound amp gets nice and hot after about an hour,cranked up or not.How can a unit create all that heat for a buck a month?The only problem I have is if I buy a used unit,please tell me if its been on for 2 years. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
robB Posted February 10, 2003 Share Posted February 10, 2003 Hi Moon I read your question about computers,on/off? I have worked for two global computer companies, compaq and HP,and its been our findings that the computer boxes are best shut down every night after use. Expanding and contracting happens in many things once heated up, your TV, your laptop, even under the hood of your car after its been running a while. The ONLY time i would recommend leaving your HOME pc on is, #1-if its running a home network, or#2 if its a machine that must be accessed from another machine E.G your laptop when your away on business ,through dialup. We have come across far too many problems with home pcs left on over night or when someones been away on vacation. It is usually after this happens it generates a call to the manufacture or the retailer with some type of PC trouble. All the above does not apply to Bigger office and Corporate Frames, that must be accessed constantly from the oustide...! Hope this helps ROb Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
robB Posted February 10, 2003 Share Posted February 10, 2003 Hi (again) Moon! As for the question of leaving the amps on . my above answer was based on the information that I was given by one of the Bryston techs. Knowing that my HT amp rack was in a remote location,. i was concerned about these left powered up all the time. Bryston tells me that there is no harm in leaving these on and forgetting about them. Make sure the ventilation is good, and that the power supply is stable,.eg not going to go on/off alot. Bryston does recommend constant power up for their units,.as is the case in their permanent sound installs ,clubs and studio installs. i took it as good advice and made my own HT decision based on this. hope this helps ROb Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skonopa Posted February 10, 2003 Share Posted February 10, 2003 Here is my take on this whole issue: For computers, I generally turn them off when not in use, even the one here at work (although my Sun workstation remains on all the time). However, I have one machine at home that stays on all the time - a Windows 2000 box that acts as a server, although I do shut it down and unplug it when I am going to be away for awhile, or when really nasty weather is coming in. For my HT gear, I shut it down when I am not using it, including removing any disks in the players (I don't have any multi-disk changers). I know that it should not hurt anything in leaving a disk in a player, but that is just me - perhaps a holdover from the floppy disk/cassette/8-track/vinyl days, when leaving a disk/tape/record in the player/drive was not considered good. There is one piece of gear that I do leave on, my DirectTV reciever. Even if it is turned "off", it is really not off, in that the harddrive still spins. Leaving it on has the benefit that I often leave it to record things when I am not home. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnellis Posted February 10, 2003 Share Posted February 10, 2003 I think Moon is absolutely correct. One should leave the hardware running. As least with computers anyway. I do the same with all my audio equipment. At work, we power the system down three of four times a year. When we do, we always see multiple hardware failures. Much more than normal. Be it disk, memory, I/O planars, etc. It's a very large system. A 318 node SP Complex. As a result of the number of nodes, we see the failures that occur more often as a result of the power downs. This is due to the heating, cooling and then reheating factor that Moon mentioned. I'm convinced. Oh, and the IBM CE's are convinced too!!! The same would apply to audio. I would think. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Soundthought Posted February 10, 2003 Share Posted February 10, 2003 IMO. Most gear will fail on power-up. Some will fail on Power-down. The rest just fail. LOL It's my belief that power applied to a "cold" circut not only stresses several key parts of the cicurt path but is the second biggest amp killer next to heat. Then again, like John said, many problems arise from power down. They just wait to be discovered at the next useage. And who's to say they didn't occur at power-up? Curious... Personally, I only leave specific gear on 24/7. Amps without meters, newer tuners and recievers with display dimmers, and subwoofers. Everything else gets turned on and off as required. The amount of energy used from an amp at idle is very small. As long as good surge protection is used, I see no problem. I've had my Denon 3801 and KSW15 on for over a year now. My B&K 2140, Denon TU-1500RD, SW12 and SW8 have been on for at least 6 months. My HT is performing flawlessly and it's never sounded better. Regards, John. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gregorius Posted February 11, 2003 Share Posted February 11, 2003 I have an Odyssey Stratos Amp in my HT that has been up 24/7 since I bought it over a year ago, except for 3 times when we had bad thunderstorms. Odyssey has a 20 year warranty and they recommend it to remain on. They even put the switch on the back (hard to reach). Regards, Greg Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
robB Posted February 11, 2003 Share Posted February 11, 2003 Didn't some Quad and Naim amps have the power switch on the back? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skonopa Posted February 11, 2003 Share Posted February 11, 2003 After reading the postings on this thread as well as the one linked in by Kain, I guess it really depends on the equipment itself, what the manufacturers suggest and how comfortable one is about leaving things on. If a manufacturer suggest leaving it on, than leave it on. Some manufacturers suggest turning it off when done. Some don't care. Some people leave things on for convienice sake, no need to wait for warm-up - it is ready to go. That is one reason why I leave my Win 2K box up, I can just jump right on and get the e-mail and check the news or whatever - don't have to wait for the machine to boot-up. Some people thinks leaving it on will help preserve longevity of the gear - perhaps. Others feel more comfortable turning it off when done, perhaps for saftey sake or just wanting to conserve power. For tubes, I beleive, cutting them off when you are done is the smart thing to do. To be honost, I would be willing to bet that it really doesn't make one bit of difference if you leave a solid-state device on or not, whether it be amps, computers, receivers, etc. For most such devices, the thing is usually obsolete before it fails, regardless if it was left on or power-cycled each day. I guess from a safety point of view, it would generally be a good idea to turn things off when done, especially when going away for an extended period of time. There is that rare occasion that something could short-out and/or overheat, thus possibly causing a fire. Also, I like the idea of saving electricity, plus I am cheap when it comes to having to pay utlities - the smaller the bill, the happier I am. The only exception would be tube-based gear. Those should always be turned off when not in use, both from a longevity and safety point of view. If I don't know for certain if something can be safely left on or not, I just use an old rule-of-thumb, "When it doubt, cut it out!" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
big_gto Posted March 5, 2003 Share Posted March 5, 2003 I've left my Carver M-400t & C-1 for two weeks once. Went home on military leave and just forgot to turn it off. I knew something was weird when I came home when I noticed my Lava lamp was still on which is plugged into the back ot the C-1. It was warm! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Audible Nectar Posted March 6, 2003 Share Posted March 6, 2003 jt, Do you have your Mc250 on a switched outlet? This unit doesn't have a power switch. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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