The manufacturers of my SS disc player and SS preamps say to leave them on all the time (one of the preamps doesn't even have an on/off switch). My tubed CD player has a convenient switch that turns off only the analoge (tube) power while leaving the digital section powered up. Since it has only two tubes, I often leave both analoge and digital powered up all weekend since I listen at various times. My SS Class A power amps (300wpc) get very hot. Fortunately, there is a bias switch that can be used to lower the power and the heat. Although I generally turn the amps on only when I want to listen, having the bias switch gives me the option to bias down and leave them on for longer periods of time (although they still get warm). I have thought about switching to SS amps that can be left on all the time, but there are only a couple of A/B designs I would consider switching to. When I had tubed preamps, I sometimes considered the trade off between using NOS tubes and turning the preamp on and off, or running less expensive tubes but leaving the preamp powered up all the time.
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You'll find this thread to be of interest. IMO, the conclusion expressed by Cathode in his post dated 2-8-11 is the best possible answer to this perennial question: Depending on what kind of gear you have, how it's designed, and how you use it, turning it on/off vs leaving it on is truly component specific; making a blanket recommendation is not possible.... FWIW - I work as a reliability engineer in the semiconductor industry.Regards, -- Al |
As was pointed out above, the answer is component specific. My ARC 150.2 SS amp is designed to be left on 24/7, and in fact ARC comments that if turned off, it can take up to a week to get back to full "musicality" once it is turned back on. My CDP stays on stand-by when not in use. But my ARC tube preamp is turned off after use, and only turned on when I'm going to listen; ARC's comment is that leaving it on continuously would merely wear out the tubes prematurely. |
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