Today I've been really unhappy with the sound of my system. Bass is too bloated and treble is scratchy. I was racking my head trying to figure out what I changed.
Took me an hour to remember I left the system off for about 24 hours. Doh!
o_holter - Tubes don't have the warm-up problems that ss does. My experience is that tubes take a max of an hour or two to reach their envelope of best performance. Solid state can take 10 times that long or longer. So tubes can be MUCH more economical to get to good listening than solid state.
I have a Class A amplifier that draws on about 400 watts (Pass Labs). No doubt it sounds way better warmed up after an hour or two. That said, I turn it off before heading to bed and back on in the morning before heading out for work. It has a chance to warm up all day before I get home which is plenty. So the amp gets about 8 hours of downtime every day.
I sleep better knowing I’m being kinder to my electric bill and the environment. Con Edison in NYC charges 27 cents per kwh which is the highest electricity rate in the nation if I’m not mistaken. 400 watts...do that math! Yikes.
Yeah, my big mono Class A amps will heat you out of the room in summer, and then there is the cost of electricity - the equivalent of having a 1 kw space heater going whenever they are on.
Fortunately they take very little time to warm up.
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