The death of an amplifier

Tom, are the things you mentioned preventable or can I take preemptive action? Will I be able to hear capacitors that are on the way out? The Aragon amp does not run real hot. It is warm to the touch but it is not in a rack. There is nothing immediately above or below it. It is about four inches above the floor with nothing above till the ceiling.
As far as the on/off switch, the only time I turn anything off is on the rare occasion when I move equipment around or when I am going away for a while. If there are things I can do to extend the life of these toys I would be interested. Thanks for your help.

Nate, no they are really not preventable, but keeping the heat low will help. You can quite often tell if a cap is going bad by some sonic indications, but it is possible that a cap won't fail first. It may be a resistor, or output transistor or anything. Since you don't really know what item will be first to fail, for sure, you can't do too much to prevent it, other than good general care, and using the amp within its design parameters(not pushing overly low impedances especially). After that, it's just the luck of the draw.

Actually, Religon is operated by the same folks that run Audiogon. It specializes in the sale of relics: antique furniture, spiritual items, old wives....

will

Actually religion is run by people who couldn't find God in their limited perspective which was the reason Jesus was so unhappy with religion. To give 'will' the benefit of the doubt though, I guess one persons pasttime can be anothers pointless religion.

Hi Nate, I agree with Tom that it is very difficalt to prevent a component going bad on you. Just keep the unit well aerated to avoid heat build up and try no to abuse it with too many parties! Other than that I persoanlly like to air blast the dust that accumulates in the unit once in a while, I clean the contacts (for better sound not reliability) and I like to spray the switches with some type of NON RESIDUE contact cleaner. Of course, ONLY do these things with the unit DISCONNECTED from electricity and ONLY if you are comfortable opening up the unit yourself. Otherwise DON'T do it! Aragon equipment are famous for reliability. Enjoy your amp and do not stress yourself over equipment failure.