My Apologies to Miller Carbon

What's with all the post removal?

Most electronic devices will last longer if left permanently on. Consider that a PCB  contracts and expands as it cycles through the warm and cool/cold periods with different coefficients of expansion and you have the ingredients for failure. Commensurate with this movement is the associated condensation.

The surge of start-up current is highest when the circuit is cold. If you take the old style incandescent lamps they almost always failed when switching on because that is their cold state where resistance is lowest and max. current is drawn. I don't know about you guys but I will not subject my kit to that harsh cycle.

I also leave my valve amps on standby with apparently no stress to the valves. As I build most of my stuff I incorporate a standby switch which disconnects B+ and switches the filament supply to about 60% of operating voltage to avoid cathode poisoning. This keeps the condensation at bay and the amp warm and ready for use.

That strikes me as a really good approach. What seems to happen is there is a sort of dielectric saturation process that happens with everything, until it reaches a sort of equilibrium. The majority of this happens pretty fast but the last little bit can take a while. So things that sound pretty bad at first sound a lot better half an hour later, but then continue to improve for some hours only not as much and slower. Ted Denney believes this happens even at idle, no music required, and so it stands to reason lowering the voltage will keep things at a high level ready to go. Wish more would do this. 

Ted Denney believes...

And there is the crux of the problem: Belief. Untested. Unproven. Solely marketing copy.

HiFi originated with great engineers designing better product, only to have it debased by charlatans.

• "HiFi originated with great engineers designing better product, only to have it debased by charlatans."

And the tweakers and tinkerers allow for those brilliant designs to be appreciated all the more.

Frank