Leave amps on or off?

Hi Kevin; According to McCormack Audio's owners manual(s), a solid state amp will sound good within 20 minutes of being turned on. Many, many audiophiles disagree with this, and in fact mine does sound "good" within 20-30 minutes, but not "great". SF recommends turning their tube amps off if they are not going to be used within a couple hours or so. Turn it off overnight. Standby does reduce tube life. I leave my Sonic Frontiers Line 2 pre-amp in standby at all times it's not playing, and I have to replace tubes about once a year. I listen, on average, 4 hours a night. As the tubes gradually "wear", music gradually becomes brighter, harder, and more fatiguing. I've gone through this twice now, and have just decided to replace pre-amp tubes once a year. Standby also decreases tube life in amps, and you just have to decide on a procedure that works for you regarding tube life versus music quality. Happy Listening. Craig.

Solid state amps seem to perform better if left on - everything seems to stabilize - hopefully the amps does not draw too much juice... I think my Bryston amp while sitting idle uses the equivalent electricity to a 100 watt light bulb. As for tubes leaving them on will no doubt reduce the life span so shut the amp down when not in use and a half hour warm up should be sufficient to realize nice sonics...

.......as to life span of the amp, a case can be made for either leaving amps on, eg fewer hot/cold cycles, or turning them off when not in use, eg less total "on" time on individual components in the amp. It seems to me that standby is a good compromise, and many amps now have that feature (but I turn my 300 wpc amp off at night, and on 3-4 hours before use) . Craig.