How long daes it take your gear to warm up?

My two solid state preamps (one of which is used as my phono stage, via its tape outputs) are on all the time, in part because they have no power switch. For critical listening I allow 2 hours for my CDP to warm up, and about 1 hour for my tube amplifier. That seems to be sufficient with these particular components.

I can't envision any reason why a component should take longer to sound its best than it would take for all of its internal components to reach thermal equilibrium, unless some kind of re-breakin is occurring following a significant period of non-use. And I would expect that for just about any component thermal equilibrium would be reached in a matter of hours (or less), not days.

Regards,
-- Al

As long as we're on the subject, does anyone warm their equipment up slow like a cold car engine? Or just crank the piss outa' it until you smell the dust frying? I let it warm up with an album/cd or 2 first. I’m always paranoid of frying anything in my system. I absolutely despise sending broken stuff out for repair.
And yes I agree with you Tiofelon, my Krell 300cx does sound a lot better after being warmed up. Really mellows out the highs and makes the bass more pronounced.
-JD

My tube amp/pre takes about 30-45 minutes to shine. The effect is pretty noticeable too, during that time.

My tube headphone amp takes about the same amount of time, maybe a hair less, to sounds its best.

I was once told by a manufacturer not to leave solid state amplifiers on all the time, as it is bad for the capacitors if the amps sit unused for long periods while on. Is there any basis to that?

I think the longer my SS amps stay on the better they sound...so over 4 hours is good. Hard to say about the cdp and the tubed pre amp. I don't want to leave that tubed pre amp too long since those early 60's NOS tubes are expensive.
I have a friend that tried leaving his big Levinson amps on all the time until he got his power bill..then he stopped that practice.