Is it best to leave gear on or to shut it off?

Some gear has no on/off. My Pass preamp is one such - to turn unit off, pull plug. My amp I keep in Standby. My digital stuff draws about 10W a box; it stays on for convenience's sake. I turn thr transport off. My phono stage is like the preamp: plug in; it's on. That's just me though.
cheers apo

Tubes turn off, SS leave on.

I once had my first-ever ''high end'' unit, the diminutive original Naim Nait, a whopping 18 watts per channel, but sounded subjectively like an 60 watter. Turned it on in 1984, turned it off when I sold it ten years later in 1994 ! We are are almost 2008, and the guy I sold the unit to, a friend of mine, still has it turned-on to this day! We are talking 24 years here with only a 1-hour interruption !

Quality gear can usually take it, and some manufacturers, like Naim - actually recommends leaving amps ON at all times, including sources.

When I think of all the expensive gear I have owned since, including mega-dollar tube amps, and factor in the hours wasted chasing for the Holy Grail of sound, I sometimes miss that little red light in my living room, confirming that my tiny amp was on constant warmed-up-and-ready mode.

Cheers

anything with a microprocessor in it should be disconnected from your power source or at least put in standby; you would never want your computer to deal with a brown out and stereo equipment these days is unfortunately very sensitive to dust, heat, cold, power deviations, and lunar and solar influences (okay, not those!). never leave a cd in your player- a power interruption will cause major havoc, even lock-up, if the cdp tries to figure out what to do with the disc. saving electricity is a very good idea as your power company may be contributing to environmental degradation. OTOH, DACS AND PREAMPS usually benefit from staying on all the time. this is a great argument for an all-analog stereo system come to think of it...

Here we go once again. NOT ONCE has anyone cited scientifically that powering well made equipment up and down causes damage or degrades performance. Plus, all equiment is more vulnerable to damage powered up but unattended.

Yeah, sure it needs a little warm up, that's normal, but much can be accomplished in 20 minutes. ;-)

Save energy and your sanity. If you aren't listening to it, turn it off.