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Several of my friends have let me borrow their hybrid amps from time to time (various Blue Circle products, Cary CAD-308SA) and I've found that they almost always sound better after being left on for several days if not a week or more.So the question is: How long do you typically leave your amp on? Just for the time you are listening? For several days at a time like on the weekends? Continuously?
I just hate the idea of leaving tubes on all of the time especially when I'm not listening.
Follow Ups:
Mine sounds best after it has been on about 1 hour with only slight improvement afterwards (it reaches a stable temp in that time).
I use the Lamm M2.1 monoblocks.
I am lazy (and cheap!), so I typically only let them warm up for 15 minutes or so before I use them. At that point they sound good.
After another 15-30 minutes they sound very good.
And, after another 30-60 minutes, they sound great.
(Personally, I hate eating the electric bill for warm up time, and besides, at our level of quality, I can easily enjoy listening for an album side or two at slightly less than optimal sound, before it is fully warmed up. For the same reason, I start listing to my phono cartridges when new, rather than trying to break them in first.)My two cents worth.
PS Lamm states that only 45 minutes of warm up time is required.
Only goes on when I want to listen, and goes off right after. I watch DVDs, Concert DVDs, music DVDs etc., too, - so of course the amp stays on throughout. I have a tube output stage on my combo APL pre/CDP/DVD player. And, - that (should) make more of a difference.But honestly, - I haven't ever really done a formal test. And, my suspicion is that a test would not really yield too much, if any, noticable difference.....
Watching the reel as it comes to a close,
Brutally taking it's time,
People who change for no reason at all,
It's happening all of the time.
Can't speak to those products. However, my experience with both an all solid-state integrated amp (Krell KAV-300i) and an all-tube (11 of 'em!) phono stage (BAT VK-P5)is that both required about 15 minutes of warm up to sound good; and I could detect no differences after 45 minutes of operation. So "days and weeks" certainly isn't my experience with either product (although, initially, I tried leaving the BAT on from Friday through Sunday night).Ironically, the Krell is always powered up on a standby circuit that does generate some heat, even when it's turned "off" and it did take longer to sound good from a cold shutdown when I turned off the main power at my power supply.
I don't have enough experience with my present hybrid integrated (BAT VK-300se) to say whether its operating characteristics change significantly after having been left on, or even left on "standby" for long periods of time. That does not appear to be the case, based on my experience so far.
nt
I've taken many temperature measurements on preamps and amplifiers (tubed). In general, a completely stable operating temperature of all components is reached at about 45 minutes - give or take. This includes the cores of transformers, caps, and resistors, etc. During this warm up period, the circuit undergoes minor operating changes and some of these are audible. After an hour or so, the changes in sound would become "microscopic" I think. Although I have not measured directly SS amps, I would predict a somewhat similar scenario.There was a time I would leave everything ON, but that doesn't fit well with adopting a "greener" attitude on energy use, so now I restrict it to about 30 minutes before listening, then shut it down when done.
...and my Jolida 1501 case goes from cool to warm to the touch. It hits a certain point and doesn't get any warmer, which I assume means the temperature has stabilized and it's "warmed up."
While I used to leave my SS amp on all the time (also before I started considering environmental effects) I certainly haven't with valves, nor with my hybrid (Unison Research Unico P).
If I am likely to be listening before lunch, I turn it on when I get up. If in the evening I turn it on before dinner.
It does get better with time, but I feel you need to try it after maybe 1/2 hour, hour, 2 hours and pick a happy medium. There seems no point in missing out on music for that final 2% of quality.
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