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Today i got my electricity bill. OT? Well i got so pissed off i started checking what's on (standby) in my house. TV. Out. Computer monitor. Out. Hifi. Mmm isn't it more audiophool to leave everything on all the time? My gut tells me it's better to warm the amps up once and leave them on instead of warm up/cool down a couple of times a day.
I checked with the electricity meter in the hall, indeed it makes a difference so OFF go the CDP, the DAC, the main amp, two monoblocks for biamping. The two phono preamps stay ON of course :-)
Ok it's better for the environment and the ozone layer and all that stuff but i admit it's downright poverty that forces me to put out the amps. I'm spinning vinyl now, actually it doesn't sound bad to my ears. I should check with one of my test LPs to be sure. Maybe a bit gritty and direct compared to warmed up amps. Do you leave your (phono pre) amps on all the time?
"The torture never stops"
Follow Ups:
Getting enough solar capacity to charge the battery stack isnt that difficult, and then you really know that you are doing your bit ;)
The dB Systems DBR-15b has no power switch, and unplugging the P/S produces a big thump if you forget to turn off the power amps first.
My gear does sound better when it's warmed up for 1/2 hour, but if I'm going away for more than several hours I'll shut down all or most of it. One thing I like about my main (Audible Illusions) preamps is that in "standby" mode a trickle charge is always supplied to the tubes, so they never really get 100% cold. In contrast, I have a class A SS amp that devours current at idle and so runs way too hot to leave on indefinitely. Common sense is the rule.
When equipment is new it generally sounds pretty lame. As it breaks in for 25 to 100 hours the sound transforms. Lots of boutique shops dread the fact that you are likely to return a new purchase because it sounds like kitty litter....so they tell you it is best to leave it cooking all the time.This is the ultimate electronics urban legend.
Once the dielectric potentials are established in your equipment then it is fine to turn it off whenever you want. Power up takes less than 60 seconds for most equipment to be able to play full volume from start up. Only tubes require time to reach an optimal temperature and mine generally hit that point in 20 minutes.
So save your energy. There is really no reason to leave the power on once the break in period has been achieved.
I will duck now while all the arrows and mud slinging comes my way.
Its actually about thermal stability.The resistors very subtly change value thanks to the heating caused by the current flowing through them, the transistors characteristics change with temperature, and so will the sound - the warm up is required to ensure that all componants are thermally stable (and in the case of the transistors, if they are mounted on the same heatsink, they will be at the same operating temperature). Thats why when you bias a SS amp, you need to set it to an initial level, and then re-set it after some significant time has elapsed.
Just doing this with some low cost amps can be a veritable transformation.
Actually my equipment generally sounds OK in relatively short amount of time, but not anywhere near their optimal.My tube preamp has exaggerated bass and fore-shortened soundstage for 4-5 hours after cold start. The Melos phono needs to be on overnight to smooth out the midrange.
The solid state stuff, especially the Sunfire Siggy Amp, requires many hours before the fine grain is gone from the midrange and dynamics are of the scale the amp is capable of.
The CD player sounds bright and "digital" for several hours after a cold start.
Simply put, if you power down your equipment all the time and cold start when you want to have a listen, chances are you have not heard your system at anywhere near its full potential.
This is akin to the well-heeled "darling-of-the-month" club audiophile that buys the latest and greatest and then decides to flip it (at a big financial loss) and get something else because it "didn't sound good" out of the box.
cheers,
Close to the Edge, down by the river....
-Ray
Sanity prevails..... (maybe)I was beginning to think it was just me imagining things. But you are right about the grain in the mid and dynamics. My power amp almost sounds noisy until it is well warmed... then you get scale and weight.
Enjoy the warmth of your sound,
K
Full warmup takes about an hour in my system (lotsa tubes), but it's quite listenable after 20 minutes. If it gets any better after an hour, I'm hard pressed to distinguish a difference.
You might well be able to play at full volume after 60 seconds but it sounds cold and horrible.
I can get my motorcyle to hit the rev limiter on choke but the performance will be better if I let the engine warm. Same with the music. If the kit is warm then it sounds better, on mine and most other systems that I have heard. It's not about performance but sonics.... I thought that was the point of this hobby/obsession.
So not really a myth.
Cheers,
Since I run the entire system from a 20 amp rated balanced power transformer that has a master switch, its easy for me to shut down the entire system, including those components that stay on "standby" and contribute to "vampire" draw. I usually do not have much or any time to listen during the week; so everything stays cold then.However, the first time I power up the system for the weekend (beginning with Friday evening), I leave the main power on and leave the stuff on standby to suck a little power. I also leave the tube phonostage (my only tube component) fully powered up (it has no standby). The phonostage really seems to want a full 30 minutes of warm up to sound its best. The transistor integrated amp, which goes to standby, does not seem to need warm up; nor does the CD/SACD player.
Then, when I'm done listening Sunday night, the main switch goes off.
Urban myth my arse...
My Phono stage sounds bloody rough for hours and hours before it starts to get solid and 3D sounding, so its always on. The pre amp has a standby otherwise that takes about 4 hours from switch on, same with my CDP.
My power amp also has a standby and that takes the longest for some reason. The power boards take days before it sounds happy but that also has a standy so listening temp is achieved in about 15 minutes.... but it does creak and bang as the alloy expands.
Turntable gets about half hour of rotation, but sounds fine normally from relatively cold but the cartridge takes about half a side to loosen up.
I am glad that I now have a standby as my last power amp was on for 10 years.... and it still sounded like new when I sold it.Have fun,
Phono pre-amp is integrated into the preamp, which gets unplugged, along with the rest of the equipment, when not in use. I live in the land of the twice-daily thunderstorm, so cared-about stuff gets disconnected from the mains in my absence and in the presence of rumbles and flashes.
q
Tuner stays on too.
since SS devices come up to speed quicker than tubes why not just turn them off as well. Can't use your SS pre until that amp comes up. :-)Unless we are talking the tape look out to SS headphone amp, etc.
The SS preamps have remotely located power supplies which are not easy to get to. And they consume next to nothing.
but it is neither here nor there is it? if the tube amp needs an hour to come up or whatever turning off all of it doesn;t hurt as the SS stuff has to wait for that tube amp anyway.I know, though, that leaving my ss phono pre on or CDP all the time gets me instant gratification if I want to use heaphones.
I am an American so if I had more money I would turn it all on and leave it that way in perpetuity.
"turn on all the lights" Randy Newman
Heaters you know! Transistors don't have them.
Everything not in use goes off...no matter what (I use a power strip).I've been on a tear to cut parasitic consumption in my household (too many useless wall warts). This includes the flat screen TV, cell phone charger, laptops, printer, etc....anything not in use gets unplugged...even the toaster and microwave. I also power down my electric hot water heater when I am gone for more than a day.
I always left my TV on standby, and my friend had an identical TV that he got a month after me. He switched his off on the switch but I put mine to standby... he had 3 TV's to my one as his all blew up on switch on. Mine blew up only because I lost the code for the remote when the batteries run out... only used the switch for 2 weeks (whilst seeking the code numbers) and it went very bang.So he may have saved on the electric bill but I am sure he lost to the retailers.
Whole-house gas tank-less water heater never runs when your at work or asleep. Works great, never runs out.
I've been thinking about one of these...but I will have to upgrade my electrical to make that happen (I only have 100amp service now...will need to upgrade anyway).
Whole-house tank-less water heaters are only available in gas.
I've seen some electric ones...they require 60Amp 240V service
You inplug the tv after you are finished watching it? That must take some discipline! Do appliances and such when they are off use much electricity?
They would use less electricity if my kids remembered to turn them off. Boys in particular have short attention spans. Now I have them trained to unplug stuff when they're done.I have a wood frame victorian so from a fire safety point of view I like to unplug stuff whenever possible. It may be anal on my part...oh well.
Sometimes I think I hear an improvement as they warm up, other times I forget to notice.
So shut them off. The idea of warm up and cool down is an urban myth. My tube amps sound best after 20 minutes but that is an effect of the cathode tubes not the electronics.
I just got my worst electricity bill here ever, $308! The city raised the electric and gas rates 30-40% in July (before that we had really good rates). Most of that goes to cooling down a 4600 square foot victorian house with 8 tons of ac even though I keep it set at 78. I am very good about not turning lights unless their needed etc and turn the computer monitor off when not in use etc. I can't wait to see the heating bills this winter with our new gas rates.
Here's what's on:- Subwoofer (need to start turning off)
- Preamp (low-power tube/SS SE hybrid - only uses 24VDC)
- Phono Preamp (Gram Amp 2SE - only uses 18VDC)
- Turntable (Nottingham Analogue tables have no on/off switch)
- DAC (power switch is on the back and hard to reach)I really should get a power bar with an easily accessable switch and start turning all of this stuff off (with maybe the exception of the preamp since it passes DC). Whenever I'm out of town, I unplug everything, so I'm not entirely evil.
To offset some of this, I've been replacing the majority of lights in the house with compact florescent lightbulbs.
Recent item from the DOE is that about 10% of electrical consumption goes for things that mainly stand by waiting to be used. Instant on TVs, remote controls of all kinds, smart traffic lights, motion sensors, etc. The number is so high because these are all on 24/7.Thinking about the long term problem of excessive energy consumption got me to buy the PS HCA-2, 16 watts at idle, instead of the class A units drawing 1500 to 2000 watts. That $100 a month difference buys a lot of music.
The only component that gets altered when I'm not listening is the Melos Preamp. It goes on standby mode. It draws less current in this state and it keeps enough power going to the tubes to keep them "warm". Even then it still take the linestage about 1/2 hour to settle down and sounds its best.My amp, preamp, and phono take way too much time to warm up from "cold" and sound their best. The Sunfire amp literally takes overnight! If I switched everything off, I would be cutting my listening pleasure substantially.
cheers,
Close to the Edge, down by the river....
-Ray
I have a tubed pre and solid state amp. My current set of 5 tubes in the preamp have been glowing about two years now. They seem to last almost forever (12ax7, 12at7, and 12au7). Works for me. The last time I switched 'em out was when I broke one installing one a Mapleshaed tube damper. I am beginning to feel like I should just leave stuff alone!
They are still in top condition. I am not a tubes man but I would have thought that they have a life span...2 years sounds like quite a time, I was wondering how you tell if they are past their best.
My friend uses a tubed DAC and that sounded great but for the sake of it we swapped tubes and the older ones were very much past their best... everything became more focused with fresh tubes, We had just got used to how the old ones sounded.Have fun,
I need to get a new set of tubes for the linestage!
I've had these tubes in there for 14 months!cheers,
Close to the Edge, down by the river....
-Ray
Hi,So how do we know if they've degraded? Mine are at least 27 months old (the most recent ones purchased, but it was only two line-level tubes, not the phono set). They still sound GREAT. The C-J manual states 2-3 year expected lifetime, but I'm guessing they're talking turning the preamp off after use.
Joe
.
Close to the Edge, down by the river....
-Ray
My two house air conditioners swamp the juice that this all draws. But then again the highest cost to heat or air condition in Texas is always in July or August. It went up a little this year but that may be because of a hot summer.
...alone can save $10.00 US to $15.00 US a month. The only thing that is never off is the refrigerator. Note that my last bill was $29.79 US; up about $10.00 due to window AC usage.
Dave
Later Gator,
Crank up your talking machine, grab a jar of your favorite "kick-back", sit down, relax, and let the good times roll.The early bird may get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.
HenryA 12-gauge shotgun is the ultimate arbiter of disputes - G. Gordon Liddy
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