Leave on, or not leave on!

[cheeseburger]

:clap: Are we believers in leaving your equipment on 24/7 or not.
The first time I tried this, three months in, the DAVE board died a death on me due to demise of cooling fan, this was preceeded by some exceptionally nice amplified static flowing around the speakers causing the amp to cut out.

Any comments much appreciated. Burger.

System comprises.

A22+DAVE
P35
DV27.
Sunfire Sub.
AE1 fronts.
Monitor Audio centre and rears.

[Engineer]

My advise would be to turn everything off if possible when not in use.
Not only will you be saving energy, but the equipment will have longer life as well. Electrolytic capacitors are typically rated at 2000 hours life (at max temperature & voltage). With reasonable temp & voltage derating you might get 10x that but that's still not very long.
Some audiophiles argue that sound quality is better if equipment is left on. That's often true but it usually takes <1hour to warm up.

[pringtef]

I usually leave all my kit on, though if i'm out of the flat for more than a few days, I'm inclinded to switch it off as a precaution.

Never experienced any problems with this, though luck of the draw plays into it a lot of the time i'd imagine. And mains quality would no doubt play apart.

System consisted off (Arcam kit now all sold)

Arcam 10 DAVE
Arcam 10P/2
Arcam 10P/3
Arcam Alpha 9
B&W CDM7NT front
B&W CDMCSE centre
B&W ASW1000 sub
B&W DS6 rears
Pioneer DV717

[fraggle]

The most wear and tear on electronic components comes from thermal change, i.e. getting hot or cooling down.

Since that happens when you turn something on and off its better to leave things turned on, or off (!).

But its true that electrolytes do "dry out" when they constantly have a charge across them (turned on).

Persoanally I always leave things in standby, hoping that the equipment manufacturers are clever enough to leave the critical bits powered up when a unit is in standby.

[hazard]

If you have a Pronto or similar device, you could do what I do - power off at night and use timer function on Pronto to power on an hour before you get home :)

[dwette]

I don't worry about it a whole lot. My remote has power-on and power-off macros that fire the discrete on/off codes for all my equipment. Some components go into and out of standby (Arcam AVR and DVD) and some power off/on more completely (Sammy DLP and STB).

Where I care about quality is when I watch DVDs and by the time I sit down to do that I've usually had the system of for a bit already.

When I had my Linn/NAIM system for LP playback, I kept the NAIM gear on all the time. But now I have an Alpha 10 Integrated for that and the LP12 needs repair so it's not in use right now anyway. But once it's back in service I'll probably keep the Alpha 10 in standby when I'm not using it.

Dean

[chris]

Are you talking about, putting youre gear into standby or switching/ unplugging from the mains.

I always leave my gear plugged in and in stanby....it might use some electric and i'm not sure how much of the gear stays warm through doing it, but i belive it is a lot less dangerious than keep unplugging and plugging back in....or evern switching off at the mains........
This can cause the switch or the contacts to get weak and lead to an electrical fire, plus the suddern surge of power the gear gets can blow fuse's.
I know it cost's more, but i would say leave it plugged in and on standby.

[pwiles]

You could switch everything off except your sky box if you put this at the bottom of your stack it will keep everything toasty and warm!:grin:

I use standby (when I remember) for the simple reason I am too tight to pay for the electricity to keep them on.