Does anyone leave their equipment powered up.

D-man

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A friend of mine was advised by a Sevenoaks to leave his Rotel RA-01 powered up permanently to improve sound quality. What are your opinions on the issue? Urban myth or "sound" advice?

Pun intended, sorry.
 
There is no need to leave your system on overnight. I put mine on/off every night before/after I use it. Sounds great. Why not try and see ?
 
If (like me) certain parts of your stereo rig have valves in, you turn them off :).
 
Absolutely, I use Naim amps and they should never be switched off. This isnt urban myth, its in the user manual. The difference between a just switched on Naim amp and one thats been left on a few days is startling and I dont mean just slightly different.

I dont think that applies to the CDP quite as much, but I leave it powered up anyway. I would,nt ever leave the TTs PSU switched on though as I have a feeling it would probably result in a 'China Syndrome' incident :rolleyes:

A long time ago I used to have an A&R A60 amp (the original Arcam) and that didnt seem to need any extended powering.

A lot of it is down to the PSU capacitors, if they are just small OEM components it doesnt matter quite so much. Caps like Black Gates are particularly bad at holding charge during intermittent use, so need at least 24hrs to perform correctly.
 
I generally leave mine powered up if they are in regular use (amp and CD). If they are unlikely to be used for a couple of days, then I'll power them off.

I generally find there is a difference in sound once they're warm - in a similarly subtle way that the hifi sounds better at night (once all neighbours kettles are switched off and a bottle of red has been drained :) )

I've always thought there is more chance of electronics having a problem when they are powered up from cold, rather than having a constant supply of jiuce. - after all, lightbulbs tend to blow when you switch them on, rather than when they've been on for a long time.
 
Thanks for the feedback.

karkus30
I'm using a Cyrus2 with PSX which I assume has some old school capacitors in it, would this lend itself to being left on? Nice pic of Jaymz by the way, unless that is you and you dig AV forums. ;)
 
D-man said:
Thanks for the feedback.

karkus30
I'm using a Cyrus2 with PSX which I assume has some old school capacitors in it, would this lend itself to being left on? Nice pic of Jaymz by the way, unless that is you and you dig AV forums. ;)

The caps were pretty good in a Cyrus 2 and the PSX, I think its worth keeping powered up, or at least powering them up an hour or so before you start using the system.

There was a thread asking the same question as you have asked and it ended up being a enviromental debate. Suddenly I felt very guilty at wasting power and heating up the earth, but the amp shielded itself with a forcefield that I was unable to penetrate and the dog ate my homework and big boys did it and ran away, so I shall just have to live with the guilt :blush:

Of course its me.......sheesh ;)
 
Just think of your kit as being a room heater that just so happens to produce a beautiful sound :smashin:
 
My (Naim) system is left on 24/7. Capacitors do dry out over time and the analogy is like car shock absorbers. You don't notice the difference until you get them replaced as they age quite slowly. If you're worried about wasting power, and I'm not too concerned about extra heat in this weather as my flat needs all the help it can get, then might I suggest using one of the 'green' electricity suppliers?
We buy all our power through Scottish Hydro electric. The rates are competitive and they assure me that all my energy comes from renewable sources. If you're going to keep your system on all the time please consider this.
Mark.
 
If you get a roof full of solar cells you get around 1 kW worth and then a boiler with a chp unit bolted on would supply around 1 kW so there's a way of attenuating the enviromental effect. Unless you go out and buy a couple of Krell 750mcX amplifiers that is.
 
karkus30 said:
Absolutely, I use Naim amps and they should never be switched off. This isnt urban myth, its in the user manual. The difference between a just switched on Naim amp and one thats been left on a few days is startling and I dont mean just slightly different.

I've just ordered a NAIM amp - NAC 202 and NAP 200.
Would be interested to know if same applies to these as I had them on loan only for 2 days to try at home. They were only ever warmed up by a couple of hours each time when I went to listen to them....I thought that would be long enough.....great sound even then though!
Should these be left on permanently aswell do you know?
 
JH1 said:
I've just ordered a NAIM amp - NAC 202 and NAP 200.
Would be interested to know if same applies to these as I had them on loan only for 2 days to try at home. They were only ever warmed up by a couple of hours each time when I went to listen to them....I thought that would be long enough.....great sound even then though!
Should these be left on permanently aswell do you know?

The new Naims are supposed to be quite different from the older range but I just looked in the new manual and it recommends leaving them on for 'long periods of time' with the caveat that there is the usual fire risks associated with leaving appliances switched on.

If they use the same capacitors, then your two hour period of operation is unlikely to have let you listen to them at their best. I stress that I dont know if they need as much attention as the older range, which were almost unbearable after such a short time period (makes me wonder how they sold any TBH).

You can actually hear the older models start changing their character during the first few hours, after about 12 hours the change is more subtle, but seems to get better and better up to a couple of days.
 
Ok, thanks for the info. In any case I guess like most new stuff, it'll need a bit of running in time so I'll probably leave them on for a while to start with anyway and then see how I go from there.
Thinking about it, I believe I'm right in saying the newer amps have a standby mode on them, whereas I suspect the older stuff probably didn't, hence the need to leave them on all the time otherwise you're heating up from cold all the time.
 
I leave all my equipment in standby, allegedly it should sound better once it is warmed up. Can't say that I have ever heard the differnce myself.
 
Supra said:
I leave all my equipment in standby, allegedly it should sound better once it is warmed up. Can't say that I have ever heard the differnce myself.

I can actually hear the difference when my speakers have not been used for a while, takes about 20 mins before they get motoring. I dont hear it with the CDP which doesnt really seem to suffer at all, although I leave it switched on anyway.
 
JH1 I've been a Naim user for the past 20 years and advice has always been to leave everything on. Naim equipment is notorious for long burn in periods. This ranges from 1month to 9months depending on the piece of equipment.
 
karkus30 said:
I can actually hear the difference when my speakers have not been used for a while, takes about 20 mins before they get motoring. I dont hear it with the CDP which doesnt really seem to suffer at all, although I leave it switched on anyway.

I agree, with the speakers, as for the rest of the equipment I couldn't tell.
 
How much power can an hi-fi equipment actually use when they're powered up but not being used? I assume they don't draw much current. It'd be interesting to see some figures, comparative to say freezers which are on 24/7.
 
Very much depends on the gear...class A amps and valve amps do benfit from being kept warm,but against that you have to balance costs such as power and tubes etc.....as to the Rotel....it may sound marginally better,but I wouldn't expect it to be too much of an issue.....easiest way is to try it and see,but as I said,I wouldnt expect too much change.
 
Dellboy said:
JH1 I've been a Naim user for the past 20 years and advice has always been to leave everything on. Naim equipment is notorious for long burn in periods. This ranges from 1month to 9months depending on the piece of equipment.
Thanks Dellboy. My 704's seemed to take an eternity to run in aswell, so I'm not unused to run in periods!
 
I switch all mine off, although it does take 20mins or so to sound its best when switched on.
 
My old Audiolab 8000 hasn't been switched off for about fifteen years! Mainly because I can't be bothered, rather than for any technical reason. Still going strong and sounding good.

:rolleyes: I hope I didn't just jinx it.
 
A real mixed bag it would appear.

My Cyrus2/psx is hardly Naim territory so I'll experiment with powering up an hour or so before play. I'll feel less guilty about carbon emissions then.

Thanks guys. :)
 
It's raining and I'm bored. :(

So I thought I'd do a bit of research what with electricity costs soaring.

Bit surprised what I found

I went round the house and measured the amps drawn by everything that is on 24/7 when it is in standby, i.e. the plug at the wall is on, but the unit is off at the front switch (red light on in some cases, PS2, Hi-fi, etc).

I used a price of 10.7371p per Kwh (Powergen)

Made for interesting reading.

Hi-fi is a bit scary! :eek: And it was only £24 more to keep it on all the time, i.e green lights on the front.

Comments?

Pablo
 

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