I worked in IT for 20 years. Nothing to do with audio, but the computers lasted longer if you left them switched on all the time. When you've got rooms full of racks of computers, you don't want them to die on you, because it's a pain to change them out in a hurry. So we left them on, for years and years and years. Of course, I wasn't paying the electric bill...
Of course in the business case you have the servers on 24/7 because they're in use 24 hrs a day in many cases (like a bank with customers in all time zones). You can put them in 'sleep' mode at home, you aren't really turning them off and you're still saving almost all the power of turning it off. You eventually have to reboot to pull in new patches for security updates though ignoring stuff like ksplice
Some audiophiles say that always powering off amplifiers causes micro-cracks on top or inside of capacitors. However, this is not true. The ultimate enemy of Class A amps is heat. A well designed amp will not overheat and damage itself (has vents and heatsinking). Just to be sure, I run a desk fan overtop the vents of my units after a listening session. After a relay was failing, cold air on the relay (cleaning) and some more inside solved the problem. A good amp can probably outlive the average person.
I only power off my pc for upgrades. They run continuously until they are obsolete and can't keep up with new tech. I never have any breakdowns. 3 pc running 5-3-1 year without powering off.
I never turn off my PC's either. But just out of laziness 😂. When i sit down at it i just want to use it without having to start up stuff. For the last decade any PC in my possession didn't know what 'off' means.
When I spoke to a factory rep from Yamaha about this, he told me that it's better to leave most components turned on, with the exception of receivers and other units with displays, since the displays dim over time if they are left on. Accordingly, I leave my power amps on (they only draw a trickle of power at idle, and they're Class D, so it's an even smaller trickle), but my receiver is only turned on when it's time to listen to it. As for the plasma TV, it gets turned on when it's being used, and turned off after.
Here in the UK we were told years ago not to turn off our hi fi at the mains but to leave equipment in standby mode for the exact reasons you give. The amount this adds to your electricity bill is miniscule. Less than the cost incurred in the items reduced life expectancy.
I always turn my equipment off after use, never had any problems. Best to turn off equipment by plugs to keep electricity bill down and don't want a fire in homes
You're equipment will last longer and sound better just as Paul stated. This isn't debatable. If you listen to your system everyday, it makes sense to leave it on. If you own Bose or equivalent flea market gear then by all means turn your gear off.
Back in the 90s I figured out that the thermal cycling, due to ON & Off switching, was what shortened the lifespan of equipment. So in my new found brilliance I left my NAD 7240PE receiver on and after 3 days the tuner had gone out! So much for that theory!
Hi Paul! You must always turn the equipment off! At least I have a very good reason to turn them off, even if it is a once-in-a-life-time thing. And here is why: Back in 1985, I was working at a great record company as a Cutting and Mastering engineer. I had been trusted to exclusively work on a state of the art Neumann VMS-80 lathe, with all the audio equipment also from Neumann and an MCI player with delay hubs. Every single day I will turn the machines on in the morning and off late in the afternoon. When it was lunch time from 12 m to 2 pm, I went away to eat and back to continue work and during this lunch time I never turned off the equipment just because it was better to have them warm to immediately continue working. This had been going on for almost one and half years. One day I felt very sleepy and decided to take a big nap during my lunch time. Therefore, I just sat down and leaned over a deskto sleep. At about 1:30 pm, I happened (by pure chance) to open my eyes and watch the control console beside the lathe and saw a thin plume of smoke coming out of it! Without thinking, I threw myself directly at the mains and turned them off. If I wouldn't have been there at that time the whole studio could potentially have caught fire, and been surrounded by flammable materials (plastic, wood and vinyl) the whole studio would have been lost, to say the least. The plume of smoke and a little flame, was due to a tiny faulty tantalum capacitor.What would you know that this possibly could happen to a state of the art machine with the finest electronics money could buy and that it was only 2 years old!!! My boss then and I learned a good lesson that day: no electronic equipment should be left on unattended! And if you are going to leave it on unattended then you must have extraordinary fire prevention measures in place. You could say that this happening is just one in a million but it did happen, so unless you are prepared to fend off any possible occurrence of fire, no matter how small, you should not leave your electronic equipment on. That goes for computers too! Cheers
Had just the opposite experience with Crown iTech 4000 amps. We had a rack full of amps that were all on standby power when not being used except for our main FOH amp that was on a relay switch. In caparison to the main FOH amps the others were hardly used at all but one by one they all started failing on the power input section, same exact problem. Our FOH amp is still working fine because we shut it off completely every night. We don't make that mistake any more.
Another reason is that transistors and other solid state devices are most prone to failure during thermal transients. Back in the 80's I left my computers on all the time because they were so expensive, the power consumption seemed trivial compared to the threat of an IC failure ruining it.
As an engineering technician in R&D, Failure Analysis, etc, many components age and have age related failures, so power on or power off have the same defect rate. We have some equipment with failing parts and new old stock parts have the same defects showing as in use parts. The parts are end of life due to age. Power supplies and linear devices have heat baking failures. The plastics outgas and the capacitors fail, regulator IC's go out of value, and become electrically noisy. Thermal cycling breaks solder connections on power devices installed in thru hole board designs. In newer components, multilayer ceramic capacitors crack and short resulting in failures. In very humid locations the heat reduces corrosion. Power switches and relays subject to high inrush currents have a limited number of operations before the contact resistance becomes high and fails. Summary, Keep the equipment cool, dry, and avoid age, thermal cycles, and power cycles. If you are not going to use it overnight, or longer, turn it off. If going out to the mailbox, leave it on. My backup scope is a Tektronics TDS-220. My main scope had a voltage regulator fail, so I had to troubleshoot and repair it. Completed a calibration test on the scope which had intermittent use over the years and had about a decade in storage. No issues. It passed a calibration test and has zero problems. I can't say the same for most always on electronics of the same age. This was bought in 1999 brand new. On the bench it was used for storage functions as the analog scope was brighter, and had higher resolution. The storage scope was used for single shot capture mostly. If you are not using something for an extended period of time, shut it off. I power down my workstation, computer and all at the end of the day.
Class A poweramp here as well. Usually keep it on during the day when i am home. Otherwise it's off. I am not a millionaire.... Love that sound though;)
Don't leave your Class A amp on. The heat alone will degrade the parts inside over time much faster. Not all components have stand by switches, only on or off. What then?
@@genez429 I own 5 traditional integrated amplifiers and not one have a switch in the back. The other one is a Naim Atom that also has no switch in the back but i believe goes into a standby mode when turned off.
@@yippie6862 If its a vintage unit? The front switch will kill all AC. Apparently, some newer manufacturers will not offer the full kill option, and it appears say nothing as to avoid the type of worry some show here.
@@genez429 These are not vintage. They are mainly recent British integrated amps like the LFD and Sugden. I'm pretty sure when the front power button is set to off the entire unit powers off. I'd be surprised if they are left in any sort of stand by mode.
@@yippie6862 Many power buttons on hi-end equipment are actually turning off only the outputs of the amps. My Nuprime ST10 has that feature, but only says "Power." Your equipment is exotic in the states. I looked online. Is your Sugden class A? As far as I know? You will need to email the manufacturer to see if there is a standby mode without you knowing it. The LFD, I found one review for a preamp of theirs. It has a switch on front as a standby mode. Note the following quote from Stereophile Mag. Step forward to the present day. The Masterclass LA-4 is not full-featured but minimalist. It's line only-no phono. It has inputs for up to five sources, all but one with unbalanced connectors (RCA). The Bypass input sidesteps the volume control, and an output with the antiquated label Tape bypasses the volume control for whichever input is selected. *There's a Standby button on the front panel and a main Power switch in back, because transistor-based amplifiers-including preamps-sound best when they're always powered up. www.stereophile.com/content/j-e-sugden-masterclass-la-4-line-preamplifier
As an aerospace electronics engineer, I fully agree with you. Inrush is damaging for capacitor, and a soft start is so simple to design than I can't trust a company not able to design one.
I'm not sure that PS Audio consists of actual engineers. It's 99.999% marketing and foofery, it seems to me. Leaving your equipment on 24/7 is a great way to waste money and further fuck up the world.
@@UPR91 We used a HP signal generator with a cavity oscillator that performed better when left on. That's the only piece of equipment I've ever seen that performs measurably different after a very long warmup. All audio gear is millions of times less sensitive than the kind of testing we used that equipment for. If you can't measure it, you can't hear it either. But of course, if you *can* hear an unmeasurable difference in any piece of audio gear, then by all means do what makes it sound good to you.
Whilst true, the cheaper electronics won’t have this feature most likely. And since they’re cheap, Class D probably, better to leave them on and in standby when not in use. Leaving things in standby will avoid the in rush current and not waste considerable amount of energy either For DACs not to be bothered turning them off unless they have a screen that can’t be turned off separately. As the leds dim over time
Yes this especially applies to transistor equipment, making the sound more warm/smooth/big/evolved. But on tube gear, many times it can sound better if you just turn it on when you use it, and wait like 30 minutes to fully evolve, to give it more edge. Leaving tube sound on for many days, will not only cost a lot of money in regards to your electrical bill, but will often create a more flat and not so correct type of sound being too warm some times. It's all relative to the gear and the conditions so one has to just find out what is best for ones own self. But yes especially tube sound that is on for a couple of days, will normally go through a couple of sound development stages within the first 48 hours, and then it's a question what you prefer. So if I had for example a mcintosh mc275 tube amp that I personally think is boring and too conservative, I would then personally turn it on, and may listen in 15 minutes time, and turn it off after an hour or 2, because I would personally not want that sound to get even more warm in sound. Unless I maybe was using a cd player that naturally has a thin ish type of sound. But yeah something to think about.
Philip Cooper The power consumption is less than a TV set, your gear sound better if left on, High end manufacturers do not have a power switch, I wrote this comment before listening to the explanation. I unplug my gear in the event of a lightning storm or I go away on holiday
This channel & comments are "to die for" there's an AES paper on grounding&shielding where this company features as an example of how not to do stuff ( electrically & electronically ) - they had the "brilliant" idea of makinga power plug where you could unscrew the safety ground - go figure...
there's a longer version of this but it's been moved somewhere - page 4- www.scribd.com/document/345180522/hum-buzz-and-ground-loops-new-insights-into-and-old-problem-aes
I would imagine his products are energy star compliant to meet modern standards in which case they use less than 1W per hour in standby, a tiny amount of power. Really if a person is concerned by what amounts to less than 2 bucks per year in actual electricity costs for a single ES compliant product to remain in standby they certainly cannot afford to be purchasing high end audio. If the waste of energy concerns somebody, solar solves that and significantly reducing someones CO2 footprint as well as running costs too. Older non compliant equipment is an entirely different matter.
Exception: When you buy a new electronic device, such as a tv or stereo, turn it on and leave it on for 2 weeks. This used to be called "burning it in" prior to solid state devices, when vacuum tube were used, and they needed to be "burned in" for creasing I wont go into here. Today, it's still good way to weed out defects. By leaving a new device on, you are testing, or proofing the equipment for any defective components during normal operating conditions. Then turn it off, let it cool a few hours, then back on. Do this thermal cycle a several times. Any poor comnections, solder joints, bad components etc will usually be revealed, and importantly, during the initial 15 or 30 day return period. Warranties are a pain. If your device passes the above, it will likely last a long time. From then on, leave it in standby mode or follow the manufacturers instructions indicated in the user manual. Note: Ever had a light bulb blow while on? Probably not. They blow when turned on or off, during power surges and thermal shock. In fact, incandescent bulbs are designed to only last about 1000 hours on average, on purpose. They could be built to last 100 years. But the bulb factory would go out of business. You can cheat them, though. If you install dimmer switches in place of on/off switches, your bulbs will last many years. My 6 porch bulbs are 23 years old because the dimmer switch I installed back then prevents initial surges, and lowers the voltage to the bulb.
It likely has to do with heat generation and as you said, burn in. Circuitry, wood, and things like speakers, these things expand and cool every time you turn it on and off. Also, the switch itself is a point of failure. It's the same reason servers are left on as much as possible, it's the same reason live audio people at live venues come in and set up, test real quick, then put in standby as opposed to turning off - the wear and tear on the caps with adequately cooled solid state power amps and digitally remote controlled sound reinforcement fixtures from that initial surge of power. Stage hands, local crew, and career concert runners understand this kind of stuff, too, as do electrical engineers. People's concerns with leaving things on is likely from the electric bill, or risk of fire if damaged by a pet knocking things over while they are not home. Some units are prone to overheating, if left on indefinitely. There are other things to ponder or put into consideration with consumers living in reality, as opposed to controlled environments, small businesses, or people having to meet the standards for being on the road with the live entertainment industry. There is no "one size fits all" solution.
I agree that my stereo sounds better when left on for long periods of time but have always turned my gear off for fear of “wearing out” my caps. Now that I know that is not going to happen, I plan to become my power company’s new best friend. Thanks Paul, love your passion, love the vids and hope to visit one day soon.
Capacitors are rated in hours of lifespan. Leaving them on will stave off one kind of a failure (that wouldn't impact you in normal use anyways) but not another. Several things are responsible within capacitors for them to do what they do.
Paul uses his imagination sometimes in these videos. It depends on what Class A, Class A/B or what your amp is. Using caps a little all the time is worse than the little startup current, that just gets dissipated in the aluminum case anyway.
@@EnigmaVideos I'm glad I read your comment. I live in Germany and due to possible energy shortages my univesity heats its rooms to 19 degrees C only. Public swimming pools are heated to three degrees less than usual too. Public buildings don't switch on lights during the day if there are windows etc. So I would feel a bit bad for leaving on my amp 24/7 because it could apparently improve the sound or longevity. I can imagine a sound difference between a cold amp and one that's warmed up a bit though.
@@tobiasthiel5291 I'd worry more about hard drives sleeping after 3 minutes. That is what ruined mine. And external drives usually don't have a mode switch. However, it was a Toshiba drive. So take what you will
I’m in Australia too, Another thing that was drummed into me when I was a kid was to not only turn it off at the wall, but pull the plug out too because not only is the cost of electricity ridiculously high, here in Queensland, and most parts of Australia for that matter, there is always the chance of a severe storm hitting while you’re at work or away from home. Both my Neighbour and older sister had their tv’s fried because they didn’t disconnect them before a storm and the result was that lightning struck the transformer boxes on the power poles in the area.
Fat Rat yeah see Sydney is alot more with the times when it comes to electrical safety, and i don’t doubt whatsoever what you’re saying. With Sydney being such a big and densely populated area, regular maintenance and safety precautions would be constantly updated and implemented, which would probably be why you’ve never experienced any dramas. I’m in Mackay in North Queensland and lets be honest, there’s alot to be desired in terms of safety and reliability of electricity and the maintenance by the local council up here. We get blackouts at least once a month and the lines are forever coming down due to overhanging tree branches or impact by tropical storms. Just about everybody I know up here has a generator on standby because the power supply simply isn’t reliable. In summer, when every man and their dog has their aircons going, it’s not uncommon for half the town to black out. All that being said, you are definitely right in saying each to their own, but I’d have to add in that where you live and the quality of infrastructure in place where you live would undoubtedly have an impact on your decisions to either leave electrical appliances either on standby, switched off or disconnected entirely.
here is one about "surge protectors": they are not completely useless but not the be all / end all either. circuit breakers (at least the ones i have seen installed in houses) are protecting against over current - not over voltage. that is where a "surge protector" comes in. it may protect from voltage spikes as they might occur during a thunderstorm but would most likely not protect anything from a direct lightning strike. in the village where i live, there is a good amount of houses recieving power from wires dangling through the air, the newly built areas have their power lines under ground but our house is an older one and we get power from dangling wires attached to a mounting pole on the rooftop. the power lines going into the village are also over ground on poles. if there was a thunderstorm going and lightning would hit such a pole a good distance away from the village, it would probably result in a hefty voltage spike wich would trigger the surge protector to cause an artificial "short" that pops the breaker by over current - all good. but if the mounting pole and cables on the roof of our house would recieve a direct hit from a big old lightning strike, the surge protector and the breaker would not be much help. the more likely scenario would be that the whole breaker box will be flying across the room and the wires in the walls get vaporized along with the fancy "surge protected" power bar and anything connected to it. pretty much like this: www.ctvnews.ca/polopoly_fs/1.3373003.1492512235!/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/landscape_960/image.jpg
The front end of my system - CD player, preamp, phono preamp - are ALWAYS on, both because of the transient strain Paul mentioned, but also because the equipment does not sound anywhere near as good cold as it does when it's fully warmed up and at a stable temperature. Now ... I DON'T leave my power amps up all the time. They are Mark Levinson ML-2s and they draw fully *FOUR AMPS* each, whether they're playing something or sitting there idle, and no, I'd just as soon NOT have that show up on my electric bill. As for transient problems, I've had to replace two output transistors in the past not quite 40 years. I can live with that!
I would think that the thermal expansion and contraction that occurs when going from hot to cold (or the reverse) would also be an important consideration for longevity. Limiting the thermal expansion and contraction should also limit connection issues that can arise...like bad solder joints.
The best piece of advice ever. I just leave my system on for the last few days and yes it did sound much better. I normally listen to the system just 30 to 45 minutes before I go to bed. by the time my system started to sound good I habe to shut it off to have some sleep.
my less than 1year 34" ultrawide monitor caps a dead. there was an issue with my company laptop that made the monitor never going to sleep mode. keep restarting looking for a signal.. forgot to turn it off few times for maybe a total time of 3 or 4 hours. now power led flashing blue. caps dead. just to say that capacitors failure is a real thing. this video enlighted me. I was turning off my NAD receiver. Im thinking keeping it in sleeping mode. thx a lot Paul. Ive watched several of you videos already over the months. helped me a lot to understand audio device subtilities. Im pretty sure your videos will still be watched in few hundred years.
I design electronics equipement that need to work more than 25 years. There is 2 ennemies for the cap: T° that decrease life of capacitors exponentially and inrush current at start. Your TV died because they use crappy cap and place them close from source of heat, intentionally (as samsung did) or not (lake of space). Try to check out if your NAD is equipped with soft start (inrush current limiter). If it is, there is absolutely no need to let it in sleep mode.
I use remotes to turn off my equipment into standby mode. I avoid leaving them operating in the "on" state. The subdivision I'm in for some reason is horrible for Brown outs and surges especially during thunderstorms, but sometimes for no obvious reasons. I use a 1990s vintage Rack mount MONSTER brand line conditioner and surge suppressor that trips several times a year requiring resets. If it wasn't for that, I suspect my gear would be fried many time over. So, if you do leave your gear ON, for goodness sake make sure you have a quality piece of equipment to protect it all. And NO, a $10-$20 Wal-Mart surge protector is definitely NOT adequate!
At 22 cents a kWh (todays rate + delivery), it costs about $135.00 a year to leave a 100 watt load (Tube amp at idle) on 24 yours a day. Unfortunately, POH (power on hours) and thermal cycling gets really complicated. Some components are very thermal cycle sensitive, some have a greatly decreased lifetime at high temperatures, some degrade simply sitting unused or powered off, and still others are very insensitive to temperature, POH, and thermal cycling. For example, many capacitors do very poorly in warm/hot environments but are generally insensitive the thermal cycling. Some large ICs with sophisticated power management my develop thermal hot spots leading to failures under certain computing work loads. And tubes running at high temperatures may have thermal cycling issues. It's sort of hard to say that all electronic and electronic components should be left on all the time. Take smartphones for example. They have many 'mini thermal cycling' events spread all over the components in an attempt to save power and increase battery life. Engineering these days should consider these failure mechanisms and NOT require them to be powered on all the time for the sake of reduced failure rates. Such designs are simply BAD ENGINEERING. But hey, this is "audiophile territory" and not engineering.
Generally, I disagree that you can benefit from leaving audio equipment turned on when not used. I cannot argue on sound quality compared to "power cycled" devices because it's subjective to Paul. This can be proven by measurements of course... But I see two downsides. One is increased power consumption. Secondly, is aging of solid-state parts and caps. Typically, manufacturer specifies cap's lifespan when rated voltage is applied, time can vary from 2000 h to 10 thousands hours. Then the cap will most probably off-spec by one or more parameters. So, this is exactly what happens in switched on equipment. Your capacitors ages faster when voltage is applied (device is switched on) vs switched off device where your lifespan is equivalent to shelf life.
There are 50,000 hour caps and beyond. But you're not going to find them in a whole lot of gear. Might find them in some high end audio gear though. Like Black Gate Rubycons. Although if they're legit is another question entirely. You'd be surprised what some folks will do for money.
I’m not buying new equipment often and my amplifiers are almost 20 years old. Still sounds amazing. Never switches them of, unless I’m leaving home for weeks. I can clearly hear the difference when I’m getting home to my “cold” amps. Takes a couple of hours before they really sound good again...
DEBUNKING TIME! I used to leave my Sansui AU-710 amplifier on 24/7. The only noticeable effect of that was a higher energy cost. The filter capacitors went bad anyway, so there was No Benefit.
There's a couple common capacitor failure modes. One has to do with the oxide layer on the foil itself breaking down (which takes an extremely long time to happen think years) and the other has to do with the electrolyte in the separation layer. Leaving the power on only protects you from the first mode. Leaving the power on hastens the failure of the second mode. So you lose either way.
@@spacemissing not being able to buy in bulk like manufacturers can most consumer electronics are not worth the cost of recapping. Heck we can't even very reliably source parts in today's market. You can get bogus counterfeits even from so called reputable suppliers. It is just that bad now. I was watching a video where squeaky Dave got bum parts off Digikey. Crikey!
@@CMDR_Birb thanks. With access to the Internet a lot of information is available. More than when I got started with stuff. I used to have to buy books. Today you can download everything you could want to know. Which is amazing. There's something to building your own gear too. I never made a hi-fi stereo but I made some amps. It is pretty thrilling to listen to an amp you've made yourself. Might not be the best amp in the world but it's still something of your own hands. It made things more real to me personally.
Volt definition Volt is the electrical unit of voltage or potential difference (symbol: V). One Volt is defined as energy consumption of one joule per electric charge of one coulomb.
He was right when he said it sounded different the next day and thought maybe It's just my ears are fresh. He should have left it at that. It's well known that the longer one listens the more the ears adjust to the sound. It's also well known that audio memory is very short seconds or minutes at the most. So, overnight is too long to remember what something sounded like the night before. Put those two things together and that explains it; not whether the power was turned off.
Heat is a big enemy of capacitors. If you leave things on all the time caps dry out faster and fail. Properly designed soft-start circuits can minimize the inrush damage. Big amps left on all the time use a LOT of power in idle.
That "warm up time" is most definitley true with power amps. Most modern devices leave the low-voltage/low current circuits on (and the main caps fully or partially charged)
Most aliances today are EnergyStar compliant using get, very, extremely little current. In broadcast we never turned off equipment. It just lasts longer because most notably it's at a near constant temperature and at one time heating circuit boards caused flexing and eventual failure. Today's computer-grade electronics are unaffected. Turn it off if you want. It won't hurt it.
Great advice. I leave my digital stuff on 7/24. My streamer/clock/DAC has been powered up for seven years. It has a triode output stage which has it's own switch. I turn that on as well as my tube power amps about an hour before I want to listen.
I used to live near some big electric cable towers (without any issues). And when people would comment about my tube mono amps consuming so much electricity, I would open the curtains to show the towers and say There's a lot more where that came from... haha. That separate cap warmer sounds sweet!
I can’t say how much I appreciate my Musical Fidelity M6SI going right into stanby when plugged in. Never goes to off unless I unplug it. It’s always warmed up enough to play almost as soon as I turn it on.
I had an amp at all times as you describe, and it made my caps dry out faster than if I just had turned it off after use. After the first capacitor was destroyed, I started to turn off my amp completely after it was repaired. If you have a very high class A power on the amp the capacitors will begin to have trouble. It does not make it last longer by having it on all the time. So my experience is the opposite that you have Paul. ( I'm not talking about sound quality, because it can well be a better sound quality by having the equipment on at all times, but I'm thinking about component wear and tear by having the equipment on at all times versus power it completely down after use. )
@Fat Rat there's lots of different caps and environments they're used in. So there's no way you can say definitively what's going to happen. This happened to me or that happened to them is purely anecdotal.
@Fat Rat doesn't matter. What happens to you has no bearing on anyone else. It probably doesn't even have any future bearing on you for that matter. It was a unique event. You may have just been running plague caps for all anyone knows.
Just do what the operating manual says. you'll be hard-pressed to find any manufacturer suggesting that you never turn off your amp. it's almost comical then Paul would make this suggestion. and a big thing that he kind of lost over and a lot of commenters seem to be misunderstanding is that standby mode is not the same as powered on mode. some devices well switch to standby mode automatically after a certain amount of time of inactivity. but this is not universal. some devices, like computers, depend on the user settings for standby mode. a lot of people seem to be under the belief that their computer is always on standby mode when not in use, but if you go to your computer and move the mouse and almost instantly you're right where you left off, then your computer was not in standby mode. maybe you're monitor was but your computer was just 'ON'... I do sound/lights at a nightclub, and we shut off our amps after every show. but we leave the DSPs 'on.' they are programmed to enter standby mode automatically. shutting them off risks wiping their memory of our club settings.
This is why I look for clean power surge protectors. It may not ever be perfect but when your using expensive gear I prefer something more than a budget protector. I've heard of amps frying during lightning storms because they went straight into the outlets in some places.
Thanks for the solid state/tube powered explanation. Seems like you found a great solution with your standby switch. What should be left on is ON, and what should be turned off is OFF.
I do not agree : 1) All Vintage equipment had turned off button and do sounds good (I know they were class A) 2) Standby only leaves a small part of a receiver running. So it can respond to the remote control really. Everything else is OFF in standby mode that's why it uses very low power. 3) When you turn ON any modern equipment they do not make any noise which means no power to main circuit until you press the standby button so it is wrong to say that caps get short life if you turn off the main. 4) More risk to damage your equipment during a Thunderstorms.. specially when you are not at home. Please correct if I am wrong and sorry for my english. Thank you,
Interesting. So you're saying an option to protect both the caps and the device during a storm is to leave the standby on and flick off the power button on the back? Would that be much different than turning off the standby and then flipping the switch on the back to off for a thunderstorm?
You have seen lightning, haven't you? Now imagine how wide the gap is in switch contacts. Think that's really going to stop a lightning bolt? A million volts is going to jump across there like nobody's business. It's going to look like that Scene in Star Wars where the Emperor was fighting Luke. th-cam.com/video/PqaiKmm8gsY/w-d-xo.html
As a Technician for the last 50 years, I will tell you that leaving it on is better because of what is known as SURGE. If you leave in standby then all is up and running. When you power up from off, there is large surges into the filter caps. This surge damages your power supply. lol just listening to you say this... but the major strain is on the semi-conductor such as your rectifiers. There is a second problem with leaving on and that is dust. In standby all fans should shut down or your equipment becomes a very expensive air filter.
Paul, I’m a guitarist and bassist going on almost 40 years now. It used to be that the tube amplifiers we prefer for amplifying our guitars all had a standby mode that kept the heater filament elements (usually 6.3 VAC) powered up but kept the cathode, grid(s) and plate powered down in each of the output tubes, class A and AB. Because the cathode was already preheated, throwing the switch into the full On position resulted in the amp taking right off with no waiting. In recent years, the standby switch has been disappearing from lower wattage amplifiers that are newer model offerings. The explanation given is that on a 10, 15 or 20 watt amplifier, the standby switch is not necessary. I smell BS. I think it’s just a cost cutting measure. The result is that these smaller amps, which are favored in small sized venues and for studio session work, are left on during set breaks or while the engineer is setting up a different mic and another take because the producer wasn’t down with the tone from the last take. This time left in the full on status adds up quickly for the tubes in a working guitarist’s amplifiers. My question is: Is there a sound (as in logical and tenable) engineering rationale for eliminating the standby switch on low wattage vacuum tube guitar amplifiers? I’m asking you as you’re about the smartest engineer I’ve encountered and being in a different industry, you’re not likely to have a horse in this particular tube amplification race, so bias is not a concern (no pun intended).
@behexen250 My 20w marshall uses 2 el34 power tubes. If you are talking about tiny 1watt toy amps, they are essentially preamps with a speaker output. Like the pedals with a tube. Calling one tube in a two preamp gain stage a preamp and a power amp is misleading. If you only have one tube, is it a pre or power tube?? Calling an amp that creates almost no power, a power amp.... Hmmm
@behexen250 used as Amps. Not power amps. Power amps come after a preamp.. I can plug my headphones into the left side of a boss ds1. It will drive speakers. It's not a power amp. Taking an amp and removing the power section, and then calling the last preamp tube a power tube, doesn't make it a power tube. That's all I'm saying
My dad was a electrical engineer and when I asked him this question he thought leaving it on was a complete waste of electricity. He also thought it would add to the wear of the electronics. I also asked A.P Vanmeter the head engineer at the old Phase Linear corporation also thought leaving stuff on all the time was a bad idea. These individuals are highly educated individuals. I think I'm going to go with what they say and turn off the electronics when not in use. Which make sense to me for it's the heat thats bad for electronics and I believe heat is accumulative in how it wears electronics. This being said I'm all about minamising the wear of my stereo equipment for it's very expensive to have it serviced.
Your wasting your time speaking science, logic, and sense. These guys go into an argument, knowing the answer, it’s whatever Herr trump , and the Republican Party tell them to think. They have NO room in their heads for truth!
@Norm Macdonald Show Buy a power strip with a surge protector and a on/off tab. A good one will cost $30, but you gain 5+ inlets. :) It saves wear-and-tear on plugs and inlets. www.monoprice.com/product?p_id=15874
@@54tristin Are you going to force your beliefs into every possible situation in life. Not every situation is that deep bro. Most of what we think has been indoctrinated into us from past "systems" or perceived "social norms" of what we are born into. Thinking that Trump or people that stand behind a publicly know party are the "end bosses" is laughable.
hi paul...I run all my equipment in my studio and my band...through a furman power conditioner....it keeps voltage surges away and keep my voltage correct everytime...during a practice session I let my equipment warm up...and in studio same thing...concert same....I ALWAYS TURN ALL EQUIPMENT OFF FOR SAFETY REASONS...BOTH THE FURMAN AND MIXER,KARAOKE,SUBS,TOPS,ETC...this is an investment so i take care of it very carefully and also cover all equipment...dust kills electronics... thats what i do...works for me...great video paul...
That would be a hefty electricity bill for all the class A guys. Even my 3 wpc tube receiver with single ended class A drains about 60 watts just sitting there doing nothing.
Thanks, Paul - these comments are something I've lived by since the 60's. 04:04 -"Every time that you flick on the power and plug something in, there's a surge of energy filling up the capacitors" - "Every time you do that you put a little bit of strain on those caps".
I guess you don’t experience damaging lightning strikes and ugly power interruptions from the power company that threaten to destroy your precious gear.
Yes because this is the alternate reality of the twilight zone, where Tesla was revered for giving the world free energy & wifi, and Edison died destitute & forgotten in a crummy old hotel.
Fender musical instrument amps have had standby switches since the 1950s, or maybe earlier, as you'd probably know. Big amps full of 6L6 valves get pretty hot, as you'd also know, and are often left running where there's plenty of electrical interference to be picked up.
If you live where the relative humidity is high, leaving any kind equipment on when not in use will keep the interior warm and lower the relative humidity inside, making everything less likely to corrode, especially switch contacts and pot wipers.
If I had tube gear, I'd use a Variac to "soft start" and greatly reduce the surge shock to the components, just as you would do with a vintage radio from the 40's.
Soft starting old gear has to do with not blowing out capacitors that have become unformed over time. Google capacitor forming for more info about what that's all about.
Soft-starting solid state equipment has the same or greater value. It isn't tubes that are harmed by inrush current, but rather capacitors and silicon rectifiers.
I agree completely! I always leave my living room receiver on as well as my main server... If I go out of town I eject and turnoff my RAID drives but leave the receiver on so the cats will have NPR to listen to while I'm gone. They're very smart, well-read cats and it would be cruel to deprave them of that...
I usually leave my computers on 24/7. Last year I went away for 2 weeks and decided to shut my my rig off. I left it plugged in and the monitors (2) attached and plugged in but in standby. That combination fried my video card. After 10 years of virtually 24/7 on, my system was done. Finding the particular video card has been an on going search. Next time I will leave it on or unplug everything including power cords
Side note, modern day electronics use a NTC Thermistor to Limit Inrush Current when the AC line is connected. But modern day electronics also use lead free solder and are not a fan of heating and cooling cycles.
i imagine you have to deal with power outages on a regular basis then - that would justify purchasing a UPS that also has all the surge protection and stuff built in and - as a bonus - outputs a pure sine wave
@@KenjiUmino - lightning blows up Ups’s also. If you aren’t using it, turn it off and unplug it if really don’t want to repair it. South Fl storms are wicked.
For several years I toured a chain of retail stores working on computers and network equipment which ran 24/7. In a high percentage of cases the equipment would not come back to life after a power down. Well, I had a heart problem that threw me out of rhythm and the doctor told me of a procedure called a Cardioversion. With this procedure, the doctors stop your heart and then restart it and many times this brings things back to normal. In my case it did and the fix lasted for a few years. Of course, I had to tell the doctor my experience with electronics and how a power down after many years of running seemed to cause death of the devices. I asked if he had seen the same thing with people and what percentage of hearts don't restart after stopping. The doctor told me that he only lost one patient in his career from the procedure.
I have all my stuff hooked to one power conditioner so I can leave all my switches on and power everything on with my power conditioner so I don't wear out the switches but I don't leave it on I also don't have tube amps only newer crowns
I keep my gear off except for things that need 24/7 power. Modern electronics is stable enough to reach proper operating condition in at the most minutes. Tube stuff takes longer. One major disadvantage of leaving gear on is the exposure to line spikes. If the device is hard off, it can't be damaged except for a direct lightning hit. Unless you use your system over 12 hours per day it just doesn't make sense wasting the power and equipment life IMO. I have two UPS units in my HT. A 3kw for servers and a smaller 750w for house networking stuff and the dish receiver. The 3KW UPS only runs when I need it like when using the media servers. I shut the 3kw UPS completely down when not in use. Why? It's a true online double conversion unit. It consumes 300 watts with no load just sitting there. I don't want a 300 watt load on 24/7. That will add up. Yes I have solar but 300 watts is 300 watts. That's still 300 watts I produced the utility doesn't buy back. So the solar excuse doesn't fly either in most cases.
Capacitors are specced with the amount of hours they will run correctly at a given temperature. Leaving equipment on is ideal, so long as it's not roasting hot and the components are selected correctly.
My own experience is that there are definitely gains for the first two or three hours, then you're into diminishing returns. That said, when my Quad 57s are used in my speaker rotation, I have to keep those on as they need to stay charged to reach decent gain levels, optimum sonics etc. The argument about caps is moot, because over decades they would need changing anyway.
I purchased a Stellar Gain Dac/preamp from you guys back in november. I have not shut the power down yet, I mean not even standby. I love that the LCD window goes dark, so I just leave it on all the time. Its a great preamp/dac, really enjoying it!
As long as the fire is inside the steel amp box and there is nothing flamable in reach of the amp, then i’m willing to take that risk. But it’s a waste of energy.
@@davidirvine4294 even the steel cabinets have plenty of vent holes. So no way it's self extinguishing. Yes it will mitigate it, but not extinguish due to lack of oxygen.
Once had a 16 channel Mackie mixer that we NEEDED to leave on because audio passed through it to a closed circuit tv channel that had been running for literally years. There came warning of an unusually serious storm, and we decided it’d be safe if everything was off and unplugged. Came back in after the weekend. Went to turn the Mackie back on. It never came back on again.
Ughh, I have the habit of unplugging electronics when I'm not home, especially for days at a time. I'm always afraid of voltage spikes and surges plus usage.
A few things to consider. Tube amps burn out quickly when being left on. Some equipment run at a high temperature that can accelerate wear out e.g. capacitors in a class A amplifier drying out. Your electric bill will go up when you leave your gear on. Then comes the entire issue of being responsible against climate change. The best equipment doesn’t need a long warm up time btw.
ThinkingBetter you had me all the way up until you brought up that Climate Change BS.... pls Leave you political opinions to yourself, this a audiophile channel. Thank you...
Spinman Corner Climate change is a subject of science. A political party can be more or less supporting or rejecting science consensus. All conservative parties in the planet are supporting the science consensus on this matter...except one party heavily lobbied by the fossil fuel industry. You must be American and Republican. The consumer electronics industry has for many years been pursuing reducing standby power consumption due to regulatory requirements in civilized countries e.g. Energy Star in the USA.
poserwannabe Unfortunately the science is not with a linear slope but involves positive feedback loops causing progressively higher temperatures. Ignore the politics and study the actual science. A good place to start is here: skepticalscience.com
I know of a tube amp that was on 24/7 for over ten years with no tube changes. It sounded pretty good. Tube amps can benefit from a power supply that allows the filaments to be run at reduced voltage during standby. The idea is to keep the tubes heated, but not emitting.
I feel that the arguments he said were valid back in the 70s and 80s when he opened his shop but nowadays things have changed. The vacuum tubes had to come to proper temperature before they operate properly, that's why the amps sounded better when they were left on over time. Also, the problem with wearing the equipment down when turning it on and off was because of the fast transients that were created during that operation. Modern electronics have protection circuits from that i.e. www.electronics-tutorials.ws/power/transient-suppression.html
LeontariF1 Ginally a respectful comment disagreeing. Is it just the new equipment with those safety measures? Or the outlet? Because vintage stereos are very popular and mine is from the 80's.
perhaps this that you speak of explains my experience with a certain device that I have constructed, a brief overview of which is as follows: an electric guitar signal is fed through a bunch of circuitry and then to a pair of MSD capacitive discharge Automotive ignition boxes, and then to a pair of "coil Towers" where the sound is produced by a pair of plasma arcs, that erupt in multiple colors (due to the presence of various metal salts) from a small flame, which is also colored by the metal salts. inside one of the coil towers is a GM HEI ignition coil while the other one contains 3 Toyota coils with their secondaries in series and their primaries in parallel. the MSD units use a pair of large PNP transistors... though their actual output is a large SCR chirping out a bunch of pulses from a capacitor, and the whole rig sounds better when it's warmed up for half an hour or so... as do I. I would imagine (perhaps wrongly so) that the Transformers would not benefit from being warmed up... but the transistors? something sure seems to. peace man.
Turning power off/on resets 1/f noise history, thermal stabilisation period (30 min warmup idling) is perfectly valid but another matter. Most modern TV failures are dried caps in the standby section of the power supply, same with 'lifestyle' audio products. My advice is to turn it all off at the wall when not in use, this extends lifetime and reduces EMR noise radiated by the house AC wiring. In my house the only item on at night is the refrigerator, audio video and importantly WiFi modem/routers are all turned off overnight and I find I sleep better this way.
He is always answering questions when people mention , that they are using PS Audio equipment , or read his boring book . Good luck to have your questions answered to people who have Technics , Yamaha , Macintosh , Parasound etc .
Finally, a human being!! Who believes in the real world!!! This Paul fool!! Believes in this "Snake-oil" BULLSHIT!! By the way, I've got a Yamaha a-s2100 Amplifier!! And I NEVER leave it on standby!! I've recently watched one of his video's, he was chatting about "Expensive" Cables!! He was saying, they matter!!! But, he wouldn't give a "Proper" reason!! 🤦♂️ Shocking, I know. 🤷♂️
🎧 📽 I Don't Think That I'll EVER Be Convinced That Leaving Audio, OR Video Equipment ON INDEFINITELY Would Be BETTER OVERALL, OVER Turning It OFF After Use. I Think That With The Increased Risk Of Power Surges & Lightning Strikes Alone Is Reason Enough To Just Turn Your Equipment ON Say, a 1/2 Hour, Or Hour BEFORE You Actually Intend On Using It Would Addresses BOTH SIDES Of This Argument? Besides, I Would Think That TODAY'S Audio & Video Gear Are BETTER SUITED For Quick Startup & Playback, & Are Better Equipped To Handle Playing When "Cold", And At Lower Volumes Too. When I Think Of Gear That Really NEEDS To "Warm Up", I Believe It's The Older, Non Solid State Type Equipment With Components That Use Vacuum Tubes, Or, Of Course, Some Of The More Expensive Audiophile Type Equipment That's Sold Today, But People That Invest In Audiophile Style Equipment I'm Sure ALSO Purchased Good Power Conditioners To Protect Their Investments, And Allow Them To Just Leave This Kind Of Vintage Style Of Equipment ON All The Time Without Worrying That Something Bad Will Happen Leaving It ON. THIS IS MY OPINION, ON THIS GOOD & STILL RELEVANT TOPIC!
As a master electrician I will agree with you on the vacuum tubes. They need to be turned off to extend life as far as transistors are concerned. Turn them off to save on hydro. One monoblocks consume 100 watts on idle. Not doing a thing.! That's a transistor class a amplifier. Va uum tube consume even more doing nothing but running the heaters. Will keep your room Warm in the winter.! I used to have a huge 70s receiver that was a true 115w rms class a. And it would keep the bedroom warm in the winter with its lights and amplifier. It did sound better after 1hour of idle from stone COLD. wasn't always listening to music to enjoy performance but as back ground fill for studying. After work came play. From a to z whatever flavour came to mind, jazz, rock, classical you name it. Miss my La Scala and heresy.
Personally, I turn it off. But i make sure my tv, sound system, etc. Is put into standby mode first, before switching off the power. You will find most equipment will save this state. So when you switch it back on again, it will turn on in standby mode, instead of coming on immediately. I've found this a safer method in the long run.
He prefer to tube equipment. These ancient equipment need to warm-up at least 1 hr before use. But then again he advised not to use this technique on tube. This is completely bs, not to mention he doesn't care about environment. Hopefully he does leave his car idle in the garage all night because it will accelerate better in the morning.
well you've ignored the most important aspect of the degrading of a capacitor (electrolytic), which is heat. makes caps dry out. for example, the big 90ies neve vr recording consoles run so hot, all few years you have channels and sections go out all the time, they were maintenance monster. the even more famous neve 80series consoles from the 70ies,even class a tough, run only a bit warm, after a recapping you have peace for 10-20years. so yeah, depending on the ciruitry, the location and heat sourrounding the cap, the lifespan of a cap varies greatly
hey man, since you seem to be working with audio equipment, may I bother you with a question? should I not turn off my Audio interface and monitoring speakers too?
@@aryanz66 they should not break. but a manufacturer can not do longterm testing when putting out a line of products, they have to rely on proven circuit designs.
@@pongmaster123 hmmmm. Thank you. I guess you're absolutely right. I've never had any of my pro equipment die as their lifespan ends. Consumer stuff tho, have had a few of that
I believe in statistical data rather than single cases. But... I bought a Sony TA-N77ES amp and TA-E77ESD preamp around 30 years ago. My policy has been to just leave them on unless I am going out of town for more than a week. So it has been on almost all of its life. I can't compare the sound to 30 years ago, but they still seem to work fine, except for the lights above the amp's meters blow out.
I dunno... I live in Florida, and prior to battery back up and power surge protectors... I was blissfully unaware of how many surges my household lines were receiving almost every day. I even unplug my battery backups when not in use...the surges wear them out as well.
It depends on the environment. If you live in a very cold climate and its in an unheated room in the house, the temperature swings between off and running cause such expansion and contraction in the circuit boards it eventually causes issues. Im in san diego and our temperature extremes are not great so its moot.
I haven't turned my equipment off for probably 5 years I'm guessing, maybe longer, but I haven't listened to my system in that time either. : ( Anyway, I realized that and finally turned it all off a few months ago and saw my electric bill go down. : )
The physics of this is very simple and applicable everywhere... A car that does 10 trips of 100km vs a car that does 100 trips of 10km.....the second car would degrade faster... the number of times the engine starts and stop(heats up and then cools down..the metal and the oils and rubbers)..the number of times the car door opens and shuts...shorter journeys with cities vs longer journeys on inter-states it Auto-bahns..the city journey would require more use of brake per km than longer journey on interstates... but there are exceptions like the life of the ‘tubes’ as the electrons from the cathodes start dwindling .. The number of take-off and landings is an important count of a planes life and not just the kilometers covered ...
With computers you have a bootup process, long in screen, etc.. which makes shutting them down impractical. That's computers though. NOT audio equipment. To apply that to audio equipment would be a false equivalence.
As an ex computer guy I always tell people don't power off your computer because every time you power up a computer from dead off, there is a surge or power through the power supply and the system board and potential for failure is much greater. My Infinity IL50s have a powered sub and Infinity advised leave amp powered up and let it go into standby when the signal stops. I've had these speakers for 17 years and last year I had to repair one of the amps, not bad at all. I agree with Paul, leave your stuff on standby.
![ILLSLICK - KILLSHOT REMIX [FULL VERSION]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/RIK8RrqIAzE/mqdefault.jpg)
I worked in IT for 20 years. Nothing to do with audio, but the computers lasted longer if you left them switched on all the time. When you've got rooms full of racks of computers, you don't want them to die on you, because it's a pain to change them out in a hurry. So we left them on, for years and years and years. Of course, I wasn't paying the electric bill...
Of course in the business case you have the servers on 24/7 because they're in use 24 hrs a day in many cases (like a bank with customers in all time zones).
You can put them in 'sleep' mode at home, you aren't really turning them off and you're still saving almost all the power of turning it off. You eventually have to reboot to pull in new patches for security updates though ignoring stuff like ksplice
Has to do with constant temperature as well. Working in ict as well.
But ye, electricity bill.....
Some audiophiles say that always powering off amplifiers causes micro-cracks on top or inside of capacitors. However, this is not true. The ultimate enemy of Class A amps is heat. A well designed amp will not overheat and damage itself (has vents and heatsinking). Just to be sure, I run a desk fan overtop the vents of my units after a listening session.
After a relay was failing, cold air on the relay (cleaning) and some more inside solved the problem. A good amp can probably outlive the average person.
I only power off my pc for upgrades. They run continuously until they are obsolete and can't keep up with new tech. I never have any breakdowns. 3 pc running 5-3-1 year without powering off.
I never turn off my PC's either. But just out of laziness 😂. When i sit down at it i just want to use it without having to start up stuff. For the last decade any PC in my possession didn't know what 'off' means.
I’m not listening to you anymore, I left my truck running and it ran out of gas .
xDD hehehe good one! made my day! :D
@@lovemusic324 xDD
🤣
I left my washer on, now my clothes are clean.
😂
When I spoke to a factory rep from Yamaha about this, he told me that it's better to leave most components turned on, with the exception of receivers and other units with displays, since the displays dim over time if they are left on. Accordingly, I leave my power amps on (they only draw a trickle of power at idle, and they're Class D, so it's an even smaller trickle), but my receiver is only turned on when it's time to listen to it.
As for the plasma TV, it gets turned on when it's being used, and turned off after.
Here in the UK we were told years ago not to turn off our hi fi at the mains but to leave equipment in standby mode for the exact reasons you give. The amount this adds to your electricity bill is miniscule. Less than the cost incurred in the items reduced life expectancy.
I always turn my equipment off after use, never had any problems.
Best to turn off equipment by plugs to keep electricity bill down and don't want a fire in homes
You're equipment will last longer and sound better just as Paul stated. This isn't debatable. If you listen to your system everyday, it makes sense to leave it on. If you own Bose or equivalent flea market gear then by all means turn your gear off.
@Fat Rat How exactly do you know it's an extra $40 per year?
Back in the 90s I figured out that the thermal cycling, due to ON & Off switching, was what shortened the lifespan of equipment. So in my new found brilliance I left my NAD 7240PE receiver on and after 3 days the tuner had gone out! So much for that theory!
the station you left it tuned to is THE determining factor!
(just kidding)
That's because NAD is trash.
I have had my class A transistor preamp on for the last several years. Only turned off for periodical checks, and a clean. Still going strong.
Hi Paul! You must always turn the equipment off! At least I have a very good reason to turn them off, even if it is a once-in-a-life-time thing. And here is why:
Back in 1985, I was working at a great record company as a Cutting and Mastering engineer. I had been trusted to exclusively work on a state of the art Neumann VMS-80 lathe, with all the audio equipment also from Neumann and an MCI player with delay hubs. Every single day I will turn the machines on in the morning and off late in the afternoon. When it was lunch time from 12 m to 2 pm, I went away to eat and back to continue work and during this lunch time I never turned off the equipment just because it was better to have them warm to immediately continue working.
This had been going on for almost one and half years. One day I felt very sleepy and decided to take a big nap during my lunch time. Therefore, I just sat down and leaned over a deskto sleep. At about 1:30 pm, I happened (by pure chance) to open my eyes and watch the control console beside the lathe and saw a thin plume of smoke coming out of it!
Without thinking, I threw myself directly at the mains and turned them off.
If I wouldn't have been there at that time the whole studio could potentially have caught fire, and been surrounded by flammable materials (plastic, wood and vinyl) the whole studio would have been lost, to say the least.
The plume of smoke and a little flame, was due to a tiny faulty tantalum capacitor.What would you know that this possibly could happen to a state of the art machine with the finest electronics money could buy and that it was only 2 years old!!!
My boss then and I learned a good lesson that day: no electronic equipment should be left on unattended! And if you are going to leave it on unattended then you must have extraordinary fire prevention measures in place. You could say that this happening is just one in a million but it did happen, so unless you are prepared to fend off any possible occurrence of fire, no matter how small, you should not leave your electronic equipment on.
That goes for computers too!
Cheers
Had just the opposite experience with Crown iTech 4000 amps. We had a rack full of amps that were all on standby power when not being used except for our main FOH amp that was on a relay switch. In caparison to the main FOH amps the others were hardly used at all but one by one they all started failing on the power input section, same exact problem. Our FOH amp is still working fine because we shut it off completely every night. We don't make that mistake any more.
Another reason is that transistors and other solid state devices are most prone to failure during thermal transients. Back in the 80's I left my computers on all the time because they were so expensive, the power consumption seemed trivial compared to the threat of an IC failure ruining it.
As an engineering technician in R&D, Failure Analysis, etc, many components age and have age related failures, so power on or power off have the same defect rate. We have some equipment with failing parts and new old stock parts have the same defects showing as in use parts. The parts are end of life due to age. Power supplies and linear devices have heat baking failures. The plastics outgas and the capacitors fail, regulator IC's go out of value, and become electrically noisy. Thermal cycling breaks solder connections on power devices installed in thru hole board designs. In newer components, multilayer ceramic capacitors crack and short resulting in failures.
In very humid locations the heat reduces corrosion.
Power switches and relays subject to high inrush currents have a limited number of operations before the contact resistance becomes high and fails.
Summary, Keep the equipment cool, dry, and avoid age, thermal cycles, and power cycles.
If you are not going to use it overnight, or longer, turn it off. If going out to the mailbox, leave it on.
My backup scope is a Tektronics TDS-220. My main scope had a voltage regulator fail, so I had to troubleshoot and repair it. Completed a calibration test on the scope which had intermittent use over the years and had about a decade in storage. No issues. It passed a calibration test and has zero problems. I can't say the same for most always on electronics of the same age. This was bought in 1999 brand new. On the bench it was used for storage functions as the analog scope was brighter, and had higher resolution. The storage scope was used for single shot capture mostly. If you are not using something for an extended period of time, shut it off. I power down my workstation, computer and all at the end of the day.
I use a class A amp and a tube preamp. I turn them off when not in use.
Edit: I always give a 10 min warmup.
Same here with my class A amps.
Class A poweramp here as well. Usually keep it on during the day when i am home. Otherwise it's off. I am not a millionaire....
Love that sound though;)
Don't leave your Class A amp on. The heat alone will degrade the parts inside over time much faster. Not all components have stand by switches, only on or off. What then?
A good number of "on off" switches" on the front panels may in fact be standby mode. Its the power switch hidden in the back that kills all AC.
@@genez429 I own 5 traditional integrated amplifiers and not one have a switch in the back. The other one is a Naim Atom that also has no switch in the back but i believe goes into a standby mode when turned off.
@@yippie6862 If its a vintage unit? The front switch will kill all AC. Apparently, some newer manufacturers will not offer the full kill option, and it appears say nothing as to avoid the type of worry some show here.
@@genez429 These are not vintage. They are mainly recent British integrated amps like the LFD and Sugden. I'm pretty sure when the front power button is set to off the entire unit powers off. I'd be surprised if they are left in any sort of stand by mode.
@@yippie6862 Many power buttons on hi-end equipment are actually turning off only the outputs of the amps. My Nuprime ST10 has that feature, but only says "Power." Your equipment is exotic in the states. I looked online.
Is your Sugden class A? As far as I know? You will need to email the manufacturer to see if there is a standby mode without you knowing it.
The LFD, I found one review for a preamp of theirs. It has a switch on front as a standby mode. Note the following quote from Stereophile Mag.
Step forward to the present day. The Masterclass LA-4 is not
full-featured but minimalist. It's line only-no phono. It has inputs for
up to five sources, all but one with unbalanced connectors (RCA). The
Bypass input sidesteps the volume control, and an output with the
antiquated label Tape bypasses the volume control for whichever input is
selected. *There's a Standby button on the front panel and a main Power
switch in back, because transistor-based amplifiers-including
preamps-sound best when they're always powered up.
www.stereophile.com/content/j-e-sugden-masterclass-la-4-line-preamplifier
It’s called a soft start circuit. Modern electrical engineers know how to do that.
As an aerospace electronics engineer, I fully agree with you. Inrush is damaging for capacitor, and a soft start is so simple to design than I can't trust a company not able to design one.
I'm not sure that PS Audio consists of actual engineers. It's 99.999% marketing and foofery, it seems to me. Leaving your equipment on 24/7 is a great way to waste money and further fuck up the world.
@@UPR91 We used a HP signal generator with a cavity oscillator that performed better when left on. That's the only piece of equipment I've ever seen that performs measurably different after a very long warmup.
All audio gear is millions of times less sensitive than the kind of testing we used that equipment for. If you can't measure it, you can't hear it either.
But of course, if you *can* hear an unmeasurable difference in any piece of audio gear, then by all means do what makes it sound good to you.
Whilst true, the cheaper electronics won’t have this feature most likely. And since they’re cheap, Class D probably, better to leave them on and in standby when not in use. Leaving things in standby will avoid the in rush current and not waste considerable amount of energy either
For DACs not to be bothered turning them off unless they have a screen that can’t be turned off separately. As the leds dim over time
Yes this especially applies to transistor equipment, making the sound more warm/smooth/big/evolved. But on tube gear, many times it can sound better if you just turn it on when you use it, and wait like 30 minutes to fully evolve, to give it more edge. Leaving tube sound on for many days, will not only cost a lot of money in regards to your electrical bill, but will often create a more flat and not so correct type of sound being too warm some times. It's all relative to the gear and the conditions so one has to just find out what is best for ones own self.
But yes especially tube sound that is on for a couple of days, will normally go through a couple of sound development stages within the first 48 hours, and then it's a question what you prefer.
So if I had for example a mcintosh mc275 tube amp that I personally think is boring and too conservative, I would then personally turn it on, and may listen in 15 minutes time, and turn it off after an hour or 2, because I would personally not want that sound to get even more warm in sound. Unless I maybe was using a cd player that naturally has a thin ish type of sound.
But yeah something to think about.
Fine Paul will you pay my electricity bill!
Rock 'n' roll all night and party every day.
@@philipcooper8297 Life is just a fantasy - can you live this fantasy life?
The folks purchasing his products don’t care about electricity bills.
Philip Cooper The power consumption is less than a TV set, your gear sound better if left on, High end manufacturers do not have a power switch, I wrote this comment before listening to the explanation. I unplug my gear in the event of a lightning storm or I go away on holiday
@@rking6247
Aldo Nova
This guy sounds as if he is a spokesman for the local electric utility.
This channel & comments are "to die for" there's an AES paper on grounding&shielding where this company features as an example of how not to do stuff ( electrically & electronically ) - they had the "brilliant" idea of makinga power plug where you could unscrew the safety ground - go figure...
@@BogdanWeiss link?
there's a longer version of this but it's been moved somewhere - page 4- www.scribd.com/document/345180522/hum-buzz-and-ground-loops-new-insights-into-and-old-problem-aes
I would imagine his products are energy star compliant to meet modern standards in which case they use less than 1W per hour in standby, a tiny amount of power. Really if a person is concerned by what amounts to less than 2 bucks per year in actual electricity costs for a single ES compliant product to remain in standby they certainly cannot afford to be purchasing high end audio. If the waste of energy concerns somebody, solar solves that and significantly reducing someones CO2 footprint as well as running costs too. Older non compliant equipment is an entirely different matter.
@Jolyon Welsh, Lol 😆
Leave it on if used once per day. Switch off if used once per week for the reason of preserving the components
Exception: When you buy a new electronic device, such as a tv or stereo, turn it on and leave it on for 2 weeks. This used to be called "burning it in" prior to solid state devices, when vacuum tube were used, and they needed to be "burned in" for creasing I wont go into here. Today, it's still good way to weed out defects.
By leaving a new device on, you are testing, or proofing the equipment for any defective components during normal operating conditions.
Then turn it off, let it cool a few hours, then back on. Do this thermal cycle a several times. Any poor comnections, solder joints, bad components etc will usually be revealed, and importantly, during the initial 15 or 30 day return period. Warranties are a pain.
If your device passes the above, it will likely last a long time.
From then on, leave it in standby mode or follow the manufacturers instructions indicated in the user manual.
Note: Ever had a light bulb blow while on? Probably not. They blow when turned on or off, during power surges and thermal shock.
In fact, incandescent bulbs are designed to only last about 1000 hours on average, on purpose. They could be built to last 100 years. But the bulb factory would go out of business. You can cheat them, though. If you install dimmer switches in place of on/off switches, your bulbs will last many years. My 6 porch bulbs are 23 years old because the dimmer switch I installed back then prevents initial surges, and lowers the voltage to the bulb.
Light bulbs don’t cost that much so I ain’t doin it.
So correct!
It likely has to do with heat generation and as you said, burn in. Circuitry, wood, and things like speakers, these things expand and cool every time you turn it on and off. Also, the switch itself is a point of failure. It's the same reason servers are left on as much as possible, it's the same reason live audio people at live venues come in and set up, test real quick, then put in standby as opposed to turning off - the wear and tear on the caps with adequately cooled solid state power amps and digitally remote controlled sound reinforcement fixtures from that initial surge of power. Stage hands, local crew, and career concert runners understand this kind of stuff, too, as do electrical engineers. People's concerns with leaving things on is likely from the electric bill, or risk of fire if damaged by a pet knocking things over while they are not home. Some units are prone to overheating, if left on indefinitely. There are other things to ponder or put into consideration with consumers living in reality, as opposed to controlled environments, small businesses, or people having to meet the standards for being on the road with the live entertainment industry. There is no "one size fits all" solution.
I agree that my stereo sounds better when left on for long periods of time but have always turned my gear off for fear of “wearing out” my caps. Now that I know that is not going to happen, I plan to become my power company’s new best friend. Thanks Paul, love your passion, love the vids and hope to visit one day soon.
Capacitors are rated in hours of lifespan. Leaving them on will stave off one kind of a failure (that wouldn't impact you in normal use anyways) but not another. Several things are responsible within capacitors for them to do what they do.
Paul uses his imagination sometimes in these videos. It depends on what Class A, Class A/B or what your amp is. Using caps a little all the time is worse than the little startup current, that just gets dissipated in the aluminum case anyway.
@@EnigmaVideos I'm glad I read your comment. I live in Germany and due to possible energy shortages my univesity heats its rooms to 19 degrees C only. Public swimming pools are heated to three degrees less than usual too. Public buildings don't switch on lights during the day if there are windows etc. So I would feel a bit bad for leaving on my amp 24/7 because it could apparently improve the sound or longevity. I can imagine a sound difference between a cold amp and one that's warmed up a bit though.
@@tobiasthiel5291 I'd worry more about hard drives sleeping after 3 minutes. That is what ruined mine. And external drives usually don't have a mode switch. However, it was a Toshiba drive. So take what you will
Here in Australia wit the power prices you do anything to save electricity mine is always off at the wall because of the electricity prices
Sensible people turn off their equipment at the wall
I’m in Australia too, Another thing that was drummed into me when I was a kid was to not only turn it off at the wall, but pull the plug out too because not only is the cost of electricity ridiculously high, here in Queensland, and most parts of Australia for that matter, there is always the chance of a severe storm hitting while you’re at work or away from home. Both my Neighbour and older sister had their tv’s fried because they didn’t disconnect them before a storm and the result was that lightning struck the transformer boxes on the power poles in the area.
Fat Rat yeah see Sydney is alot more with the times when it comes to electrical safety, and i don’t doubt whatsoever what you’re saying. With Sydney being such a big and densely populated area, regular maintenance and safety precautions would be constantly updated and implemented, which would probably be why you’ve never experienced any dramas. I’m in Mackay in North Queensland and lets be honest, there’s alot to be desired in terms of safety and reliability of electricity and the maintenance by the local council up here. We get blackouts at least once a month and the lines are forever coming down due to overhanging tree branches or impact by tropical storms. Just about everybody I know up here has a generator on standby because the power supply simply isn’t reliable. In summer, when every man and their dog has their aircons going, it’s not uncommon for half the town to black out.
All that being said, you are definitely right in saying each to their own, but I’d have to add in that where you live and the quality of infrastructure in place where you live would undoubtedly have an impact on your decisions to either leave electrical appliances either on standby, switched off or disconnected entirely.
here is one about "surge protectors": they are not completely useless but not the be all / end all either.
circuit breakers (at least the ones i have seen installed in houses) are protecting against over current - not over voltage.
that is where a "surge protector" comes in.
it may protect from voltage spikes as they might occur during a thunderstorm but would most likely not protect anything from a direct lightning strike.
in the village where i live, there is a good amount of houses recieving power from wires dangling through the air, the newly built areas have their power lines under ground but our house is an older one and we get power from dangling wires attached to a mounting pole on the rooftop.
the power lines going into the village are also over ground on poles.
if there was a thunderstorm going and lightning would hit such a pole a good distance away from the village, it would probably result in a hefty voltage spike wich would trigger the surge protector to cause an artificial "short" that pops the breaker by over current - all good.
but if the mounting pole and cables on the roof of our house would recieve a direct hit from a big old lightning strike, the surge protector and the breaker would not be much help.
the more likely scenario would be that the whole breaker box will be flying across the room and the wires in the walls get vaporized along with the fancy "surge protected" power bar and anything connected to it.
pretty much like this: www.ctvnews.ca/polopoly_fs/1.3373003.1492512235!/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/landscape_960/image.jpg
I bet you live in SA? I moved to S.E Queensland because of the crazy electricity prices down south.
The front end of my system - CD player, preamp, phono preamp - are ALWAYS on, both because of the transient strain Paul mentioned, but also because the equipment does not sound anywhere near as good cold as it does when it's fully warmed up and at a stable temperature.
Now ... I DON'T leave my power amps up all the time. They are Mark Levinson ML-2s and they draw fully *FOUR AMPS* each, whether they're playing something or sitting there idle, and no, I'd just as soon NOT have that show up on my electric bill. As for transient problems, I've had to replace two output transistors in the past not quite 40 years. I can live with that!
I would think that the thermal expansion and contraction that occurs when going from hot to cold (or the reverse) would also be an important consideration for longevity. Limiting the thermal expansion and contraction should also limit connection issues that can arise...like bad solder joints.
I came looking for this! I also think thermal stress would be a huge factor in longevity.
The best piece of advice ever. I just leave my system on for the last few days and yes it did sound much better. I normally listen to the system just 30 to 45 minutes before I go to bed. by the time my system started to sound good I habe to shut it off to have some sleep.
I wont leave my gear on when i am sleeping or not at home...unplug when not in use..general rule for EVERY electric gear.
Except the fridge / freezer - we trust those.
my less than 1year 34" ultrawide monitor caps a dead.
there was an issue with my company laptop that made the monitor never going to sleep mode. keep restarting looking for a signal.. forgot to turn it off few times for maybe a total time of 3 or 4 hours.
now power led flashing blue. caps dead.
just to say that capacitors failure is a real thing.
this video enlighted me. I was turning off my NAD receiver. Im thinking keeping it in sleeping mode.
thx a lot Paul.
Ive watched several of you videos already over the months. helped me a lot to understand audio device subtilities. Im pretty sure your videos will still be watched in few hundred years.
I design electronics equipement that need to work more than 25 years. There is 2 ennemies for the cap: T° that decrease life of capacitors exponentially and inrush current at start. Your TV died because they use crappy cap and place them close from source of heat, intentionally (as samsung did) or not (lake of space). Try to check out if your NAD is equipped with soft start (inrush current limiter). If it is, there is absolutely no need to let it in sleep mode.
I use remotes to turn off my equipment into standby mode. I avoid leaving them operating in the "on" state. The subdivision I'm in for some reason is horrible for Brown outs and surges especially during thunderstorms, but sometimes for no obvious reasons. I use a 1990s vintage Rack mount MONSTER brand line conditioner and surge suppressor that trips several times a year requiring resets. If it wasn't for that, I suspect my gear would be fried many time over. So, if you do leave your gear ON, for goodness sake make sure you have a quality piece of equipment to protect it all. And NO, a $10-$20 Wal-Mart surge protector is definitely NOT adequate!
At 22 cents a kWh (todays rate + delivery), it costs about $135.00 a year to leave a 100 watt load (Tube amp at idle) on 24 yours a day. Unfortunately, POH (power on hours) and thermal cycling gets really complicated. Some components are very thermal cycle sensitive, some have a greatly decreased lifetime at high temperatures, some degrade simply sitting unused or powered off, and still others are very insensitive to temperature, POH, and thermal cycling. For example, many capacitors do very poorly in warm/hot environments but are generally insensitive the thermal cycling. Some large ICs with sophisticated power management my develop thermal hot spots leading to failures under certain computing work loads. And tubes running at high temperatures may have thermal cycling issues.
It's sort of hard to say that all electronic and electronic components should be left on all the time. Take smartphones for example. They have many 'mini thermal cycling' events spread all over the components in an attempt to save power and increase battery life. Engineering these days should consider these failure mechanisms and NOT require them to be powered on all the time for the sake of reduced failure rates. Such designs are simply BAD ENGINEERING. But hey, this is "audiophile territory" and not engineering.
Generally, I disagree that you can benefit from leaving audio equipment turned on when not used. I cannot argue on sound quality compared to "power cycled" devices because it's subjective to Paul. This can be proven by measurements of course...
But I see two downsides. One is increased power consumption. Secondly, is aging of solid-state parts and caps. Typically, manufacturer specifies cap's lifespan when rated voltage is applied, time can vary from 2000 h to 10 thousands hours. Then the cap will most probably off-spec by one or more parameters. So, this is exactly what happens in switched on equipment. Your capacitors ages faster when voltage is applied (device is switched on) vs switched off device where your lifespan is equivalent to shelf life.
There are 50,000 hour caps and beyond. But you're not going to find them in a whole lot of gear. Might find them in some high end audio gear though. Like Black Gate Rubycons. Although if they're legit is another question entirely. You'd be surprised what some folks will do for money.
I’m not buying new equipment often and my amplifiers are almost 20 years old. Still sounds amazing.
Never switches them of, unless I’m leaving home for weeks. I can clearly hear the difference when I’m getting home to my “cold” amps. Takes a couple of hours before they really sound good again...
DEBUNKING TIME!
I used to leave my Sansui AU-710 amplifier on 24/7.
The only noticeable effect of that was a higher energy cost.
The filter capacitors went bad anyway, so there was No Benefit.
There's a couple common capacitor failure modes. One has to do with the oxide layer on the foil itself breaking down (which takes an extremely long time to happen think years) and the other has to do with the electrolyte in the separation layer. Leaving the power on only protects you from the first mode. Leaving the power on hastens the failure of the second mode. So you lose either way.
@@1pcfred Good explanation
Absolutely right.
Electrolytics will eventually fail no matter what, so why spend the money on energy?
Save it toward replacement parts!
@@spacemissing not being able to buy in bulk like manufacturers can most consumer electronics are not worth the cost of recapping. Heck we can't even very reliably source parts in today's market. You can get bogus counterfeits even from so called reputable suppliers. It is just that bad now. I was watching a video where squeaky Dave got bum parts off Digikey. Crikey!
@@CMDR_Birb thanks. With access to the Internet a lot of information is available. More than when I got started with stuff. I used to have to buy books. Today you can download everything you could want to know. Which is amazing. There's something to building your own gear too. I never made a hi-fi stereo but I made some amps. It is pretty thrilling to listen to an amp you've made yourself. Might not be the best amp in the world but it's still something of your own hands. It made things more real to me personally.
Volt definition
Volt is the electrical unit of voltage or potential difference (symbol: V).
One Volt is defined as energy consumption of one joule per electric charge of one coulomb.
He was right when he said it sounded different the next day and thought maybe It's just my ears are fresh. He should have left it at that.
It's well known that the longer one listens the more the ears adjust to the sound.
It's also well known that audio memory is very short seconds or minutes at the most. So, overnight is too long to remember what something sounded like the night before.
Put those two things together and that explains it; not whether the power was turned off.
Heat is a big enemy of capacitors. If you leave things on all the time caps dry out faster and fail. Properly designed soft-start circuits can minimize the inrush damage. Big amps left on all the time use a LOT of power in idle.
That "warm up time" is most definitley true with power amps. Most modern devices leave the low-voltage/low current circuits on (and the main caps fully or partially charged)
Most aliances today are EnergyStar compliant using get, very, extremely little current. In broadcast we never turned off equipment. It just lasts longer because most notably it's at a near constant temperature and at one time heating circuit boards caused flexing and eventual failure. Today's computer-grade electronics are unaffected. Turn it off if you want. It won't hurt it.
Great advice. I leave my digital stuff on 7/24. My streamer/clock/DAC has been powered up for seven years. It has a triode output stage which has it's own switch. I turn that on as well as my tube power amps about an hour before I want to listen.
I used to live near some big electric cable towers (without any issues). And when people would comment about my tube mono amps consuming so much electricity, I would open the curtains to show the towers and say There's a lot more where that came from... haha. That separate cap warmer sounds sweet!
The Mr. Rogers of audio. In the professional mastering studio we left gear on. At home not so much.
I can’t say how much I appreciate my Musical Fidelity M6SI going right into stanby when plugged in. Never goes to off unless I unplug it. It’s always warmed up enough to play almost as soon as I turn it on.
I had an amp at all times as you describe, and it made my caps dry out faster than if I just had turned it off after use. After the first capacitor was destroyed, I started to turn off my amp completely after it was repaired. If you have a very high class A power on the amp the capacitors will begin to have trouble. It does not make it last longer by having it on all the time. So my experience is the opposite that you have Paul. ( I'm not talking about sound quality, because it can well be a better sound quality by having the equipment on at all times, but I'm thinking about component wear and tear by having the equipment on at all times versus power it completely down after use. )
Fat Rat If the amp has very high class A current you can get into trouble by leaving it permanently on.
@Fat Rat there's lots of different caps and environments they're used in. So there's no way you can say definitively what's going to happen. This happened to me or that happened to them is purely anecdotal.
@Fat Rat doesn't matter. What happens to you has no bearing on anyone else. It probably doesn't even have any future bearing on you for that matter. It was a unique event. You may have just been running plague caps for all anyone knows.
Just do what the operating manual says. you'll be hard-pressed to find any manufacturer suggesting that you never turn off your amp. it's almost comical then Paul would make this suggestion. and a big thing that he kind of lost over and a lot of commenters seem to be misunderstanding is that standby mode is not the same as powered on mode. some devices well switch to standby mode automatically after a certain amount of time of inactivity. but this is not universal. some devices, like computers, depend on the user settings for standby mode. a lot of people seem to be under the belief that their computer is always on standby mode when not in use, but if you go to your computer and move the mouse and almost instantly you're right where you left off, then your computer was not in standby mode. maybe you're monitor was but your computer was just 'ON'...
I do sound/lights at a nightclub, and we shut off our amps after every show. but we leave the DSPs 'on.' they are programmed to enter standby mode automatically. shutting them off risks wiping their memory of our club settings.
This is why I look for clean power surge protectors. It may not ever be perfect but when your using expensive gear I prefer something more than a budget protector. I've heard of amps frying during lightning storms because they went straight into the outlets in some places.
This message has been brought to you by the friendly staff at your electricity company. When you leave things on, we love you more for it!
Thanks for the solid state/tube powered explanation. Seems like you found a great solution with your standby switch. What should be left on is ON, and what should be turned off is OFF.
I do not agree : 1) All Vintage equipment had turned off button and do sounds good (I know they were class A) 2) Standby only leaves a small part of a receiver running. So it can respond to the remote control really. Everything else is OFF in standby mode that's why it uses very low power. 3) When you turn ON any modern equipment they do not make any noise which means no power to main circuit until you press the standby button so it is wrong to say that caps get short life if you turn off the main. 4) More risk to damage your equipment during a Thunderstorms.. specially when you are not at home.
Please correct if I am wrong and sorry for my english. Thank you,
Interesting. So you're saying an option to protect both the caps and the device during a storm is to leave the standby on and flick off the power button on the back?
Would that be much different than turning off the standby and then flipping the switch on the back to off for a thunderstorm?
You have seen lightning, haven't you? Now imagine how wide the gap is in switch contacts. Think that's really going to stop a lightning bolt? A million volts is going to jump across there like nobody's business. It's going to look like that Scene in Star Wars where the Emperor was fighting Luke. th-cam.com/video/PqaiKmm8gsY/w-d-xo.html
As a Technician for the last 50 years, I will tell you that leaving it on is better because of what is known as SURGE. If you leave in standby then all is up and running. When you power up from off, there is large surges into the filter caps. This surge damages your power supply. lol just listening to you say this... but the major strain is on the semi-conductor such as your rectifiers. There is a second problem with leaving on and that is dust. In standby all fans should shut down or your equipment becomes a very expensive air filter.
Paul, I’m a guitarist and bassist going on almost 40 years now. It used to be that the tube amplifiers we prefer for amplifying our guitars all had a standby mode that kept the heater filament elements (usually 6.3 VAC) powered up but kept the cathode, grid(s) and plate powered down in each of the output tubes, class A and AB. Because the cathode was already preheated, throwing the switch into the full On position resulted in the amp taking right off with no waiting. In recent years, the standby switch has been disappearing from lower wattage amplifiers that are newer model offerings. The explanation given is that on a 10, 15 or 20 watt amplifier, the standby switch is not necessary. I smell BS. I think it’s just a cost cutting measure.
The result is that these smaller amps, which are favored in small sized venues and for studio session work, are left on during set breaks or while the engineer is setting up a different mic and another take because the producer wasn’t down with the tone from the last take. This time left in the full on status adds up quickly for the tubes in a working guitarist’s amplifiers.
My question is: Is there a sound (as in logical and tenable) engineering rationale for eliminating the standby switch on low wattage vacuum tube guitar amplifiers?
I’m asking you as you’re about the smartest engineer I’ve encountered and being in a different industry, you’re not likely to have a horse in this particular tube amplification race, so bias is not a concern (no pun intended).
That's a very good question I have been pondering too.
Yes valves are another matter - look at Tommy Flowers opinion !!
@behexen250 don't know of many amps using preamp tubes as power tubes. Can you name a couple?
I did know of 20 watters using el34...
@behexen250 My 20w marshall uses 2 el34 power tubes.
If you are talking about tiny 1watt toy amps, they are essentially preamps with a speaker output. Like the pedals with a tube. Calling one tube in a two preamp gain stage a preamp and a power amp is misleading. If you only have one tube, is it a pre or power tube??
Calling an amp that creates almost no power, a power amp.... Hmmm
@behexen250 used as Amps. Not power amps. Power amps come after a preamp..
I can plug my headphones into the left side of a boss ds1. It will drive speakers. It's not a power amp.
Taking an amp and removing the power section, and then calling the last preamp tube a power tube, doesn't make it a power tube. That's all I'm saying
I have a pair of Audiolab 8000M 125 watt mono-block power amps, they have been on for almost 40 years, still sound amazing.
My dad was a electrical engineer and when I asked him this question he thought leaving it on was a complete waste of electricity. He also thought it would add to the wear of the electronics. I also asked A.P Vanmeter the head engineer at the old Phase Linear corporation also thought leaving stuff on all the time was a bad idea. These individuals are highly educated individuals. I think I'm going to go with what they say and turn off the electronics when not in use. Which make sense to me for it's the heat thats bad for electronics and I believe heat is accumulative in how it wears electronics. This being said I'm all about minamising the wear of my stereo equipment for it's very expensive to have it serviced.
It is a complex issue and the only real answer is, it depends. There's no one right or wrong that covers all use cases and situations.
Your wasting your time speaking science, logic, and sense. These guys go into an argument, knowing the answer, it’s whatever Herr trump , and the Republican Party tell them to think. They have NO room in their heads for truth!
@@54tristin shut the hell up
@Norm Macdonald Show Buy a power strip with a surge protector and a on/off tab. A good one will cost $30, but you gain 5+ inlets. :) It saves wear-and-tear on plugs and inlets.
www.monoprice.com/product?p_id=15874
@@54tristin Are you going to force your beliefs into every possible situation in life. Not every situation is that deep bro. Most of what we think has been indoctrinated into us from past "systems" or perceived "social norms" of what we are born into. Thinking that Trump or people that stand behind a publicly know party are the "end bosses" is laughable.
hi paul...I run all my equipment in my studio and my band...through a furman power conditioner....it keeps voltage surges away and keep my voltage correct everytime...during a practice session I let my equipment warm up...and in studio same thing...concert same....I ALWAYS TURN ALL EQUIPMENT OFF FOR SAFETY REASONS...BOTH THE FURMAN AND MIXER,KARAOKE,SUBS,TOPS,ETC...this is an investment so i take care of it very carefully and also cover all equipment...dust kills electronics... thats what i do...works for me...great video paul...
That would be a hefty electricity bill for all the class A guys. Even my 3 wpc tube receiver with single ended class A drains about 60 watts just sitting there doing nothing.
@Fat Rat Ever heard of solid state class A or what?? Yamaha even had that 40 years ago on a couple of amps, it's not a new thing
@Fat Rat So why do you mention tubes then? Class A uses a lot electricity, no what if it's tube or solid state
Thanks, Paul - these comments are something I've lived by since the 60's. 04:04 -"Every time that you flick on the power and plug something in, there's a surge of energy filling up the capacitors" - "Every time you do that you put a little bit of strain on those caps".
On a surge-related related note, I always unplug my phone from its car charger before starting the engine.
Accessory power is interrupted during cranking. So it's off while it's off if you do that.
and my fan/ac/heater and radio too!
I guess you don’t experience damaging lightning strikes and ugly power interruptions from the power company that threaten to destroy your precious gear.
I'm going to leave everything in my house on all the time. And I'm going to leave my speakers playing all the time.
Yes because this is the alternate reality of the twilight zone, where Tesla was revered for giving the world free energy & wifi, and Edison died destitute & forgotten in a crummy old hotel.
Fender musical instrument amps have had standby switches since the 1950s, or maybe earlier, as you'd probably know. Big amps full of 6L6 valves get pretty hot, as you'd also know, and are often left running where there's plenty of electrical interference to be picked up.
I disconnect things when lightning threatens. I lost things quicker to lightning than anything else
. Surge protectors don't always stop a direct hit
How about an UPS?
@@yuiksea4133 not absolute protection. But it may help unless there's a direct hit.
I disconnect my electronics just in case.
If you live where the relative humidity is high, leaving any kind equipment on when not in use will keep the interior warm and lower the relative humidity inside, making everything less likely to corrode, especially switch contacts and pot wipers.
If I had tube gear, I'd use a Variac to "soft start" and greatly reduce the surge shock to the components, just as you would do with a vintage radio from the 40's.
Soft starting old gear has to do with not blowing out capacitors that have become unformed over time. Google capacitor forming for more info about what that's all about.
Soft-starting solid state equipment has the same or greater value.
It isn't tubes that are harmed by inrush current, but rather capacitors and silicon rectifiers.
A soft start is a simple precharge circuit that lets the caps charge through a resistor. A relay removes the resistor when the caps are charged.
@@michaelx7341 Got it, thanks.
I agree completely! I always leave my living room receiver on as well as my main server... If I go out of town I eject and turnoff my RAID drives but leave the receiver on so the cats will have NPR to listen to while I'm gone. They're very smart, well-read cats and it would be cruel to deprave them of that...
Listening to NPR, they lost whatever wisdom they had.
I have been using PC's since the 1980's and I always leave them on 24/7
They are much more reliable
DigNap15 learned this at sea in us navy. Electronics are happier and last longer when not cycled.
I usually leave my computers on 24/7. Last year I went away for 2 weeks and decided to shut my my rig off. I left it plugged in and the monitors (2) attached and plugged in but in standby. That combination fried my video card. After 10 years of virtually 24/7 on, my system was done. Finding the particular video card has been an on going search.
Next time I will leave it on or unplug everything including power cords
Same. Nowadays with such advanced power saving technology you can use very minimal electricity even when leaving PC's on at all times
Side note, modern day electronics use a NTC Thermistor to Limit Inrush Current when the AC line is connected. But modern day electronics also use lead free solder and are not a fan of heating and cooling cycles.
After watching this, I looked down and magically my shoes turned brown.
...don't turn off your shoes...
Thanks Paul.
I’ve been leaving my solid state gear on for years - it’s always ready to make music 😁
The Florida lightning from thunderstorms would fry all that great equipment.
I live in South Florida, I know where you are coming from.
We should unplug our equipment or use surge protectors.
i imagine you have to deal with power outages on a regular basis then - that would justify purchasing a UPS that also has all the surge protection and stuff built in and - as a bonus - outputs a pure sine wave
@channel 9
Apparently, he has a sine wave one as his post suggests. You can buy a sine wave unit if you prefer as I have both types in my home.
@@KenjiUmino - lightning blows up Ups’s also. If you aren’t using it, turn it off and unplug it if really don’t want to repair it. South Fl storms are wicked.
Grounding and surge protection tho.
For several years I toured a chain of retail stores working on computers and network equipment which ran 24/7. In a high percentage of cases the equipment would not come back to life after a power down. Well, I had a heart problem that threw me out of rhythm and the doctor told me of a procedure called a Cardioversion. With this procedure, the doctors stop your heart and then restart it and many times this brings things back to normal. In my case it did and the fix lasted for a few years. Of course, I had to tell the doctor my experience with electronics and how a power down after many years of running seemed to cause death of the devices. I asked if he had seen the same thing with people and what percentage of hearts don't restart after stopping. The doctor told me that he only lost one patient in his career from the procedure.
Im still unplugging when electrical storms threaten ... lost 2 amps plugged in to circuit protection a few years back from that.
I have all my stuff hooked to one power conditioner so I can leave all my switches on and power everything on with my power conditioner so I don't wear out the switches but I don't leave it on I also don't have tube amps only newer crowns
I keep my gear off except for things that need 24/7 power. Modern electronics is stable enough to reach proper operating condition in at the most minutes. Tube stuff takes longer. One major disadvantage of leaving gear on is the exposure to line spikes. If the device is hard off, it can't be damaged except for a direct lightning hit. Unless you use your system over 12 hours per day it just doesn't make sense wasting the power and equipment life IMO. I have two UPS units in my HT. A 3kw for servers and a smaller 750w for house networking stuff and the dish receiver. The 3KW UPS only runs when I need it like when using the media servers. I shut the 3kw UPS completely down when not in use. Why? It's a true online double conversion unit. It consumes 300 watts with no load just sitting there. I don't want a 300 watt load on 24/7. That will add up. Yes I have solar but 300 watts is 300 watts. That's still 300 watts I produced the utility doesn't buy back. So the solar excuse doesn't fly either in most cases.
Capacitors are specced with the amount of hours they will run correctly at a given temperature. Leaving equipment on is ideal, so long as it's not roasting hot and the components are selected correctly.
My own experience is that there are definitely gains for the first two or three hours, then you're into diminishing returns. That said, when my Quad 57s are used in my speaker rotation, I have to keep those on as they need to stay charged to reach decent gain levels, optimum sonics etc. The argument about caps is moot, because over decades they would need changing anyway.
MrCatalysis101 “moot”
moot means something is worthy of discussion or debate. not sure how that squares with your statement.
I purchased a Stellar Gain Dac/preamp from you guys back in november. I have not shut the power down yet, I mean not even standby. I love that the LCD window goes dark, so I just leave it on all the time. Its a great preamp/dac, really enjoying it!
Leaving electrical devices on = FIRE HAZARD !
As long as the fire is inside the steel amp box and there is nothing flamable in reach of the amp, then i’m willing to take that risk. But it’s a waste of energy.
Please explain the fire hazard logic. Electrical appliances can catch on fire when plugged in, on or off.
@@matthewgaines10 Combustion requires oxygen so any fire in a sealed metal case would self-extinquish.
@@davidirvine4294 even the steel cabinets have plenty of vent holes. So no way it's self extinguishing. Yes it will mitigate it, but not extinguish due to lack of oxygen.
Once had a 16 channel Mackie mixer that we NEEDED to leave on because audio passed through it to a closed circuit tv channel that had been running for literally years. There came warning of an unusually serious storm, and we decided it’d be safe if everything was off and unplugged. Came back in after the weekend. Went to turn the Mackie back on. It never came back on again.
Don't turn off your equipment, how else can they monitor you then?
Ughh, I have the habit of unplugging electronics when I'm not home, especially for days at a time. I'm always afraid of voltage spikes and surges plus usage.
A few things to consider. Tube amps burn out quickly when being left on. Some equipment run at a high temperature that can accelerate wear out e.g. capacitors in a class A amplifier drying out. Your electric bill will go up when you leave your gear on. Then comes the entire issue of being responsible against climate change. The best equipment doesn’t need a long warm up time btw.
Wear n tear, temps, bills... yeah this sums up my response, no offense Paul.
ThinkingBetter you had me all the way up until you brought up that Climate Change BS.... pls Leave you political opinions to yourself, this a audiophile channel. Thank you...
@@spinmancorner7543 wait...
You mean 0.9 degree increase in the past 100yrs doesn't qualify ??
😆🤣😂🤣😆😆
Spinman Corner Climate change is a subject of science. A political party can be more or less supporting or rejecting science consensus. All conservative parties in the planet are supporting the science consensus on this matter...except one party heavily lobbied by the fossil fuel industry. You must be American and Republican. The consumer electronics industry has for many years been pursuing reducing standby power consumption due to regulatory requirements in civilized countries e.g. Energy Star in the USA.
poserwannabe Unfortunately the science is not with a linear slope but involves positive feedback loops causing progressively higher temperatures. Ignore the politics and study the actual science. A good place to start is here: skepticalscience.com
I know of a tube amp that was on 24/7 for over ten years with no tube changes. It sounded pretty good. Tube amps can benefit from a power supply that allows the filaments to be run at reduced voltage during standby. The idea is to keep the tubes heated, but not emitting.
there where no power outages in ten years?
@@willcollis4544 It was in a business in a town with very reliable power. I estimate the uptime was 99.99%.
I feel that the arguments he said were valid back in the 70s and 80s when he opened his shop but nowadays things have changed. The vacuum tubes had to come to proper temperature before they operate properly, that's why the amps sounded better when they were left on over time. Also, the problem with wearing the equipment down when turning it on and off was because of the fast transients that were created during that operation. Modern electronics have protection circuits from that i.e. www.electronics-tutorials.ws/power/transient-suppression.html
LeontariF1 Ginally a respectful comment disagreeing. Is it just the new equipment with those safety measures? Or the outlet? Because vintage stereos are very popular and mine is from the 80's.
The devices that you propose are useless against inrush that damage chems capacitors. Check out for an inrush limiting device
perhaps this that you speak of explains my experience with a certain device that I have constructed, a brief overview of which is as follows: an electric guitar signal is fed through a bunch of circuitry and then to a pair of MSD capacitive discharge Automotive ignition boxes, and then to a pair of "coil Towers" where the sound is produced by a pair of plasma arcs, that erupt in multiple colors (due to the presence of various metal salts) from a small flame, which is also colored by the metal salts. inside one of the coil towers is a GM HEI ignition coil while the other one contains 3 Toyota coils with their secondaries in series and their primaries in parallel. the MSD units use a pair of large PNP transistors... though their actual output is a large SCR chirping out a bunch of pulses from a capacitor, and the whole rig sounds better when it's warmed up for half an hour or so... as do I.
I would imagine (perhaps wrongly so) that the Transformers would not benefit from being warmed up... but the transistors? something sure seems to. peace man.
the only time a light bulb has ever failed on me was when I flipped the switch on
If you leave it on long enough it will fail. Otherwise you would only need one lightbulb for the rest of you're life.
Turning power off/on resets 1/f noise history, thermal stabilisation period (30 min warmup idling) is perfectly valid but another matter.
Most modern TV failures are dried caps in the standby section of the power supply, same with 'lifestyle' audio products.
My advice is to turn it all off at the wall when not in use, this extends lifetime and reduces EMR noise radiated by the house AC wiring.
In my house the only item on at night is the refrigerator, audio video and importantly WiFi modem/routers are all turned off overnight and I find I sleep better this way.
He is always answering questions when people mention , that they are using PS Audio equipment , or read his boring book .
Good luck to have your questions answered to people who have Technics , Yamaha , Macintosh , Parasound etc .
Finally, a human being!! Who believes in the real world!!! This Paul fool!! Believes in this "Snake-oil" BULLSHIT!! By the way, I've got a Yamaha a-s2100 Amplifier!! And I NEVER leave it on standby!! I've recently watched one of his video's, he was chatting about "Expensive" Cables!! He was saying, they matter!!! But, he wouldn't give a "Proper" reason!! 🤦♂️ Shocking, I know. 🤷♂️
very very useful information. Thanks !
🎧 📽 I Don't Think That I'll EVER Be Convinced That Leaving Audio, OR Video Equipment ON INDEFINITELY Would Be BETTER OVERALL, OVER Turning It OFF After Use. I Think That With The Increased Risk Of Power Surges & Lightning Strikes Alone Is Reason Enough To Just Turn Your Equipment ON Say, a 1/2 Hour, Or Hour BEFORE You Actually Intend On Using It Would Addresses BOTH SIDES Of This Argument? Besides, I Would Think That TODAY'S Audio & Video Gear Are BETTER SUITED For Quick Startup & Playback, & Are Better Equipped To Handle Playing When "Cold", And At Lower Volumes Too.
When I Think Of Gear That Really NEEDS To "Warm Up", I Believe It's The Older, Non Solid State Type Equipment With Components That Use Vacuum Tubes, Or, Of Course, Some Of The More Expensive Audiophile Type Equipment That's Sold Today, But People That Invest In Audiophile Style Equipment I'm Sure ALSO Purchased Good Power Conditioners To Protect Their Investments, And Allow Them To Just Leave This Kind Of Vintage Style Of Equipment ON All The Time Without Worrying That Something Bad Will Happen Leaving It ON.
THIS IS MY OPINION, ON THIS
GOOD & STILL RELEVANT TOPIC!
As a master electrician I will agree with you on the vacuum tubes. They need to be turned off to extend life as far as transistors are concerned. Turn them off to save on hydro. One monoblocks consume 100 watts on idle. Not doing a thing.! That's a transistor class a amplifier. Va uum tube consume even more doing nothing but running the heaters. Will keep your room Warm in the winter.! I used to have a huge 70s receiver that was a true 115w rms class a. And it would keep the bedroom warm in the winter with its lights and amplifier. It did sound better after 1hour of idle from stone COLD. wasn't always listening to music to enjoy performance but as back ground fill for studying. After work came play. From a to z whatever flavour came to mind, jazz, rock, classical you name it. Miss my La Scala and heresy.
Personally, I turn it off. But i make sure my tv, sound system, etc. Is put into standby mode first, before switching off the power. You will find most equipment will save this state. So when you switch it back on again, it will turn on in standby mode, instead of coming on immediately. I've found this a safer method in the long run.
While I agree that a constant state is better that on off surges, I have no idea what he means by “just sounds better”.
He prefer to tube equipment. These ancient equipment need to warm-up at least 1 hr before use. But then again he advised not to use this technique on tube. This is completely bs, not to mention he doesn't care about environment. Hopefully he does leave his car idle in the garage all night because it will accelerate better in the morning.
well you've ignored the most important aspect of the degrading of a capacitor (electrolytic), which is heat. makes caps dry out.
for example, the big 90ies neve vr recording consoles run so hot, all few years you have channels and sections go out all the time, they were maintenance monster.
the even more famous neve 80series consoles from the 70ies,even class a tough, run only a bit warm, after a recapping you have peace for 10-20years.
so yeah, depending on the ciruitry, the location and heat sourrounding the cap, the lifespan of a cap varies greatly
hey man, since you seem to be working with audio equipment, may I bother you with a question?
should I not turn off my Audio interface and monitoring speakers too?
@@aryanz66 you can easily turn them off anytime you want, they're built for that.
@@pongmaster123 and they won't break if I permanently leave them on?
@@aryanz66 they should not break. but a manufacturer can not do longterm testing when putting out a line of products, they have to rely on proven circuit designs.
@@pongmaster123 hmmmm. Thank you. I guess you're absolutely right. I've never had any of my pro equipment die as their lifespan ends. Consumer stuff tho, have had a few of that
I believe in statistical data rather than single cases. But... I bought a Sony TA-N77ES amp and TA-E77ESD preamp around 30 years ago. My policy has been to just leave them on unless I am going out of town for more than a week. So it has been on almost all of its life. I can't compare the sound to 30 years ago, but they still seem to work fine, except for the lights above the amp's meters blow out.
I feel like a 5yr old watching Mr Rodgers adult version listening to this guy
@Smattless lol the dumb one is you thinking I literally feel like a 5 yr old , if you don't get the joke you just proved the dumb one is you
"Let me tell you a little story" haha xD Great guy.
I dunno... I live in Florida, and prior to battery back up and power surge protectors... I was blissfully unaware of how many surges my household lines were receiving almost every day. I even unplug my battery backups when not in use...the surges wear them out as well.
After following this for the life of its introduction, it has help me make a decision. I LOVE MY NEW Parasound P6.
It depends on the environment. If you live in a very cold climate and its in an unheated room in the house, the temperature swings between off and running cause such expansion and contraction in the circuit boards it eventually causes issues. Im in san diego and our temperature extremes are not great so its moot.
I haven't turned my equipment off for probably 5 years I'm guessing, maybe longer, but I haven't listened to my system in that time either. : ( Anyway, I realized that and finally turned it all off a few months ago and saw my electric bill go down. : )
Wtf
The physics of this is very simple and applicable everywhere...
A car that does 10 trips of 100km vs a car that does 100 trips of 10km.....the second car would degrade faster... the number of times the engine starts and stop(heats up and then cools down..the metal and the oils and rubbers)..the number of times the car door opens and shuts...shorter journeys with cities vs longer journeys on inter-states it Auto-bahns..the city journey would require more use of brake per km than longer journey on interstates...
but there are exceptions like the life of the ‘tubes’ as the electrons from the cathodes start dwindling ..
The number of take-off and landings is an important count of a planes life and not just the kilometers covered ...
After years leaving your equipment on, you'll save on caps but your electric bill would have cost you much more. This doesn't add up.
@KC Thanks for actually watching the video. Bravo.
@Fat Rat Multiply this for thoushands of people doing the same...
I just knew about this channel tonight. Watched 2-3 videos and i've learned a lot. Thank you
Computers are different even when not in use they are doing housekeeping on hard drive etc, hope you have a firewall and VPN.
With computers you have a bootup process, long in screen, etc.. which makes shutting them down impractical. That's computers though. NOT audio equipment. To apply that to audio equipment would be a false equivalence.
As an ex computer guy I always tell people don't power off your computer because every time you power up a computer from dead off, there is a surge or power through the power supply and the system board and potential for failure is much greater. My Infinity IL50s have a powered sub and Infinity advised leave amp powered up and let it go into standby when the signal stops. I've had these speakers for 17 years and last year I had to repair one of the amps, not bad at all. I agree with Paul, leave your stuff on standby.