You guys are talking about two completely different things.
There will be a standard operating temperature for the environment in which the Amp is sitting, that’s what a manufacturer is going to quote to a user, because that’s what a user can control.
The Amp will be hotter than that, since it’s dissipating power as heat and will run above ambient temperature by some amount.
Jedi’s point is that people get worried about the actual temperature of the amp, and it’s in most cases completely safe, and in some very normal for amps to feel hot to the touch.
The manual on my OG Liquid Gold even states that it is normal for the amplifier to get hot to the touch and the volume knob to feel warm, it also requires you keep 10 inches above the amplifier clear for air circulation.
My Woo gets even hotter than the Cavali, as in uncomfortable to touch hot, but again it’s normal, and withing the oprating temperatures of the component.
Don’t block the vents on an amp (be careful stacking components on top of or next to each other if they have vents), don’t sit them on carpet where vents on the bottom would be blocked and in most cases there is nothing to worry about leaving them on.
I’t not 40C where I am, and that might push a particularly hot amp over some threshold since your starting 20C hotter, but amp designers really ought to have enough headroom high ambient temperatures don’t matter, though I’m sure some don’t.
It all depends on the specific component, I guess a few rules of thumb (for me at least) would be to keep non tube r2r dacs on, turn tube based electronics off when done with use (since I hate to burn tube life for no good reason). For myself I generally just leave my non tube line level components like dacs and preamps on, but leave most of the amps off since they suck too much power and I don’t need even more sources of heat in the summer (also from my experience amps tend to warm up quicker than dacs or preamps so I don’t mind turning them off for the night and back on in the morning if I want to use them again). Some components take some time to warm up and sound their best, some don’t, just depends, also depends on your personal values on energy consumption
The temperature of the components it’s a thing, the temperature of the ambient it’s another thing but they are correlated, an amp in an hot room will run hotter and in some case also too much if you leave it on. Once I had a good amp made in Japan an onkyo and I used it a long time without issue after I moved in a city that in the summer was really hot 35 degrees where really common during the day and when I left it on for a long time or I just used it for a long time the amp started to sound distorted probably because the components (MOSFETs) where overheating. Cause transistrors work how they should if they are in a middle temperature not too hot not too cold
Yes, I’ve always turned power amps off, mine are Tube based, but they suck 1000W out of the wall just by being powered on, so they’d get turned off either way.
I actually turn the Cavalli off even though it SS, but it’s more about convenience than worrying about leaving it on.
I guess I’ll just meet the solution in the middle and leave my Asgard 3 on during the weekends, since almost all my long-music-listening-sessions are done on the weekends, and leave it off during the weekdays. I do keep my Modius on all the time though, since it doesn’t have a power switch; so i guess it’s meant to be left on all the time.
Hello,
Yes, I always switch off my equipment when I know I’m done.
Most of the time I don’t know when I’ll be able to listen again, and then it can take a few weeks or just days, or it can go on the next day.
And with devices that have slots, I usually put a cloth over them after a few minutes to protect them from dust.
Another reason is that most Occ cables from cable manufacturers are not certified cables and can cause a cable fire, which does not necessarily have to be the case, but for insurance reasons can end up being my ass. That’s why I switch everything off.
Everything is regulated via the mains plug strip where I just press the switch.
When I switch on, I wait briefly until the mains stabilises because all the consumers are on standby at the first moment.
The first consumer I switch on is the PC, because it draws the most current, so the other devices don’t go down.
I also wait a short time until it has booted up, then I switch everything on one by one.
And then switch it off the other way round, the PC first and then the rest when I’m done.
After the warranty expires, I usually open the lid and clean off the dust that has accumulated with the air gun with little pressure.
I usually do this once a year, but for the PC it’s more like twice a year.
The main reason is that electricity is relatively expensive in Germany and you notice that on the bill at the end of the year.
But of course also to protect the devices somewhere.
Sometimes I’m not always at home and there can be thunderstorms, so I don’t need something like that if they’re broken afterwards.
@lafonte the question was “should I turn off my amps”. You got multiple replies saying “there’s no need”. You don’t like that answer. Ok then, turn them off. What’s the problem?
I expressed my opinion in that regard, maybe you have a problem with that and of course if you argue against my opinion with wrong statements like this
Ok, forget what I said and forget your opinion. Pull the top off your amp and see the temperature rating on the caps. Leave the top off and buy a temp reader. As you use the amp, measure the temp. If it’s less than the cap rating, you’re fine. If it’s more, shut it off. Then you’ll know 100% without a doubt what you should do. No more discussion needed. I mention the caps specifically instead of some other component because they’re usually the first thing to fail - so they are the “weak” link.
I directed the “fucks” to both myself and the other person though. So it was an insult to the convo rather than an individual. Anyway, point taken, my bad, I’ll be good.
I may be misconstruing what you’re doing but it seems to me that you’re just looking for a reason to not leave things “on”. So just shut them off. Problem solved.
To perhaps combine some things here, I agree with @lafonte that some components will not tolerate being in a warm environment well (although it has to be somewhat substantially warm), and do have a specific operating temperature they should try to be kept at that can be exceeded by leaving them on for too long, but I also agree with @A_Jedi that some components are built to a standard where they can be operated 24/7 without worry and leaving them on can be advantageous to the design, it all depends on the specific component, as @db_Cooper mentions asking the manufacturer and checking the manual can typically give you insight on what you may want to do and there’s no real right answer as it all depends on the specific component and your specific circumstances (like your environment, listening habits, personal beliefs on energy consumption, etc)
Some manufacturers will specifically suggest you leave it on 24/7 (some don’t even have a true power switch or make it hard to turn off the unit for this reason), others will tell you to make sure you only run their products for a specific amount of time to preserve life or optimum performance (like a duty cycle per se). Also leaving it always on can lead to more risk during things like a lightning strike or other power problems like a surge during a storm or other power work which I don’t think has been mentioned yet
So story time! Back in the 90’s we had CRT monitors for computers. The policy was to keep them turned on at all times and let the stand by circuit do their job. But why was this recommended?
If everyone the office came in and turned on their monitors at the same time, the building could brown out.
Mixing people turning off monitors and leaving them on lead to harder to predict life cycles of hardware.
The weird thing happened, if you left a lot of these monitors on all the time (different brands showed this) some of the monitors the few times a decade they were shot off and turned back on… Some monitors would fail and sometimes spectacularly.
M0N is correct in reading the manual of your equipment. But generally speaking, almost all headphone amps should be shut off when not in use. Class A headphone amps especially and running an amp without a load attached can cause failures over time (if you do leave it on, turn the volume all the way down).
Speaker amps however… The bigger they are the more you need to read the manual. Like the monitor story, if you tend to leave a big amp on, over time the steady state of stand by/lack of use will mean the capacitors will get a sort of memory and may have difficulty power cycling in the future. Turing off the amp when not in use is what I do with my dad’s amp from the 70’s and it still works great. So based on historical experience, if you leave an amp turned on all the time for year’s may cause weird issues power cycling later on. I’ve learned just shutting things off when not in use is always reliable, but change behaviors after a few years because that is when bad things happen.
bro