For well over the past 20 years now, I leave my system on 24/7. Music is always playing, even during the night when everyone is asleep and during the day when everyone is at work. The PC on the other end of the house that I have running Roon Core obviously also runs 24/7 as well.
The only thing in the system that gets turned on and off from time to time are the tubes. Thanks to the Schiit Freya+, it allows me to keep the system up and running without burning up tubes. The tubes come on Friday evenings when I get home from work and stay on until Sunday evening before going to work on Monday’s.
Also, I keep my stack of cassette decks turned off when not in use. There’s no need to keep those capstan motors running for no reason. Likewise with the turntable when I was using one. Essentially, anything with motors.
The only time the entire system gets shut down for any period of time is when there’s a thunderstorm rolling through. Other than that, when I swap out a piece of gear, only that piece gets shut down, which happens maybe every two to three years.
And over these past 20+ years, I have never had a single issue with any piece of equipment in my system.
If we really go back in time, we might have to add that 20-30-40 years ago, some of the inner workings were of a high quality and that is why the devices still work today and perhaps only need minor repairs.
And also because the devices were really tested for longevity.
But that will change in the next few years, often only prototypes are built, adapted and go into production.
More parts are being used that are not as high quality as they used to be,chips,electrolytic capacitors,resistors are now even more filigree,and they are also machine-made,so that people can no longer repair them because they have become smaller.
There is also much less testing for reliability and longevity.
Electronics often need a certain temperature to work optimally.
Due to the size of the components, this is often no longer guaranteed.
That’s why many things no longer leak but harden, which is just as bad for the electronics.
Speaking purely from a physical point of view.
Apart from that, if you know that you won’t be using the devices for a while, all you can say is do something for the environment, don’t stuff your money down your electricity provider’s throat unnecessarily. All these ecological things.
In addition, you will enjoy the appliance more if it has lasted 10 years instead of 2-3 years +.
It is also easy on your wallet.
What is 1000$/€ calculated over 10-15 years?
100$/€ per year in terms of investment.
And it encourages less of a throwaway society in the end.
Just the plastic waste that is produced every day, the country leaves, the country enters, and so on.
We won’t feel it too much but our descendants will, philosophically speaking.
Its not that complicated, people want to be able to turn something completely off with ease, hence a power button. Same reason why restart buttons on computers are a thing at the consumer level. It’s a lot of layers of “look we have” for decades and all those layers became commercial standard.
Edit: Its so you don’t need to go to the wall and unplug it. Simple as that. People hate that. People also hate thinking that their power is being drained behind their backs and costing them money.
Also an easy way for a normie to reboot if it freezes.
At the consumer level yes. If you go higher, things are different…as are the prices. But everyone wants that $100 giant slayer amp. You get what you pay for. Buy a Pass Labs or many other high end manufacturers and enjoy for 30 years. After that, spend a several hundred dollars to replace the caps and enjoy for another decade or two.
Quality hasn’t gone away. But quality costs what it used to cost. What’s changed is that everyone wants cheap. Can’t have cheap quality.
Today I learned! I always thought it was Class D for some reason.
So my AVR doesn’t sound “smooth” because it’s shitty Class D, it’s smooth because it’s class AB!
At last, I’m going to keep doing what I have been doing with something new in mind: turning things off when I’m not going to use them for a period of time and avoiding turning things on and off in short periods of time.
I would say that my biggest concern was thermal cycles since I didn’t know how big of an impact it had overall. It was funny (and mildly worrying at first) to read about hot environments and how my current place checks for that “really hot place” (read 35 degrees as hot, ‘little giggles come out while looking at my two AC industrial units in the same room’). So I would check optimal temperatures for the gear I have and I will keep a close eye on those when using them on hot seasons.
Thank you all for your time replying to this thread
