Keep the lights on

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Keep the lights on
My post Standby started an interesting dialog about the benefits and misgivings of leaving your equipment on for best sound. Warm up, burn in, sounding better over time is rife with controversy and opinions that are all over the map. In fact, the opinions are so diverse they equal those of what bears do in the woods, light bulbs do when the refrigerator is off and what trees do when they fall. Here's mine: with few exceptions such as tubes and amps that get extremely hot, leave the equipment on 24/7. There's a couple of reasons for this. Most electronics suffer more from the turn on/off process than they do being left on. The power surge coming into your equipment can many times be more damaging, over a very long period of time, than simply leaving it on. Further, unless you're burning a big hole in your electric bill with the kit on, there's almost no expense involved in doing so. Modern equipment is getting more efficient each year on standby or idle. New European regulations demand extremely low standby current and most equipment doesn't draw much out of the wall under any circumstance. Class A amps, tubes (in general) and anything that produces lots of heat should be avoided as these can have their effectives lives shortened from cooking the capacitorsto all manner of malady. The benefits of keeping the equipment on are many. There's no convincing me that kit that's been on and running for days on end doesn't sound better than a cold boot up of the gear. I would be so bold as to suggest if you disagree then you really haven't done much of an evaluation on a resolving system; but I know that ruffles feathers so I won't say that. Best advice I can give you. Keep the gear on. Keep the home fires burning. It's the easiest path towards better sound.
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Paul McGowan Paul McGowan

Founder & CEO

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