Does anyone leave their amp and preamp on all the time?


I listen most nights after work. I find that the system takes a while to warm up and sounds it's best if it has been shut off. So I leave it on. I always have and this is vintage stuff. The amp is a 25/25 Bedini class A. It stays warm but never hot. It has never caused an issue but recently I've been speaking with others that were stunned that I would do this. So let me know if I'm the only one that lets it run. Do you shut off the equipment after each session?
vinylfan62

Showing 2 responses by fleschler

All tube pre-amps and amps in my main listening room and living room systems are never left on when I'm not in the room.  Tubes are too precious to burn up, the power draw is high on the amps but they run cool which is a good thing. 

However, both video systems use a Yamaha CR 620 receivers which are left on 24/7 and have lasted a decade without incident.  They draw less power and are also quite cool running.
My big 125 watt tube amps have a 45 second warm up.  Once on, they take about 20 minutes to reach maximum set bias.  Although they run cool enough to put your hand on the transformers (Class A/B), the tubes only last 2500 hours.  So, I do not want to run them full time or pay for the excess power used (I do have solar covering most of the year except the summer when a 9000KV system just isn't enough in inland SoCal).  I leave on my Bryston BIT20 isolation transformer all the time as it uses nominal power when no load is asking for power.  I used to leave my EAR 324 phono stage (solid state) on all the time as well but have switched to a tube phono stage.