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Gear in

I run all solid state gear. When not in use, I leave my pre-amp on and muted 24/7. My CDP and mono power amps all have a stand-by mode that I keep them in when I am not listening.

Though when in stand-by, the sections that affect the sound are kept warm, I am convinced that my system still sounds better after it has been playing for 30 minutes or more...better frequency extension, warmer-more natural mids, better dynamics and overall synergy/realism.

Has anyone else found that keeping their idle SS gear in stand-by mode doesn't keep their gear at 100% performance and it does improve as it "warms up" ?
barrelchief

Showing 3 responses by marakanetz

marakanetz's avatar
marakanetz
5,473 posts
 
In general, Ohm's Law is valid only in 293K temperature and so all of the values of wires, resistors, capacitors and other passive or active elements are specified.

Amplification components run at slightly higher temperatures and as they're supposed to be designed to.
For the best performance the components should rich that best operating temperature.

99% of what's happening after 30min of playing is an additional worm-up of equipment through the signal path.

Please note that very often designer might not test and calculate values of the component for the maximum operating temperatures as I'd say in AVR-s or complexed integrated amplifiers)throughout its whole area and elements location and the benefit you're now experiencing with your components might not apply in that case.
marakanetz's avatar
marakanetz
5,473 posts
 
Albert,
If DC offsets are turned off in stand-by mode from the output devices than I see less sence leaving an amplifier on all the time.
The 75% of wormup time takes to establish DC offsets and getting an output devices to the higher temperature. Shutting off DC supply from output devices means leaving them cool.
I implemented stand-by mode simply by embedding 50W/10Ohm dummy load resistor and extra signal binding post with two-way switch.
marakanetz's avatar
marakanetz
5,473 posts
 
Albert,

In fact I stated basing on Rcprince first responce as his amplifier has only the input stage powered no DC to the output stage during stand-by.

Any sence running it 24/7 in that case on stand-by or I guess the best way to leave it COMPLETELY on.

In my case with tube amps I must wait minimum of 20min untill >4kuf of main filter caps "fills-in". I made a measurement test of plate voltage and figured that it shows 510V almost instantly but than increases to its nominal 530V only after 20min!

In case with SS the heatsinks must also worm-up and that takes much longer than for toobz and I guess much longer than half hour until it gets its proper quiescent DC current offsets.

I run my STAX SS headphone driver SRM1 24/7 since it plays to its full potential only if it works as local heater. The sound improves more exactly as author stated after 20...30min of signal operation. Anyone wonders for headphone amp running hot huh?
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