Gear in

Make sense Marakanetz. I think most of us hear the changes but don't understand why. I think between Sean and you and I, we've discussed most of them.

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?

Marakenetz, my reply was directed at the comments by Sean. However, even if your electronics are left on 24 hours a day, UNTIL music passes through all the capacitors, interconnects, speaker cables and connectors (and don't forget phono cartridge warm up for us analog guys), the sound will not be 100%.

This is absolutely true for my system, it requires music to make it right. Minimum thirty minutes and better still after a couple of hours. Even when everything has been powered up for 24 hours continuously.

This was true for the ProAc Future Ones I ran while my Ultimates were being rebuilt, so this experience is not exclusive to the Soundlabs or electrostatic speaker design.

If you have not experienced this, then I would attribute it differences in systems or differences in our sensitivity to the break in phenomenon. I was told by Steve McCormack that I am the more sensitive to "break in" than any person he's ever met. At one time, he and I shipped equipment back and forth, evaluating part swaps to confirm upgrade paths.

I am responsible for calling a bad cap choice in the Counterpoint (SA-9) Magnum, which ultimately improved the extreme deep bass frequencies.

Later, when the Aesthetix Io went into production, I was given the opportunity to evaluate it. I identified an EQ error in the RIAA, without any tools, just knew it was wrong from listening.

Jim, the owner of Aesthetix is still amused by this when the subject comes up. Some of us are ultra sensitive to these things, and I don't claim to have special hearing. It's just a sensitivity that developed on it's own from long term listening.

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.

Regardless of the individual drivers, the caps, wire, inductors and all the interconnect cable benefit from a little music passing through them.

I have owned many cone speaker systems and they always improved with signal. Anywhere from forty five minutes to a couple of hours, depending on the equipment I was using at that time.

Albert: Most dynamic speakers will perform worse as they heat up. This is both measurable and audible and may be one of the reasons that drivers that are highly efficient can sound better in some respects i.e. they don't need as much power so they don't heat up as much. On the other hand, E-stat's tend to sound noticeably better after you've powered them up and fed them some juice for a while. Sean
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Agree with all the above and add that your source, interconnects and especially your speakers benefit from the warm up period as well.

Absolutely! Idle does not keep your system at 100%. Most likely as in my amps, idle doesn't allow current to run to the output transistors thus saving power and heat.

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.

I'm no expert, but my Sonogy amps have a standby setting where the input stage is powered continuously but the output stage is not. It therefor takes about 30 minutes for them to sound their best as well, as the output stage still has to warm up. Possible that's happening in your case?