Leave it on?


I just listened to Paul McGowan explain that turning SS equipment on and off degrades the capacitors from the tiny power surge and that leaving SS equipment on ALL THE TIME is best. What do you do? 

maprik

Showing 2 responses by mitch2

@baylinor 

Turning off every piece of equipment that has an on and off feature in front of the unit and always leaving on the ones that only have a on and off function on the back of the unit. 

What if your amps don’t even have an on/off switch, just an IEC?!  I just leave them powered up all the time.  SMc Audio now uses thermal-magnetic switches (think Swiss Digital Fuse Box) that serves the purposes of both equipment protection (i.e., fuse) and on/off switch.  After sourcing two of them from SMc, I mounted them in-line, in the wall, one for each amp and replaced the line fuses in both amps with copper rod.  At least I can now turn the amps on/off without unplugging them.

For the past 10 years or so, I have been content to have all solid state equipment that I can leave powered up all the time.  It has been a change for me to now have a DAC with tubes that I need to remember to power down.  Even though it seems to take less than an hour to sound its best, my sporadic listening schedule (I often don’t know when or if I will have time to listen each day) makes it more difficult to have equipment that requires some forethought and warm up. 

I do unplug everything when thunderstorms are eminent (seems too often lately) and when I am going to be away from home more than a day or two.  I also occasionally power down my digital chain (server/streamer/DAC) as suggested by @grannyring and seconded by @mikelavigne but I was previously unaware of the Roon clear cache button, so I will also try that. 

@thecarpathian 

"Do you hear any appreciable difference with your thermal magnetic switches in?"

The only physical changes were adding a thermal magnetic switch in the wall to the hot wire feeding each amp, and then removing the (pretty good - recent SR color) fuse installed by SMc Audio and replacing it with a1/4-inch, 99.9 percent copper rod that was burnished smooth.

To your question, no, I do not hear any appreciable differences that I would reliably attribute to changing out the fuse for a thermal magnetic switch.  I am not surprised.  However, I do get to turn my amps off without unplugging them or turning off the breaker at the main electrical panel so I am happy with the win.