If you’re not actually hearing a negative impact in sound/presentation with your ears: don’t let it bother your head. iow: Relax and enjoy! |
Anyone who uses AC in their home is destroying their sound. ;) |
no doubt heat is an enemy of components and most mechanical and electrical devices
but introducing another motorized component to drive and power fan cooling also has negatives in noise and vibration
guess all in all ymmv... |
How does AC destroy your sound, exactly? So far I've noticed only improved sound. Plus, I run all components through a Monster Component Power Conditioner, and I can tell you there is no hum, hiss, or anything else, even at high volumes... in musical pauses. My only question is if I should let the temperature get higher than the 77 degrees I have it set on? Thanks for any input! |
Relax, its just the normal lack of reading comprehension. People can't read, don't get that AC Infinity is a name, they think its air conditioning, then one after another misconstrues until its one big mess. Welcome to A'gon, short for the agony of audio.
Coolers are really only useful if the thing is getting hot to the touch, and even then only when its long and often. Otherwise you can bet your unit has thermal shutdown and will be fine. 77 degrees is practically refrigerated and beyond overkill.
Next question, longevity. Heat itself, as long as its not excessive thermal shutdown level heat, is not the problem. The bigger problem is thermal expansion/compression cycles. This together with good old fashioned oxidation is where most wear comes from. So if you want it to last a long time the answer is simply leave it on.
Finally there is sound quality. Being a receiver there isn't much, but what there is will certainly be helped by leaving it on all the time. What will happen is the sound quality will improve very slowly and gradually over time and you won't notice any difference. But you will get used to it. Then one day you turn everything off, and when you turn it back on guess what? You will notice its a lot worse! So there was a difference after all, it was just hard to notice because it was so slow and gradual.
Power cords and conditioners are similar, by the way. The noise they remove was never there in the sense of anything obvious you could hear and point to, like static or hum. Instead the noise is so woven into the fabric of the music it doesn't seem like noise at all- until its gone. Just like leaving things on 24/7 didn't seem to improve anything- until it was gone.
We now return you to our regularly scheduled program.
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Why do people continue to ask questions that only they can answer? Try listening to your system and make a determination for yourself. You expect strangers to know what you hear? Some may be based upon logic or myth. When it comes to audio and synergies the variables can be endless and no two identical systems will ever sound the same in different environments. All you will be receiving is others opinions which are worth what you paid for them. Trust your own ears. |
The only components that suffer from the heat are electrolytic caps (they dry-out). As for the performance - hot electrolytic caps have higher ESR, hot bipolar transistors are faster while hot FET transistors are slower. It is hard to make any sense of it, but warming gear up and keeping it warm lowers temp. gradients (always good). Lowering temp. from hot to warm with forced air is OK, IMHO. It will extend life of electrolytic caps. Their life will double for each 10degC temp drop. Slow uniform air flow should be the best (any forced air speed is better than convection cooling). |
tom6897,
Oh I do trust my golden ears, you have no idea. As I stated in a reply, there is no hum or hiss or anything else in the form of noise. There is amazing, beautiful musical sound that I very much enjoy, my question was rather simple, would a system perform better warmer or cooler based on the readers experiences, or at a certain temperature, period. I know what I hear, I'm simply asking what do YOU hear differently, if anything when a component is warmer or cooler? Don't get it twisted. |
In my mind, equipment doesn't need to warm up so much as reach stability. Worst case is you make this take a little longer, while trading longer equipment life.
As others have said, heat is the enemy of a lot of components, especially capacitors.
If you are using a component in any sort of enclosure, I would recommend lots of cooling, as well as making sure that you don't just recirculate hot air inside it.
If your gear lives in an open rack, the most I'd suggest is maybe adding tall feet to elevate the component to ensure it gets fed plenty of cool air.
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In my experience most receivers don't get hot to the point of needing cooling but if you have it in a very enclosed environment yes cooling might be needed. If you would've listed your receiver model (big fat really doesn't provide much info) and maybe how is it positioned and installed we could provide some more data. Assuming a regular home environment I would say cooling is not needed and the receiver would be best without it.
The only piece of equipment ever I had need to cool is a 6C33C-B amp basically to extend the caps life.
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IMO from what I have read it is not so much the heat that will degrade the unit as much as the heating cooling cycle. This is why most high end manufacturers recommend you keep your equipment on all the time. They use components that are designed to handle high temperatures. Where those components start to fail is when they are put through constant heating cooling cycles (on off on off). This will cause expansion and contraction that will lead to failure. Example I run my old Sansui 70/70 in my wife’s business it has not been turned off for 28 years except for blowing out dust and is still running strong. I do not see an issue with your situation as you are still maintaining constant temperatures. As for the sound trust your ears and don’t over think.
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i hear better sound quality when my amplification gear - tube or ss - warms up, usually from 10 to 30 min in
we are talking about hegel, van alstine, odyssey, ayre ss gear, as well as cj, arc, pl, air tight tube gear
that been said, i am careful to keep hot running tube amps cool and air circulating... use quiet fans to move the air past the power tubes e.g. 8x kt88 kt120 etc etc... i am pretty convinced (as is ARC) that letting these high power tubes run cooler makes them last longer |
For those who don't understand, the winking smiley face means it's a joke, not serious. |
1) Leave your equipment ON 24/7. At least try it! Cost me <$1/mo.
Do you really think that amp is going to “burn out” before you do?!!
2) Use fans or coolers ONLY if the piece is very hot to touch. (solid state NOT tubes.)
3) Aim any cooling airstream AWAY from the gear not AT it. Don’t blow the hot air back onto the tubes/circuits.
4) Use extra caution with cabinets/enclosures and component stacking.
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Let's try this again:
Live in Alaska and keep the windows open! ;)
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I have tube gear and i would NEVER use a fan on my tubes, because of micro cracks in the glass. |
Micro cracks in the glass. And I thought I'd heard everything.
The hotter a piece gets the more likely you will destroy your bank account by leaving it on. Amplifiers should always be turned off. I have a friend who always left his system on. His house got hit by lightening, blew his amp and destroyed his Wilsons. Worse, he did not have replacement value insurance so they prorated his stuff. He has been downsized to Vandersteens. If the amp had been off the Wilson's would have been just fine. |
