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Warm Up Time/Cost of Operation

When I have solid state gear I will leave it on 24/7. For amplifiers this was no big deal and with certain amps previously I could hear the differences between a cold start up and 3 days of power up. 

A year ago I bought a pair of Classe Omega monoblocks. A bit ago the wife was commenting on our electrical bill. I could not find online specs for power consumption but this morning I located the manual.

Consumption is listed at 706 watts. I assume this is per amp and hourly consumption. Electricity here is 12.6 cents per KWH. A calculator shows the cost of 24/7 on ad being $126 a month. 

It's a bit wasteful to idle like that so I am planning on switching off moving forward. But I am wondering what should my plan be moving forward.

 Thinking I will turn them on when listening in the morning casually, shut them off while at work, turn them on when I get back, and shut off when I go to bed. 

Anyone have experiences running big amps like mine in this manner? Thoughts and experiences are greatly appreciated. 

neonknight
newbee
4,751 posts
 

Good plan I think. Problem with running big amps 24/7 is the heat they produce can cause degradation to the amp's parts causing early failure etc.

designsfx
787 posts
 

If I put new tubes in my amp I’ll let it run for the day just to let things settle in before rechecking the bias. I’ll leave my tube dac on during the day if I’m running in a new set of tubes (which can be frequent). I never leave my tube gear on if I’m away from the house. I usually power up a half hour to an hour before listening and listen on an average of 3-4 hrs per night (sometimes during the day as well). I always power everything off when leaving the room at the end of the day. Compared to the cost of having two AC units going I’ve always considered the cost of running the audio gear to be trivial.

fuzztone's avatar
fuzztone
5,505 posts
 

Can you hear a difference or is it just infernal bias?

If you are the least concerned with wasting electrical energy I recommend a Kill A Watt. All other methods of calculus are merely guessing.

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