How warming up works

yaowenxun

How warming up works
How many times have you turned on a light only to get a brief flicker, a sudden 'ping' and then nothing? Lightbulbs almost always fail when they're switched on, and there's a good case for saying that constant on/off cycles cause them to fail much more quickly. The same's true with hi-fi systems.

It's best to keep your hi-fi on all the time - most of the failures we've encountered (although failures in general are rare) have happened when turning the system on. Meanwhile we have amps and other components that have been left powered up for years without a single problem arising. It's all about heat - most electronics are happier when running in a steady thermal state rather than undergoing endless hot/cold cycles. Just like a lightbulb, in fact.

OK, so we were all brought up on that old belief that before going to bed we should unplug everything possible. Back in the good old days when the TV actually closed down at night the announcer would tell us to do just that after wishing us 'a very good night from all of us here at Television Centre'.

But with a very few exceptions, there's really no need to do that any more: switching a TV to 'standby' should be more than sufficient. And most hi-fi components either have just such a standby system, or can be left on all the time.

The sonic advantage is that the system is always at operating temperature, ready for you to listen whenever you want. If you fire up the system up from cold, in most cases you'll endure an hour or so of steely hardness before things start to sound right. And that's why manufacturers like Arcam design their CD players, for example, so that even in standby mode the audio circuits are kept warmed up and ready to go.

So what shouldn't you leave on? Well, although they're more prone to that ageing brought about by thermal cycling we'd have our doubts about leaving most valve amps powered up and unattended, simply due to the heat they generate. The same goes for Class A amps which dissipate as heat all the energy they're not using to play music, and thus run very hot indeed when idling.

You should also switch off the system if you're going to be away for a long time, for example on holiday. Unplugging aerials in case of thunderstorms, especially if you live somewhere high and isolated, is another sensible move if the system is to be left unattended for some time.

But beyond that our advice would be to leave everything on all the time - even powerful amps use minimal power when on but not working, while most CD players will only use a unit or so of electricity a week.

It'll cost you pennies, save you time when you want to listen and could even extend the life of the components that make up your system. What more reason do you need to stay turned on all the time?


[em06][em06][em06][em06][em06][em06][em06][em06][em06][em06]