Nigel
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Post by Nigel on Dec 6, 2006 10:53:16 GMT
Hi,
The Chiarra amp is a class A design & I usually leave it permanently switched on. I rolled an op amp yesterday & was surprised how hot the four heatsinks were. Not dead hot or anything but I can't help thinking I'm wasting electricity.
Any thoughts?
I have always left my hi-fi equipment switched on to stop component damage at switch on & for optimum sound quality but with class A amps, even small one's I guess there's a lot of power on idle.
Cheers,
Nigel
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Post by PinkFloyd on Dec 6, 2006 13:20:00 GMT
Hi, The Chiarra amp is a class A design & I usually leave it permanently switched on. I rolled an op amp yesterday & was surprised how hot the four heatsinks were. Not dead hot or anything but I can't help thinking I'm wasting electricity. Any thoughts? I have always left my hi-fi equipment switched on to stop component damage at switch on & for optimum sound quality but with class A amps, even small one's I guess there's a lot of power on idle. Cheers, Nigel Hi Nigel, Electricity prices sure have gone up lately, according to Jeremy Vine on Radio 2 they have actually doubled in the past 4 years, so saving electricity (by not using it / not being able to afford it) has become a lot more important to a lot more people and things like "power consumption" actually mean something in today's pay as you burn society. I've never been a great advocate of leaving gear powered up 24/7 365 anyway, especially solid state gear, I mean it shortens the in tolerance lifespan of your capacitors (especially if they are populated close to hot components) It really only takes about 30 minutes after switch on for everything to heat up anyway so probably cheaper, in the long run, to power up and power down only when you're listening to your music. Once your caps stop leaking and stabilise that's you good to go, so, 20 / 30 minutes warm up is all you need each time. I don't know about "component damage at switch on" Nigel, I've been switching amps on and off for years and have never had one go bang on me yet (touchwood!) Nobody should be to frightened to switch something on and off in case it damages it, what the hell use would that be in the real world?.......... Nah, just use it when you need it man it's a lot more robust than you're led to believe Talking about electricity my quarterly bill was £376.14. Considering that I don't have electric heating that's pretty damned expensive! Heating is courtesy of an oil fired central heating system (£260 to fill the tank and apparantly that'll last all winter) I've got a couple of open fireplaces where I burn logs (from trees I've chopped down) to supplement the oil powered system so really all that's being paid for is the quartely electricity bill and the annual £260 (dependant on oil prices) oil drop into the outside oil tank. Thank god there's no gas in the house..... a good time to go solar powered I think.
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rickcr42
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Post by rickcr42 on Dec 6, 2006 14:59:35 GMT
I use a "system" power switch that has multiple mains outlets for one touch on/off but it also has a bank of unswitched outlets for low level solid state gear or gear that NEEDS to be left on at all times (CD Players,DVD PLayers,anything with user programmed operation or a clock).On this section are all my non tube headphone amps except the Szekeres,all my non tube DACs, and any opamp based audio gear.
There IS a warm up time for ALL audio gear before it will sound its best (not conjecture,proven out ) with tubes taking the longest followed by Class-A solid state so anything i can leave on I do if it does not go to expensive (tube life,power hungry) to avoid the warm up time so it sounds up front the way it will 1/2 hour later
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Post by PinkFloyd on Dec 6, 2006 15:01:55 GMT
What do you think of the on / off damages components hype that some people punt out Rick?
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xerxes
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Post by xerxes on Dec 6, 2006 18:24:35 GMT
I used to leave things on/on standby, but given concerns for energy wastage and carbon emissions I now switch everything off completely, except my PVR (hard drive freeview box/recorder) and my little Denon CD player/receiver, which is getting cranky, I only get one channel for 10 or so minutes after it's been switched off at the mains.
Things that don't have a proper on-off I switch off or unplug at the mains. I've been doing this for a while now and so far, flakey Denon aside, no problems. I don't think I can hear much difference with my main Hi-Fi either, which seems to settle down after a few minutes.
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rickcr42
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Post by rickcr42 on Dec 6, 2006 23:25:26 GMT
all bullshit dude unless the power supply is a very bad design,something you see more from the DIY crowd or the DIY4Profit crew than from any responsible manufacturer who must make good on gear destroyed from turn on surges. the main culprit in DIY being enough capacitor joules to light up a small cottage folllwing a whimpy ass 1A bridge recitfier with no surge protection resistors (or thermistors ) to slow the rate of charge. Flip the switch to "on" WHOOOOOOOOOMFull capacitor bank suck instanly ! sometimes followed by "hey ! What happened to the damn LED ? was on a minute ago ?? " even when it does not actually wreck the rectifiers it WILL over time make them noisy due to the constant stress,someting solid state does not do well with and will go marginal (noisy) WAY before actually going dark
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rickcr42
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Post by rickcr42 on Dec 6, 2006 23:28:08 GMT
If you had SE triode gear of PURE Class-A solid state gear you would notice an obvious difference between start up and 1/2 hour later.It is my habit to turn everything on then go do something for a half hour before actually listening of the initial sonics may just be bad enough to totally turn me away from a listening sesssion
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Nigel
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Post by Nigel on Dec 7, 2006 2:12:59 GMT
Hi
I was under the (mis) impression that most of the wear on electronic components occurs during switching on. The state of change from being off, then on. Likewise, a lightbulb always seems to blow at the point during turn on.
Cheers,
Nigel
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rickcr42
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Rest in peace my good friend.
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Post by rickcr42 on Dec 7, 2006 2:29:00 GMT
the "cold to hot" of the filament is very stessful and why bulbs have a very defined life span UNLESS you use a "bulb saver" which is inserted in the light bulb socket so it is in between the bulb and socket and that provides a more gentle turn on due to it being a thermistor. A thermistor has a "hot resistance" and a "cold resistance" so when first turned on presents a high resistance between the voltage and the bulb hence reducing it but as the thermistor heats the resistance lowers so as it heats more voltage passes and the bulb gets brighter until it reaches the 0 Ohms/Full line voltage point thus becoming invisible
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Nigel
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Post by Nigel on Dec 31, 2006 2:04:42 GMT
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rickcr42
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Post by rickcr42 on Dec 31, 2006 5:07:32 GMT
yes it is and i do agree with much of it but this statement is not exactly correct
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.
it is not so much as dissapating as heat all energy not used for reproducing music as much as it is pure Class-A is at full throttle all the time no matter if there is a signal at the input,if the signal is a low one or if full volume because class-A runs full power wide open from the time you hit the "on" switch to the time you turn it off with there being no in between period.
Class-a just moves the signal along as it apears at the inputs while all other classes of amplification have to respond to the signal (wake up) before passing it along with the only reason ALL amplifiers not being pure class-a is cost.
cost to build,cost to purchase,cost to operate
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Post by seroxatmad on Jan 16, 2007 15:22:00 GMT
Hi all
My mission cryus 1 integrated amplifier is 20 years old this year!
The PSU and preamp are always on if switched on at the wall. (Which it always has been). Has it lasted because of this i cant really say.
The switch on the front just switchs the power amp part on, or so i am sure i read years ago - coud be wrong but either way its 20 years old and people still coment on its sound quality esp timing and detail.
Saying that these are people that would pay £99 quid at argos for a "hi-fi" or £59 in ASDA, but even so I paid £140 20 years ago so i'm happy.
As far as the envioroment-well all these fancy LCD/plasma T.v's use more power than CRT, include all the free view boxes etc etc, road lighting thats on over night, so i dont worry about it, if i was i wont have 60w of water pump and filter going 24/7 for my garden pond!
John
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rickcr42
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Rest in peace my good friend.
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Post by rickcr42 on Jan 16, 2007 23:54:03 GMT
that would actually make a great deal of sence.Very much in the "I leave my preamps on but turn off my amps when I'm not using them" mold and a common practice with solid state gear.With the advent of all these Class-D/T-Amps I expect all that to eventually change to "on all the time" due to the highly efficient mode of operation...not that I would ever own one
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Sol
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Post by Sol on Jan 17, 2007 16:51:57 GMT
Hi all My mission cryus 1 integrated amplifier is 20 years old this year! The PSU and preamp are always on if switched on at the wall. (Which it always has been). Has it lasted because of this i cant really say. My Cyrus 2 and PSXR were about 10 year permenantly on, except for the occasion house change. In that time I only probabnly unplugges it about 5 times at a guess.
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