How long should amps/cd players take to warm up?

I don't think its meant to be so much the electrons hat don't like the cold. In fact they like it COOOOOLD.. get them cold enough and the way they move around/ conduct in the metal changes significantly.

Anyway.. Rather, its the chemical components like capacitors and the physical things like the opamps and transformers... The meterials they are made of takes a time to reach a steady temperature and stop expanding/contracting.

This is one of the theories in why you should leave a computer on all the time. When the chips cool down and heat up the silicon and copper inside expand and contract causing the pathways to break eventually.

 

My DAC and transport as well as my Krell ampl and Klyne phono stage are on all the time.
I just turn on my valve pre-amplifier and amplifiers and then I'm ready to listen. Oh not quite, my TT needs a while before it runs stable since it works with a battery (meanwhile I listen to CDs or prepare myself something to eat).

I don't hear any difference after 3-4 minutes or 10 hours or let's say I never noticed any. It must be the poor quality of my equipments or my ears.
You know I listen to the music so loud that I don't even hear the phone ringing at half a meter from me so don't worry if I don't hear any sound improvement after 10 hours...

 

Agree with you about pc's. But we are discussing electronics affecting sound.

So with all this expansion/contraction goin on, why is it from a cold start the sound supposedly is thin and lacking. So does that mean certain freq are being eq'd until warm up happens?

Funny, that cold materials makes thin, lacking sound.
AKA as hard ("cold") supports = hard sound
It's the metaphors used that intrique me

ps. Sorry Tenson, you probably do know what u are talking about, unlike me

 

Haha.. I don't exactly know what I'm talking about..

I agree it is interesting how cold tends to sound thin and tinny and warm sounds.. well warmer.

I would suggest that the reason for this is low frequencies have a greater voltage swing and so are affected more by the lacking performance of cold capacitors and un-even behaviour of the opamps and other chips.

Just an idea..

 

My AAA5 and Genki take about one cd to warm up and my Bryston power about an hour. I do tend to leave them switched on unless there is a thunder storm. When I had Naim gear, I would switch it on and wait about six years for it to come on song.

Rod

 

Conductivity of metals is of course higher at lower temperatures (as opposed to semiconductors where you need thermal energy to bridge the band gap).

I couldn't say I've ever noticed a warm-up difference, but then you knew that already didn't you

 

...and that's the reason why my gear never gets turned off either...

The MD and DAB tuner have "soft" power buttons though, so I assume the DAC stages are on all the time and so I turn them off on the front panel.

Both my Rega Planet, Pioneer PDR609, and Naim CD5 take more than a day to really warm up; the Rega actually takes longer than the Naim.

The NAIT amp on the other hand, took about a week to warm up!

 

Some very interesting comments

Since picking up the Sugden last week, it's not been turned off. It's odd that the sounds being produced have not 'warmed-up' as such, more that the system's sound is getting clearer, brighter. As though the mush has disappeared in some ways.

The Dino's left on permanently - it's designed to be.

 

how much power does your Sugden use Gromit? I have been told the A21 only uses the same as a lightbulb when left on,any ideas how accurate this is?

 

I'm not totally sure about this - my dad's got the instruction manual/spec sheet for the old A21 somewhere which'll have the info.

I believe they take up a lot more juice than they give out!! Good ol' Class A

 

...and they use a LOT of power when idling - they actually run hotter when not playing music than they do when playing (or at least, most class A amps do...)

 

I always turn the ATC off as it is quite heavy on the old juice. It doesn't change much on warming up anyway.

The sub gets left on.

The CD player is turned off but has a feature that keeps the DAC partially powered so long as the player is plugged in. This reduces warm-up time to about 30 minutes during which the sound becomes cleaner and sweeter.

 

domfjbrown

how much is a lot of power though? The A21 is very hot,and needs at least an hour to warm up fully

basically,if i leave it on all the time,what sort of electricity bills am i facing?

 

I think it goes like this...

It should only be burning about 50 Watts at idle.

At idle it should use about 50% of full power into 2 channels at around 50% efficiency.

At half power it should still burn 50 Watts but 25 of them will go to the speakers instead of being dissipated as heat.

At full power it should consume about 100 Watts, 50 of which will go to the speakers.

In theory