More myths?

Interesting evening.
Turned on the stereo, got some tunes "humming" and I'm sat there thinking "this sounds awful". No wonder some people buy MF gear.
Compressed tracks were ear rending, soundstage and "air" had dissappeared. I almost thought I'd wired something out of phase.

...Then it finished warming up. It was like having a new system again and was absolutely sublime. Razer fast, and just like being in a small bar with the band, awesome.

So, warm up myth? Not in my system, definitely true.

 

well

I always leave my system powered up for this reason...

aquapiranha

 

Just one thing to add. My system is also always powered up, just seems to need a bit of work to fully wake it up and bring it up to an good operating temp.

 

:rds2: One has to admire the foolhardiness.... sorry the dedication of genuine audiophiles who feel they have to sacrifice financially by keeping their toys warm up all year around in order to attain the status of real golden ear and therefore profess the true art of audio toys appreciation.

 

i can t see the point of leaving them on all the time,20 mins warm up will be enough.

 

I always leave my kit on - except for my new sub but I will given time!) and my dvd player...but again, it can take upto about 20 minutes of playing before she really sings...

 

Having never experienced this warming up phenomenon in anything I've ever owned (except for the EAR valve pre-amp, which actually does nothing whatsoever for half a minute or so), I personally suspect that it is largely psychological. My stuff sounds just fine from the word go and never changes (or if it does, I can't hear it).

Of course, psychological or not, the effect on the individual is no less real.

 

Everyone who has heard the McIntosh agree that it seems to really come on song after a couple of hours use. Odd

 

Interesting point, which of course could be true.
I wonder if it's possible to scientifically measure a difference between a cold and warm system? Has anyone ever done it?

I know that whenever I listen to an unfamiliar session, it usually takes me 10-15 mins to "get the hang of it". So it's quite possible that I'm doing exactly that with my own system.

Any other thoughts?

 

I have measured, with the AP System Two, a decrease in distortion as devices warm up to operating temperature. I have also measured longer-term changes in capacitors, as the subject of a previous thread.

Keeping equipment powered up will keep charge on the capacitors and keep the devices warm so that it is in optimum conditions from the get go. An older piece of equipment might warm up in 20 minutes or so, but if a piece of kit is never left on for a prolonged period then the capacitors will not reach the same state as if the kit was left on.

These changes are real and measurable. As to whether one can hear a change of 0.05% distortion I don't propose to debate, so some psychological effect might still come into it.

But does it really matter to you if I keep my equipment powered up?

 

Nope.

I have a hunch. Some people do not know how much their annual electricity bill is.

 

Uncomfortably high, but that's due to electric heating. It will come down.

 

I turn mine off when I'm not using it. Sounds exactly the same after 5 minutes as it does after 5 hours.

-- Ian

 

Ian, could be something to do with the music you like mate

 

well

cars take a while to warm up before they perform at their best, so why not electrical equipment? the reason it stays on all the time is so that I do not have to wait the 20 minutes or so for it to warm up every time I want to listen to some music.

aquapiranha

 

To be fair, I never noticed a difference with so called digital amplifiers or CD players.

 

All the usual suspects......I have not heard a system that doesn't get better over period of 20-40 minutes after switch on, and I've heard a lot in 25 years of hobby !
In my system, the sound is flat hard and metalic on startup...assuming everything is switched on from cold, and then it normally takes about an hour to really sing. This has to do with ...so I was told by an expert ... caps becoming fully charged and other thermal effects, now I'm not entirely happy with this explaination, but its the best I have.

Incidentally the cost is pence per day or less, just think how much it cost to run a freeze 24/7. I'm prepared to pay the small ammount to have instant beautiful music!

 

Tell Sonneteer that. Their view is that warm-up makes precisely zero difference to properly designed equipment. Their CD players don't even have a stand-by switch, just a power button.

Valves are a different matter, but even they, IME, don't take as long to reach optimal operating temparature as some seem to think.

After about 20 minutes of listening to music after work, say, you start to relax properly. So it starts to sound better. I don't think there's much more to it than that.

-- Ian

 

Hmm. Well its certainly equipment dependent I think. My old Arcam Delta 60 didn't need any warm up - sounded the same from switch on. My current Densen however certainly does improve once its been on for about an hour. I guess then that Sonneteer would say the Densen is poorly designed, maybe they should tell Densen

 

Cars take a while to warm up because they start cold and heat engines work best at a particular temp., which is attained by burning the fuel and cooling to keep it correct.

Electronics doesn't.

It is a hark back to the valve era, when nothing happens until the heaters start emitting electrons after they have warmed up sufficiently.

As there are no heaters in semiconductors, the electron flow is going.

It may well need to align conduction, form caps and stuff, and get your speaker suspension 'freed up', yes 10, 20 mins perhaps, but these naimees who have paranoid attacks if you switch it off after its just been warmed for 3 weeks are deluded imo.