Keeping Amplifiers Constantly Powered On

I have two power amplifiers in my system:

Conrad-Johnson Sonographe SA-250
Acurus 200X3
Both are solid state and around 25 years old; no standby power. Just on or off.

I always have Infinity Prelude MTS Compositions speakers with built in subwoofers with powered amplifiers.
These amps have standby power.

And an AVS MFW-15 subwoofer with a powered amplifier.
This amp has standby power.

For all of the time I've owned this equipment they've been powered down every night.
However, power toggles switches are beginning to get finicky and producing some odd and annoying connections with the power source; as in staying fully connected or producing odd and annoying gurgle sounds or soft popping noises.

At this point, with equipment this old, I've decided to just leave everything.
I would appreciate your opinions on this decision. Is it recommended? I am not experiencing any of the anomalies when left powered on over night; no weird popping or gurgling.

If I happen to go on vacation, I would power everything down again.
But whose going on vacation now?

Thanks for your input.

 

Always on for me. Both of my amps are working fine > 15 years.

 

With equipment ‘that old’, I’d be fearful of an electrical mishap or fire if left on unattended. Has the power cable ever been replaced?

 

No. They are all in great shape. I don't believe them to be the problem. It's more the contact made with the power switches.
As mentioned, when the amps are running for several days, all symptoms disappear. They only happen when I first turn them on and them slowly vanish.

 

Thank you! Day & night, I presume?

 

Yes. 24/7. My hypothesis is that the constant low level heat keeps the ambient moisture away. Moisture and electronics are a bad mix.

 

I have kept class a/b amps on for years at a time with no issue at all. Class A would be different as they need to warm up to sound best, but burn a lot of power at idle and generate a lot of heat.

 

Heat and electronics are also a bad mix.

 

I used to live in Los Angeles, but have lived in Portland Oregon for 5 years now. There definitely is a bit more moisture here. Good suggestion. Thank you.

 

I used to work at many recording facilities & all of their amps, equipment & workstations were on 24/7 for decades.

 

my solid state monoblocks have been on pretty much since 1995. I'm a firm believer that the constant on and off contributes to issues as time goes by.

 

Can you clean the switches with a contact cleaner?

 

If I took everything apart. Which I’m trying to avoid unless absolutely necessary.

 

Leaving my amp on 24/7 would cost close to $400 a year.

 

Always on unless I'm going away for more than a day or two, which is never this year...

 

I keep solid state A/B gear on all the time.

 

On 24/7 is fine, we've got masses of Bryston amps and other kit that's on 24/7. The issue comes when you do power it off, the caps will have dried and it won't come back. Assuming the power switches are decent quality they shouldn't really fail. This is all in regards to SS, valve amps may vary I guess. Though given the military used valves for years I guess they're fairly reliable.
Some warmth is fine for electrical equipment, it's excess cold or heat that is the killer.

 

I would never leave my tube amps powered on unless listening but they don’t need the warm up time like my solid state amp. Maybe 30 minutes tops.

If I’m going to do a lot of listening on my Yamaha I will turn it on when I first get up and start streaming some low volume music through it. I ve noticed it sounds it’s best after it’s been on a couple of hours or even a bit more. Don’t get me wrong. It sounds good at power up but once it’s been really warmed up it’s a bit better.

 

I think I'll keep them on for a while. The media room is cool at night and I can leave the door open to the cabinet for ventilation.

 

my ss headphone amp and gainclone class ab always on
tubes only on when i listen and when i had a sony class a id treat it like tubes

 

Get those perfectly good amps repaired. While they're on the bench for power switch replacement, the technician can check and if necessary replace any flaky capacitors, and perform other minor maintenance including DC offset, etc., etc. Good amps that have served someone well for 25 years deserve maintenance. I mean why just leave them permanently on? All that will do is beat them up and dramatically shorten their life.

All electronics need periodic maintenance.

 

Well, I have a Quad 405 (okay, that’s older) which one day started smoking (not Marlboro)
It was the old caps
Quads have no off switch, so I had one installed

A friend of mine had a Pioneer M20 Class A amp, which even lit a fire (not too small)

I can’t recommend leaving power amps on. Preamps yes ...

 

The only time my SS amp. is turned off is when I go away for a few days, otherwise it's on 24/7.

 

The older Quad 405's had no on/off switch. Allegedly Peter Walker robustly insisted that there need be none - because he wanted them to be partnered with one of the Quad preamps, and fed from one of the switched mains output. Same as the 303 had no on/off switch.

Eventually he got so much customer feedback from people who wanted to use a 405 in non-QUAD systems that he added a switch. Grudgingly, apparently (read the interview with his son Ross Walker in Ken Kessler's excellent book about the history of QUAD "The Closest Approach" ).

And yes - all 405's have a number of catastrophic weaknesses. First is the resistors that feed power to the input op-amp are under rated, and eventually one burns out. That puts a massive DC offset on the output, and QUAD's least glorious moment crowbar protection circuit fires. That blows up the power transistors and possibly the drivers. Then the crowbar itself blows up. Then the fuses pop. Second is the electrolytic capacitors on the board. One of them is right above a power resistor that, by design, gets hot. So the capacitor slowly cooks, dries out and fails. Only on one channel; because the boards are identical, on the other channel the capacitor is on the other side of the power resistor and survives.

Even high end power amps are not immune from this sort of nonsense. At one stage I owned a Krell KSA100 class A power amp. That blew up twice, spectacularly. The second time two resistors burned clear through the circuit board in clouds of smoke. Hell of a mess.

 

I wouldn't leave the amps on especially if they are old. If they are designs that run hot even more so. Certainly if you leave the house and at night switch them off. If the switches aren't great power off at a mains socket.