Effect of powering On/Off devices?

[nimar]

I don't entirely know where I got the notion, possibly mental leakage from hard powering off PC's but are there any reasons not to power on / off your audio equipment. With recent interest in grounding, and the depth of electrical knowledge on here I thought perhaps someone would have some knowledge or at least an educated opinion on the subject.

I.e Is there any reason not to control the power upstream from the device itself, eg. via a smart plug, or just switching the power bar off.

I do this to save standby power and with some idea that it adds extra surge protection, though obviously enough current can jump the little switch.

Am I alone in doing this?

 

[Swtoby]

I like to turn my stuff off for the same reason I turn off the lights. I don't like it on when I'm not using it.

 

[digitalfrost]

It depends on the devices I think. I used to have old school class A/B gear here, and I measured the amps once with a power meter, and their idle consumption was easily 100W. I turned them off, unless it was winter because of the heat and yeah and it's just really wasteful. Now that I run Benchmark AHB2 and Class D amps, I don't really care anymore.

 

[MakeMineVinyl]

Standby supplies have to consume less than 1 watt, so that is not really an issue in power savings. Other than that, it doesn't make much difference if devices are powered up either upstream or not. You're not going to harm them doing the switching upstream; its just less convenient if you use the system daily.

 

[Doodski]

I leave the TV in standby, the notebook and desktop pooders in sleep mode and all the kitchen small appliances unplugged except the microwave oven because I trust Panasonic otherwise after a neighbours coffee maker melted into the kitchen countertop and caused a fire I am paranoid of cheap small appliances.

 

[gene_stl]

One idea of the ancients, (ie. me ) was that in 1970 , as soon as I put together my first component stereo I bought and used an outlet strip , which I can assure you were not common in those days. It was made by SGL Waber and had no surge protection. I had to get it from the local electronics supply place. (LONG since gone) What it did have was a pretty high quality power switch. (Motor and heater rated) I started using it after I had to replace the power switch section on a Mac C20 preamp. So I ended up hanging the whole stereo on the outlet strip so I would not have to replace that (slightly) hard to obtain switch section , which really was not intended to switch multiple power amps on and off.

More modern gear is switched on and off by a Triac or SCR arrangement which allows timers and remotes. These don't have contacts to get pitted , weld or wear out or get hot from high resistance. However like most electronic gear they don't resist lightning strokes nearby too well, or as has happened at the house I currently live in, the power company having too much slack in conductor leads up on poles and the wind blew some conductors into incorrect contact. This killed an outlet strip and some microcontroller boards in my house. So there is something to be said for a "disconnect switch" upstream.

There have been thoughts of leaving them on all the time for various reasons most of which don't make much sense to me. Thermal stability is nice if you feel you can hear differences in operating points which I seriously doubt. There was a meme or whatever you call it that turning on and off used more energy than just leaving it on. This never seemed correct to me. Higher temp inside the case might dry electrolytics faster to where you might need a rebuild sooner.

Old gear with linear transformers was much more resistant to distant lightning strokes. I theorize the stroke could be closer with a linear supply. I have only seen (at my now closed local surplus electronic store) one or two linear supplies struck by lightning. When the switch to switchin was made more people brought these dead bodies in for public display. (Lookit THAT!)

Now almost all outlet strips also have more or less surge protection built in. I have since 1977 used two outlet strips one for the power amps which were in the basement under the speakers and one local one which turned on the sources preamp tuner and crossover and sent a low voltage signal to a relay in the basement. to turn on the four power amps. The lights would dim for a second. I used a big clunky relay for an air conditioner. There was a relay for the relay.

I don't want to replace ANYTHING in my expensive stereo because of power issues. So now that I am in my newer digs and am upgrading to mch I have a quite a bit more elaborate power management system. Because lighting and surges still happen.

I would say that all this is even more true in parts of the world where they AC line is higher voltage than our wimply little 120 vac.

 

[daftcombo]

It depends if I go on holiday or not.

 

[BostonJack]

If the equipment has a low enough standby power, I leave it on. In some cases (semiconductors, mainly) the power on thermal shock is a significant part of degrading the device's lifetime. Tubes have other issues, probably best left off. An old system test technique was to power equipment on and off automatically at a period of 2 or 3 seconds. A few 10's of hours of that would shake out as many early life failures as more sophisticated environmental (heat) stress tests. It may boil down to personal preference.

 

[Sharpi31]

Raspberry Pi running Volumio plus minidsp stay on, tube preamp and tube power amp off unless needed

 

[Apesbrain]

Only my pre-amp stays on as it has no power switch.

 

[nimar]

Standby supplies have to consume less

"have to" ?

Topping D90 consumes ~2.4W in standby, E30 consumes ~1.8W in standby. For some reason the A90 consumes ~0.5W even when the physical switch is set to Off.

My old Audiolab DAC pulled in ~5W in standby with its big linear power supply.

While my smart plug's consumes ~0.4W.

 

[nimar]

the power on thermal shock is a significant part of degrading the device's lifetime.

This is what I had in mind, am I shortening the life of my DAC by turning if off/on several times a day, rather than letting it idle in standby and slowly suck its 2.4W. And if I am shortening its life, is it going to be by a more significant amount than the exposed risk to surges etc that leaving it powered on exposes it to. Every decision is a trade off!

 

[MakeMineVinyl]

"have to" ?

Topping D90 consumes ~2.4W in standby, E30 consumes ~1.8W in standby. For some reason the A90 consumes ~0.5W even when the physical switch is set to Off.

My old Audiolab DAC pulled in ~5W in standby with its big linear power supply.

While my smart plug's consumes ~0.4W.

Standby power supplies have to consume less than 1 watt to comply with various international standards for energy consumption. Especially if one wants to sell in Europe (legitimately at least) they must meet the standard.

 

[HiFidFan]

My Luxman Integrated draws 1.2W stand-by

 

[Doodski]

This is what I had in mind, am I shortening the life of my DAC by turning if off/on several times a day, rather than letting it idle in standby and slowly suck its 2.4W. And if I am shortening its life, is it going to be by a more significant amount than the exposed risk to surges etc that leaving it powered on exposes it to. Every decision is a trade off!

I leave mine connected to the power bar in the ON position all day everyday. The electrical power delivery is steady and reliable. Not like some outer fringe red zone where it shuts off every 2-3 months, is prone to lightning strikes and people whip out LED lamps with candles and hope for the best. I trust the power delivery and the organizations integrity in delivering that power everyday of every season.

 

[egellings]

I turn things off when not in use simply because I do not like wasting electricity, even the small amounts saved by doing so. TVs and all else that have a standby mode in the US use up a whole average sized power plant's output when they are off. My own stuff, even if left in standby mode, would likely not impact my electric bill by more than a penny or so per month, so money's not the motivating factor.

 

[nimar]

I turn things off when not in use simply because I do not like wasting electricity, even the small amounts saved by doing so. TVs and all else that have a standby mode in the US use up a whole average sized power plant's output when they are off. My own stuff, even if left in standby mode, would likely not impact my electric bill by more than a penny or so per month, so money's not the motivating factor.

Yeah, my motivation is primarily to save power to reduce load on the grid (same reason I fill the kettle for exactly how much water I need to boil), the secondary added surge protection was more of a mental justification to buy a smart plug to make it easier. Basically every additional Watt consumed means burning some form of fossil fuel. Even if you are on a "100% green power plan" you are causing others to burn fossil fuels, renewables (solar/wind/hydro) are generally running at their max capacity all the time, leaving fossil fuel power plants to pick up on dynamic demand as they can be ramped up/down quickly.

Though I've not fully crunched the environmental impact of producing said smart plug. It sure does make life easy. I have a home-assistant integration with Roon / Homekit so when I play music in Roon my power amp / dac turn on automatically and off again when I stop playback.

 

[Doodski]

Yeah, my motivation is primarily to save power to reduce load on the grid (same reason I fill the kettle for exactly how much water I need to boil), the secondary added surge protection was more of a mental justification to buy a smart plug to make it easier. Basically every additional Watt consumed means burning some form of fossil fuel. Even if you are on a "100% green power plan" you are causing others to burn fossil fuels, renewables (solar/wind/hydro) are generally running at their max capacity all the time, leaving fossil fuel power plants to pick up on dynamic demand as they can be ramped up/down quickly.

Though I've not fully crunched the environmental impact of producing said smart plug. It sure does make life easy. I have a home-assistant integration with Roon / Homekit so when I play music in Roon my power amp / dac turn on automatically and off again when I stop playback.

Hydrogen is a possible future fuel refined from petroleum related sources. It can be ramped up and down fast and has rapid BTU potential. As a bonus lithium can be derived from the same sources.

 

[Harmonie]

Depends where the switch is located (on the back or in front).
My 25 year old dac is on all the time.
The rest of the equipment is off when not in use.

 

[boXem]

Standby power supplies have to consume less than 1 watt to comply with various international standards for energy consumption. Especially if one wants to sell in Europe (legitimately at least) they must meet the standard.

Europe is 0.5 W