What is your preferred power indicator colour?

[Oddball]

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RGB LEDs have been around for a while now. They're almost compulsory on home PC hardware.

Go nuts and have all the colours all the time for the full, migraine inducing, unicorn puke light show!

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Obviously you have been reading my post too hastily . I am only advocating options at owner's disposal. Seems like we can't agree what the code should be - so why not have options that would make everyone happy?

 

[Robin L]

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RGB LEDs have been around for a while now. They're almost compulsory on home PC hardware.

Go nuts and have all the colours all the time for the full, migraine inducing, unicorn puke light show!

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"unicorn puke light show"

(the internet is such a wonderful place.)

 

[Mart68]

Several devices in our house have a small piece of black electrical tape over the led.

I have a pre-amp where I had to do that. Blue LED that is so bright you can still see it clearly through the tape. Without the tape it was literally dazzling.

 

[Count Arthur]

Several devices in our house have a small piece of black electrical tape over the led.

That's how you you service modern cars isn't, just put tape over all the warning lights on the dash.

Good for another 20,000 miles.

 

[Oddball]

"unicorn puke light show"


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(the internet is such a wonderful place.)

 

[Sokel]

Epilepsy Edition.

This for the innocent.
"One of my Turns" Edition for the sensitive ones

 

[Waxx]

dimmed leds, not bright ones. Colour is not that important.

 

[Deleted member 77012]

OFF

ON

 

[mhardy6647]

I have a pre-amp where I had to do that. Blue LED that is so bright you can still see it clearly through the tape. Without the tape it was literally dazzling.

Not sure what the lumen threshold is for dazzling.

 

[restorer-john]

As I am R-G compromised (as are a significant proportion of US males), I cannot always tell if an LED is red or green because the illuminated LEDS are not sufficiently saturated. Blue/purple/violet? Forget about it.

I prefer multiple LEDS whatever colors are chosen because I can readily learn which light means what.

Very good point. Many vintage pieces had dedicated power and protection lights. These days, they just change the colour to indicate protection/standby.

Pioneer SA-9100 from the early 70s:

 

[Tell]

I do like what my LG OLED does, red for off and nothing for on (the TVs light is quite enough for showing it's on).
But it stuff like amplifiers or whatever that don't have the same kind of visual feedback I really do prefer nothing for off and a red light for on, and of course a matt black case to go with that.
All other colour LEDs do look quite tacky to me, especially blue.

 

[ta240]

 

[Short38]

The utter hell of user interface design and standardization is well presented here. Thoughts and prayers to all.

White for on. The rest I dunno. I don’t understand standby so shut everything off.

 

[Chrispy]

My Suggestion. No light when off. Standby maybe. Non intrusive intensity in any case.

 

[mhardy6647]

Very good point. Many vintage pieces had dedicated power and protection lights. These days, they just change the colour to indicate protection/standby.

Pioneer SA-9100 from the early 70s:
View attachment 443489

Come to think of it, there's a pretty good protection signal from the amp(s) I showed earlier.
Silence, darkness -- plus smoke.

 

[Philbo King]

Anything except blue for on, black for off. I usually put masking tape onto blue ones.

 

[Blumlein 88]

I agree with all the complaints of the bright blue LED. But they don't have to be that way. My amp has a thin bar about 1/4 inch wide and 6 inches long on the face of it. You can adjust brightness. I have it so it is just barely detectable in a moderate amount of light and not too bright in near darkness. Not too bad really.

I remember old gear with lighted dials on tuners. That surface didn't need to be bright so it wasn't annoying. Pin-point leds with a high surface brightness are more of an issue than a distributed panel with a lower level of surface brightness.

For power amps I'm actually okay with no indicator. I mean if you hear sound it is on. I'm okay with nothing for off and whatever color for on. Just please don't give me anything that flashes or breathes.

Now in general for me, green on, yellow for standby or transition and red for off is good because it is like traffic lights. However, industrial gear swapped that sometime in the last generation. Red is on (indicative of power in use and possible danger), yellow is transitional, and green is off (for safe no power). It makes sense when described, but it seems the majority of people think it is backwards in use.

I really dig dash illumination on one of my cars. Orangish-red. Quite fine at night.

 

[Old_School_Brad]

I like the red and orange indicator lights on my older Yamaha gear.

Green for "on" is fine too -like on the newer Yamaha PA amps -but I think I prefer the red on the older models. It’s just a bit more subtle, not so in-your-face.

But blue? Seriously? Whoever decided that was a good idea deserves some kind of eternal punishment.

 

[bothu]

Red for active.
Blue for standby.

This is my homemade preamp. Most of the mechanical parts are from a scrap bin at my former working place.
The basic case was from a optical temp gauge, the knobs from vacuum gauges, the small black switch is from a Tektronix oscilloscope.

The blue standby light is a thin plastic optical wire glued to a blue Led behind the front panel. I do not like big blue Leds on the front but this is compromise.

Preamp

On

Standbye

Reused Tektronix knob.




Bo Thunér from Linköping Sweden

 

[KSTR]

BTW, I don't understand how OFF could have a lighted indicator at all.
There are no shades of "offness", so to say. Something that is off has no power by definition and thus it cannot actively light up anything.