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Lowering energy consumption is an acceptable trade-off for the wait for my system to warm up.
This week's <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/soapbox.shtml">Soapbox</A> has Martin Bruczkowski pondering how much power is being wasted by audiophiles who leave large systems on 24/7. What are <I>your</I> power habits?
As a bachelor, I have left the equipment run 24/7 and I have turned it on/off for each use. My power-bill difference was approximately $7/month. That's five channels of Adcom 200Wpc. The waste heat keeps my living room at 68 degrees all winter long in Northern California.
I leave it all on, but most of my stuff goes into sleep mode when not in use. However, there aren't very many audiophiles out there. If just a thousand people bought more efficient refrigerators, it would make up for all the power we use to keep our equipment sounding good. Heck, most of the world is going to starve/freeze/sweat to death if we don't develop fusion power, regardless of whether or not we waste it on audio equipment. People who are concerned about energy conservation haven't looked at the numbers long enough to see the unpleasant truth: conservation is overly sensitive to the Law of Diminishing Returns and will never be enough.
My system needs about two hours to warm up, and I turn it on when I get home from work. It's on the whole time over the weekend, so I can grab some quality listening time whenever it presents itself. Once, however, I left my Linn Sondek on without realizing it. The next day, the cleaning woman plugged the vacuum cleaner into the Power Wedge (maybe she had always been doing it), and blew out the Linn's motor, leaving me with a $200 repair bill.
I turn on my components about an hour before listening sessions and let them run with the volume at about 8 o'clock. I find no difference in sound between leaving components on all the time and a one-hour warmup at low levels. All I notice when it's left on full time is an astronomical power bill!
My electric bills accurately reflect how much I use the power switch. I used to leave the system on always. Now I turn off the amplification when it is not being used. The Rega stays on; if it gets cold, it takes hours to warm it up again. It is amazing how much a $250/month electric bill will change your switching habits. I am lucky enough to have components that warm up very quickly; thank you, Frank Van Alstine!
All of my equipment has a "standby" mode. I usually leave my gear in this mode unless I know I'm going to be listening in the near future. In that case, I leave the system powered up. I never completely power down my amps unless I know I'm going to be out of town for over a month. While my amps reach optimum performance in a matter of minutes if they've been in standby, they sound downright terrible if they've been off and are forced to do a "cold start."