Warming up for best performance.

[STC]

[marce]

Ouch😁 the smell of burning electronics!

[gmgraves]

12 hours ago, STC said:

 

While it’s true that tube circuits benefit from “warming-up” (about an hour before serious listening, I’d say), I have never seen anything conclusive about solid state stuff. Depending on the design, some stuff might benefit (like amplifiers and possibly DACs - I leave my DAC on 24/7).

[mansr]

18 minutes ago, gmgraves said:

While it’s true that tube circuits benefit from “warming-up” (about an hour before serious listening, I’d say), I have never seen anything conclusive about solid state stuff. Depending on the design, some stuff might benefit (like amplifiers and possibly DACs - I leave my DAC on 24/7).

Lab equipment manuals often state that calibration is valid only after a 15-minute warm-up.

[Speedskater]

There is a whole lot of difference between:

a] measurable in calibration equipment

b] audible in hi-fi equipment

[esldude]

1 minute ago, Speedskater said:

There is a whole lot of difference between:

a] measurable in calibration equipment

b] audible in hi-fi equipment

I'm glad you pointed this out.  Once a device has reached the limits of the calibration gear it may take up to 200 more hours before it is no longer audible to audiophiles in a hifi system. 

[KeenObserver]

From what I understand, Benjamin D'Over recommends breaking in their USB cable for five years.

[gmgraves]

5 hours ago, mansr said:

Lab equipment manuals often state that calibration is valid only after a 15-minute warm-up.

While that is interesting (and true), we aren’t measuring, we’re listening. Two different things. The level of accuracy required to measure something requires a perfectly stable circuit. Not sure if that level of stabilization is audible, but I suspect not.

[gmgraves]

1 hour ago, KeenObserver said:

From what I understand, Benjamin D'Over recommends breaking in their USB cable for five years.

I hope you’re being facetious. The idea of “breaking-in” a cable is simply ludicrous in my opinion. It’s just WIRE for crissake! Maybe there’s a difference between different USB cables, and maybe there isn’t (I wouldn’t know, I only use USB audio for my desktop system, not in my main system). I’ve never heard any difference between any USB cable I have, and I’ve got them from AudioQuest, Kimber, Nordost, and a dozen generic ones from everywhere! They all sound worse than Optical or Coax SPDIF or balanced AES/EBU to me.

[kumakuma]

 

1 hour ago, KeenObserver said:

From what I understand, Benjamin D'Over recommends breaking in their USB cable for five years.

 

Missed the significance of the name at first read...

[Michaelb4]

I have a BENCHMARK amp which I give 5 minutes to the amp and myself to warm up. At 67 I think my hearing varies a little each day usually depending on how many laps I did in the pool that morning. 

[KeenObserver]

1 hour ago, kumakuma said:

 

 

Missed the significance of the name at first read...

 

When you are ready to invest in boutique cables, Ben D'Over!

[KeenObserver]

1 hour ago, Michaelb4 said:

I have a BENCHMARK amp which I give 5 minutes to the amp and myself to warm up. At 67 I think my hearing varies a little each day usually depending on how many laps I did in the pool that morning. 

 

How do you like the Benchmark amp?

[sandyk]

2 hours ago, Michaelb4 said:

I have a BENCHMARK amp which I give 5 minutes to the amp and myself to warm up. At 67 I think my hearing varies a little each day usually depending on how many laps I did in the pool that morning. 

 

 Varying BP will do that. In my case , years ago I found that brisk walking lowered my BP considerably,( even a little too low on a few occasions,)  which resulted in my damaged hearing improving.

[sandyk]

20 hours ago, STC said:

 

ST

 I can relate to this, as similar happened to my Class A amplifier several years ago . They were building a new electrical substation 200 metres up the road for a new shopping centre mainly, when somebody must have hit a high voltage cable or similar, as the lights went VERY bright for  a short period too.

I hadn't got around to putting my power board with VDRs in it  back in line at the time just after moving there, but I doubt that it would have saved it as both transformers burned out .

 

Alex

[STC]

10 hours ago, gmgraves said:

While it’s true that tube circuits benefit from “warming-up” (about an hour before serious listening, I’d say), I have never seen anything conclusive about solid state stuff. Depending on the design, some stuff might benefit (like amplifiers and possibly DACs - I leave my DAC on 24/7).

Been there. Left all my equipment on 24/7 and at one time even the 350W on idle amp ( no standby) Amp 24/7. And now, I made a 180 degree turn and turn off everything including the electrostatics speakers power supply. Warming up is now limited to just a few minutes. 

 

1 hour ago, sandyk said:

ST

 I can relate to this, as similar happened to my Class A amplifier several years ago . They were building a new electrical substation 200 metres up the road for a new shopping centre mainly, when somebody must have hit a high voltage cable or similar, as the lights went VERY bright for  a short period too.

I hadn't got around to putting my power board with VDRs in it  back in line at the time just after moving there, but I doubt that it would have saved it as both transformers burned out .

 

Alex

It was funny. All looked fine till it started to smoke after 20 minutes of play. Power caps failed. 

[STC]

1 hour ago, sandyk said:

 

 Varying BP will do that. In my case , years ago I found that brisk walking lowered my BP considerably,( even a little too low on a few occasions,)  which resulted in my damaged hearing improving.

That is an interesting observation. My usual BP is 70/100 and goes up to 80/112 sometimes. Wonder if that makes a difference?

[sandyk]

2 minutes ago, STC said:

That is an interesting observation. My usual BP is 70/100 and goes up to 80/112 sometimes. Wonder if that makes a difference?

 Not likely. My BP is often closer to 150. When it is in that area or a little higher my hearing further degrades .

Around 130 appears to be better for me.

[gmgraves]

4 hours ago, kumakuma said:

 

 

Missed the significance of the name at first read...

Don’t feel bad, I did too...

[barrows]

All gear I am aware of benefits from warm up and becoming temperature stable.  Clocks require warm up to operate at their best, most sold state circuits do not reach their set bias points without becoming temperature stable.  Some of the voltage regulation circuits I use drift in output voltage with temperature, and need to reach a stable temperature to be producing the set output voltage.  How long this takes depends on a lot of factors, amps with big heatsinks can take a long time to stabilize all that thermal mass.  Class D amps, as they produce little heat, seem to take forever to warm up and reach their stable operating temperature.

I leave everything on 24/7 so I can listen to music at is best anytime.  But I use class D amps so I am not burning up much energy at idle.  I used to have a Pass Labs amp, and it frustrated me that I had to give it at least on hour warm up to sound its best, but it idled at about 250 watts, so I was not willing to leave it on all the time.

[fas42]

Unfortunately, warming up is a bit part of achieving the SQ I chase. On switch on from cold, the quality can be pretty dreadful, to my ears, and it will requires hours of solid conditioning of everything, especially the speaker drivers, until decent performance is reached.

 

This is a very big part of why it's so difficult to "present it on a platter" - there's an excellent chance that one, tiny little thing has not stabilised enough, or conversely, that some area of the system has degraded in that time frame, for some stupid reason, while waiting for everything else "to be right" - so, for that session, "I ain't got nothing!" ... 🙄.

 

The real engineering challenge is to ensure that one can state quite emphatically that given a certain sequence of warming up procedures, and that within a sensible time frame - minutes, not hours, days, etc, etc - that the SQ is at an acceptable level. Anything else is an admission of failure, as far as I'm concerned - if you're trying to do commercial product. Which is why I'm still experimenting ... 😉.

[Ralf11]

the brain should be kept warm too & will either benefit or detriment* from warming up periods with familiar source material

 

 

 

* I am thinking about 'edge detection' here

[pkane2001]

26 minutes ago, Ralf11 said:

the brain should be kept warm too & will either benefit or detriment* from warming up periods with familiar source material

 

* I am thinking about 'edge detection' here

 

Edge detection* can be very painful and happens more frequently when the brain is not warmed up

 

* I'm thinking about walls and furniture here

[Ralf11]

Good point - robots have a hard time moving around in complex environments too

[GregWormald]

My pre-amp never goes off. The "off" switch detaches the inputs and leaves the rest of the circuits powered. It was designed this way.

 

The power amps, when off, are still fed a trickle current.