Leaving amp in standby

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robdmarsh

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I notice that when I leave my amp in standby mode it sounds better when I play it again rather than switching it on and playing it from cold. The question is how much power does it draw in standby? It's rated at 50 wpc but I'm sure that there are other stats I need to provide to answer that question. I'm pretty sure a lot of modern equipment is meant to be left on standby as it has switches underneath or the back of the unit. I suppose the other question is how long does it need to warm up?
 

iMark

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It should be in the manual what the amp draws in standby mode. What amp do you use? I don't see it listed in your signature.

No idea how long it takes to warm up. Depends on the amp, I guess.
 
It should be in the manual as stated above - only other consideration is that in my limited experience of products going wrong, it has always been when switching on. Some things suffer from the thermal stress of being heated up and cooling down again, so I leave my gear on. Uses a little more electricity (and therefore increases my carbon footprint), but the carbon footprint of manufacturing and shipping another is going to be pretty high so it feels like a worthwhile longer-term trade-off.
 
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Deleted member 108165

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Power consumption of you Denon in stand-by is 0.3W.
 
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Thanks. Is that high or low or about average?
Seems about average for most recent amps. Mine are 0.2 for the amp and 0.3 for the cdp, they also go into stand-by mode after 30mins of inactivity; yours probably does the same if you haven't disabled it. All part of an EU directive for electrical components.
 
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Deleted member 108165

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This thread is interesting. Maths was never my strong point but based on my combined stand-by consumption figure of 0.5W per day would I be correct in stating that it would take about 5.5 years to consume 1kW in stand-by?
 

skinnypuppy71

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This is why Naim amps are designed to be powered up all the time, no standby, just the on/off switch at the rear of their units, keeps them nice n toasty, although the newer uniti models might have standby features, of that I'm not certain.
 
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Gray

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This thread is interesting. Maths was never my strong point but based on my combined stand-by consumption figure of 0.5W per day would I be correct in stating that it would take about 5.5 years to consume 1kW in stand-by?
I can see how you got that 5.5 year figure Doug, but it's not right.
Yes you're instantaneously consuming 2000 times less than 1kW.
But you're not consuming a total of 0.5W for the 24 hour day.
Consumption over time is why they bill in kilowatt hours.
So for the same standard unit price of 1000W for an hour, you get 2000 hours (about 3 months?) of standby.
 

Gray

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This is why Naim amps are designed to be powered up all the time, no standby, just the on/off switch at the rear of their units, keeps them nice n toasty, although the newer uniti models might have standby features, of that I'm not certain.
My Cyrus amp has its power switch on the back too......so I put my own accessible power switch as part of my cabinet.
 
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robdmarsh

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Thanks for all the replies guys. Relieved to know that it's not going to cost me an arm and a leg to leave it on a lot of the time. I really do believe it sounds better when it is warmed up.

I also believe it sounded better when it had played for about 100 hours but we've already been down that rabbit hole on another thread. But Mr PS Audio on Youtube agrees with me on both counts, component burn-in, and leaving in stand-by.
 
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robdmarsh

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Seems about average for most recent amps. Mine are 0.2 for the amp and 0.3 for the cdp, they also go into stand-by mode after 30mins of inactivity; yours probably does the same if you haven't disabled it. All part of an EU directive for electrical components.
Disabled it. In fact, doing so is how I discovered that the sound quality was much better than my initial impressions. I left it on all night and the next day it sounded a lot fuller with better separation.
 

shadders

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I notice that when I leave my amp in standby mode it sounds better when I play it again rather than switching it on and playing it from cold.
Hi,
The 0.3watts standby is powering the infra red receiver and microcontroller etc which allows the remote control to awaken the amplifier from standby. The current used is not enough to power the quiescent current for the amplifier section.

Therefore, any interpretation that the amplifier sounds better from standby is psychosomatic.

Regards,
Shadders.
 
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robdmarsh

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Hi,
The 0.3watts standby is powering the infra red receiver and microcontroller etc which allows the remote control to awaken the amplifier from standby. The current used is not enough to power the quiescent current for the amplifier section.

Therefore, any interpretation that the amplifier sounds better from standby is psychosomatic.

Regards,
Shadders.
Ok, so what you are saying is if the standby power was actually in some way powering the amplifier section, then maybe this would be true. However, what you said about the standby power only being enough to allow the remote control to wake up the amplifier seems strange as the amp is warm when to the touch when left in standby.
So what is this guy talking about here in this video, does it only apply to class A?
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDBa3asBm2I&t=1s&ab_channel=PSAudio
 
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Tinman1952

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Hi,
The 0.3watts standby is powering the infra red receiver and microcontroller etc which allows the remote control to awaken the amplifier from standby. The current used is not enough to power the quiescent current for the amplifier section.

Therefore, any interpretation that the amplifier sounds better from standby is psychosomatic.

Regards,
Shadders.
Disagree..... in fact he's talking about NOT letting it go into standby...🤔
 
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