We would really like the equipment to be shut down when not being used, for several reasons.
1. From an audiophile musical sense, our equipment is fully biased up and ready to play within 5 minutes of turn-on (90% of full capability within a minute). Leaving them on all the time serves no useful musical purpose. Years ago, when the first vaccum tube computers were made for the Atomic Bomb project, using rooms full of 12AX7 tubes (10,000 of them or more) then turn on from a cold start took hours, and always a few tubes failed, requiring extensive troubleshooting to get the darn thing working. Now with much more reliable modern tubes, and only a few of them, we just don't need to keep it on all the time to keep it working.
2. You risk turning minor problems into major problems. In the unlikely even of a part failure, if it happens while you are using it you will notice right away. If it happens in the middle of the night, the failure can cook away for hour after hour, risking further failures, and catastrophic damage.
3. You are simply wasting electricity.
4. Heat is the enemy of electronic components. Leaving them on all the time lets the internal heat from the parts build up over time, shortening their life.
Leave it on all the time is just another incorrect audiophlake bit of advice.
Frank Van Alstine
