On or Off - On or Off - Audio Electronics

We had a high end Esoteric SACD/CD player come in on trade. One of those 40 pound beasts with a battleship build and wonderful sound. It read and played discs with no problem except:  the once lovely blue fluorescent display was so dim it was rendered unreadable.  Turns out the original owner left the machine on 24/7. As you might expect on a discontinued item new parts and labor were prohibitively expensive or simply unavailable as they were proprietary to that specific model run. Result? That lovely disc player was now pretty much a boat anchor. It was not the first time we encountered this issue with otherwise working gear. Considering some of the elaborate displays found on some of today’s high end equipment, even power amplifiers 🙄, I would seriously reconsider leaving those with displays powered up when not in use. Probably OK for a SUT, though..

Great conversation, I think it about it all the time.  In my advanced age and paranoia, I turn it all off.   

I prefer my gear on all the time, but i tend to use standby which all my gear currently offers ... when I had the huge Pass Class A XA160.8 mono blocks, I called Pass, and was told there was no correlation between leaving any of their amps on 24/7 and increased repairs or lesser life expectancy...

On until it is off in the end of the day.  Off for entire vacation, completely off.  

I set up a second system because my main rig is all tube.   I needed something that if I dozed off I wouldnt have to worry about the rare chance of a failure.  

I bought a Cyrus Integrated amp.   It has a great feature , Auto Off.    After 20 min of no signal it turns itself off.    I rarely turn it off manually,  I mute of turn off the source and it takes a nap.   

Generally speaking, I turn all gear off when not in use.   Only exception is my phono pre, it has no power switch.