Subwoofers: Do you turn them off when you are done for the day?


It just occurred to me last night as I was putting various amps into standby mode before going to bed that I only turn off my subwoofers when I am going to be away from home for a few days or more. (I disconnect all my components from the wall in those cases.)  

All my amps are solid state and their respective manufacturers have all advised to switch them to standby if you are not listening to them, even if you plan to listen again in a few hours.  Why do I not do that with the subwoofers (all RELs: one Class D, 2 Class A/B)?  Seems like one should. (And I did last night.)

What do you all do?

kirkwallace

I’ll add that what I do is power everything back on Thursday night before I go to bed. Then first thing in the AM on Friday before I go to work I play music at low level and let it play until I get home from work so everything is warmed up and ready to play hard for my Friday night listening and movie sessions. 

Any maker that encourages leaving equipment on should be punished.

Standby is just for our impatient convenience, we cannot wait 5 seconds.

https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/earth-day-turn-those-amps-off

Sounds like an age old question for a slightly different piece of gear that many of us have been contemplating.

You might save a little money in electricity depending on how much power they draw in stand by.  

Every time you turn on amps there should be a surge of electricity.  Surges can cause wear and damage.  Maybe the amps are designed to survive many surges over decades of use, or maybe not. 

In stand-by there will still be circuits energized, monitoring the input signals to know when to turn on.  How much heat is generated, how fast do the circuits degrade when energized, etc.

I don't have an answer, but the logical entity to ask is the company that designed your speakers.  They would be in the best position to tell you what the speakers were designed for and how to operate them to minimize degradation.   

 

From my experience, I would turn them off when not in use.  I had a $2500 Paradigm sub that I used for home theater, and we left it on.  A decade later it died.  And the Class D amps inside the sub were not possible to repair.  Just my experience, but that’s what I’d do.  I also have 2 JL Audio subs for my main 2-channel system and I turn them off when not in use.  They are still in operation today.  Standby mode on the Paradigm did not help, obviously.