I have a BHK Pre, PS DS DAC and a First Watt F8 (Class A Amp).
I keep the DAC on all the time, but my routine has been to turn my amp and preamp on and off daily. If I’m going to be home, I turn it on in the morning and turn it off (or standby for the Pre) before I go to sleep.
Besides the electricity bill and probably shortening the life of the tubes in the BHK Pre, is it bad to leave it on for days at a time? I’ve left on my equipment and just fallen asleep a few times, and maybe I am going crazy, but I feel like it sounds better after it’s been on for an extended period of time (12-24 hours).
Is there an estimate for how long tubes should last if I were to just keep this BHK Pre on all the time?
When the preamp is in standby the SS section is still powered up only the tube input section is turned off. Nothing to be gained by letting the tubes warm up any longer than you let the First Watt. When I was running the BHK preamp with the 250 I turned the tube sections on an hour in advance of playing them. Same routine now with the Supratek in place of the BHK preamp.
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Those comments are from 2011 when all PSA products were strictly SS.
You’re welcome! Have a wonderful weekend!
Thanks for the responses. It sounds like putting my BHK Pre in standby is perfectly fine but I should probably continue to turn my amp off since it’s class A and runs relatively hot (although operating temp is perfectly normal at about 113F).
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Sounds right to me. Never owned a Class A amp so don’t know how long you have found the warm up time to be. An hour is more than enough for the BHK preamp. Since it starts up in mute mode if you turn it down to zero before turning it off you will be fine turning it on after the amp if need be.
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Pressing OFF on the remote turns off/puts into standby both my DAC and PRE. I knew this was happening but I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me earlier. My intent was for the DAC to stay on all the time (not standby). I guess I should have been using the “OFF” in the Preamp section of the remote, not the big round one at the top that I sometimes hit instead of DIM sometimes. I wonder if this was a contributor to why I think my system sounds better when it’s been on over night.
That would do it as the DAC probably needs a couple of days.
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