Warming up electronics

Dear members,

a question that's maybe Voodoo-related. Is it reasonable to warm up amplifiers/speakers before turning up the volume to prevent damage or is it unnecessary? What do you think?

Thanks!

Greetings,

Kai

mechanical and electronic sympathy is one of my golden rules, it drives my wife nuts but I feel it pays off. Materials definitely react differently with temperature.

I'm sure there's a possibility, but I find avoiding it a lot more annoying in practice. If that thing ever breaks, you won't have much of a chance to prove that it was ever caused by playing loud from the beginning.

A little bit like car bras or keeping the transport plastic wrap on your furniture - you may well have fewer paint chips five years down the line when ýou finally take that thing off, but every day up until that, you've had to look at that abomination on your driveway

Outright abuse is a different thing, best avoided with good old fashioned common sense.

As long as you're within the range of operational temperatures the manufacturer lists as acceptable, no worries. The only things that could potentially be damaged at low temps are things that move, and IMO it'd have to be pretty cold for a speaker surround to crack. Not impossible, but darned cold and would likely break at a small or large signal. In my experience the only electronics that really need to warm up are tubes, there can be small sonic changes until they completely warm up, and they also don't turn on instantly, they slowly come up to volume when switched on.

In the past, it was common practice to lower the volume on a preamp when switching on a power amp or switching on the preamp, as some electronics would emit a thump when turning on. Usually you'd turn on the preamp first, at low volume, then the power amp, then select a source and turn the volume up. I haven't seen anything do that in a while now.

I've seen military electronics where you power them up at -45 deg F, and in 15 sec the seeker is spun up and the missile is leaving the launch rail. While the military uses components tested for those temps, as long as you're within the range of normal consumer electronics temps you should be fine.

Peter Pan recommends that ICEpower modules are on at all times.

Personally, I cannot tell the difference.

But I abused my ears when I was 18-22 with my car stereo

leosgonewild:

Peter Pan recommends that ICEpower modules are on at all times.

But I abused my ears when I was 18-22 with my car stereo

Did you warm it up first?

It never got time to cool down