Why does my amplifier/stereo sound better when it's been on for a while?

Hmm, how old? Seems like my setup isn't quite as nice as it once was but that could just be me getting used to it…

How much is a service, and does it help with even lower-end hifi stuff? I'm talking Cambridge Audio here.

Most of the equipment my father services is around 10-40 years old. That is not to say newer equipment would not benefit from a service. The service includes a 12 month guarantee on the entire unit so the cost is high, several hundred pounds. I've no idea about cheaper agents and their prices.

In general the person who pays for a full equipment service has been running the same item for a decade, is happy with it and in most cases, after a service will last yet another decade. When dealing with high end equipment the benefit of buying a new replacement doesn't usually result in a meaningful sound quality improvement so service makes sense, eg: older quad equipment.

several hundred pounds

😯

Somehow, methinks this might not be economical on a piece of equipment that would barely fetch a couple of hundred secondhand….

Well funny you should mention it, but my Naim CDX/82/250/Hi-cap does quite clearly . . . . . . sorry, I'll get my coat.

It doesn't actually sound better you just think it does. Amps are all set from about 3 mins after switch on. The reason you don't turn them off is that they tend to pop mostly when turning off and on so leaving them on is sensible like standby on a TV just keep em stable. A class A or valve amp needs to be turned off because valves have a lifespan and class A's run hot.

Potentially your speakers might be getting old and the rubber surrounds can get a bit brittle with age so long sessions might make them loosen up but it's unlikely.

It's all in your head like listening late at night which according to many audiofools is due to improved mains when actually its because it's quiet and you tend to be more chilled.

I have a decent HiFi but I dont do cables and I dont do mains, proper snake oil and bullshit it is.

Amps are all set from about 3 mins after switch on.

One that I work on isn't.

And that is a??

Naim NAP500. Bias is set about an hour after switch-on.

proper snake oil and bullshit it is.

It ain't. Seriously. Maybe your ears are rubbish or something, but cables – there definitely is something in it. Absolutely. And I'm a cynic with a degree in Physics, so not interested in bullshit.

I have a decent HiFi but I dont do cables and I dont do mains

So your separates are disconnected and not powered up? I bet that sounds rubbish 🙂

Well I stand corrected. I reckon naims top power amp is likely to be slighly different to the OPs system or 99% of the amps out there.

Not powerful enough, I'll stick with the 7B SST's. 😉

Then I suggest you go and win the million dollars if you can tell the difference between cables with similar electrical properties in a double blind test.

It's proper nonsense always has been.

I'm talking about £30-£50 cables versus the free ones that come with cheap stuff.

Never listened to anything fancier than that! But there is a difference, and there's also a difference between the £30 and £50 ones I own.

Seriously you'd be upset if you saw the back of my hifi then!

ebays cheapest…

I'd tut and shake my head, but I could probably live on 🙂

It's subtle, but it's there. You'd have to be like my mum not to notice. She's utterly oblivious.

Ive got a fair bit of kit and 10 quid is as much as id spend on interconnects

CountZero – Member
It's the molecules in the wire moving faster as the wires warm up allowing the music to travel along them more easily.

Sorry, that was an attempt at a little light-hearted sillyness mixed with what little I remember of school physics lessons about objects heating due to increased molecular movement. I do know that some speakers get better sounding as they warm up, I think due to the speaker voice coil and suspension moving more easily when warmer. Valve amps are supposed to need a warming up period as well, but I honestly don't know about solid-state amps. My set up doesn't sound any different when warm, but it's a big Yamaha A/V amp with Sony Chorus speakers, which are small alloy enclosures with a pair of drivers about 3" dia and a tweeter, with a sub, so there's not much to warm up there. It's probably about time I replaced the bell-wire connecting the speakers, tho'. My Yamaha DVD-S1500 DVD player is playing up, tho', so time for mending with a new one, methinks.

Those who refuse to believe that good quality Hi-Fi equipment sounds better if left to warm up and then not switched off and the like, have an opinion but no experience.

In my opinion.

(Waits for sh1tstorm of opprobrium from angry fundmentalist refuseniks to arrive).

Probably just your ears getting used to it, particularly if the vlume is quite high.

I also don't agree with the crap talked about cables and connectors, complete snake oil.

complete snake oil

No.

It doesnt extend the life of them leaving them on, it just prevents the mechanism that triggers death.

um?
😆
just me?

Mr Woppit… aaaaah I see, so what you are saying is that good quality hi-fi kit is actually just badly designed.

Got it…

;o)

Then I suggest you go and win the million dollars if you can tell the difference between cables with similar electrical properties in a double blind test.

A sensible point, except that not all cables have similar electrical properties.

Typically speaker cables have quite significant inductance for example.

If you are running a valve amp (or some 'exotic' transistor ones too) that have significant output impedance, or you have speakers with very low impedance ('difficult loads'), then you end up with some easily measurable and audible effects between cables of different inductance.*

* This is not to say I am advocating spending lots on speaker cables. Low inductance cable constructions can be made using CAT5 network cable or paired co-ax for example…

I have Naim kit and don't leave it switched on as it doesn't get used as much as it should. How much power might it use if left switched on? CD3/102/140/Hicap.

Speaker cables only have significant inductance if your amplifier is the other side of your mansion to your speakers.

I wouldn't expect loudspeaker parameters to shift in any audible manner (once the speaker is fully run-in) during normal home listening because the power levels and thus heat involved is so low. However high SPL home cinema use with a system that is short on output could result in muddy/boomy lows at the end of a long action sequence with lots of LF content.

Much snake oil is hard to prove or disprove, however as your brain is involved in processing the vibrations in your ears it's impossible for a human to be truly objective about what they're hearing. So although I wouldn't recommend only believing what measurement instruments tell you, I certainly would recommend questioning what you're hearing and considering that any changes could be due to your subconscious processing the data differently.

Tiger-roach, you'll be using 30 to 40W. So the same as a dim light bulb really.

tiger_roach – Member

I have Naim kit and don't leave it switched on as it doesn't get used as much as it should. How much power might it use if left switched on? CD3/102/140/Hicap.

About £20-£30 a year.

After the next session, leave it on and hear how much it improves after a warm up. Should take about 4-5 days to reach it's optimum…

I knew a lad who was into hifi and he'd never turn off his amp.

Mine doesn't get turned off, it's used daily.
Sound certainly sounds clearer, sharper, punchier & louder after about 20 minutes of playing music. I always thought & think it's the amp warming up, and the cables & the crossovers & the drivers.

Now my PA amp takes about an hour at half volume to liven up, I wouldn't like to whack it up to full straight from cold! Something would blow! 😯

I can't get over the poster who doesn't think cables ect make a big difference. Its the longest piece of electrical wiring in the whole set up.

My mates Linn lp12 with ekos and a decent cart, through naims deffo sounded better simply after spending a session cleaning all of the pins in the plug sockets. Even on my lower spec lp12, I can detect a subtle difference between speaker cables, having swapped 6m of qed c38 for some linn lk20.

I suspect the biggest difference is in the ways people use their hifi these days. 30 years ago it was records, or one of 3 channels on telly to entertain, often in colour!

Now, I suspect with the explosion of associated media alongside sound alone, most people don't "listen" to music, they simply hear it, alongside the distractions of videos or whatever.

I mean, the bird opposite me at work thought Cheryl Cole was "amazing" on the brits becasue she mimed badly to a backing track, but apparently her clothes were stunning. If she had any taste whatsoever, any idea of the craft of musicianship, she'd have understood my hoots of derision, and pointing out it was just a load of old shite….

The idea that bland synth over produced formula pop enhanced digitally can be "good" amuses me. Theres no emotion to the words, no energy to the performance, no craft to the musicianship. But its what passes for "entertainment".

I think theres less snake oil that some suppose, its just possibly they're "hearing" music, not "Listening" to it.

I sold hifi for two years in a boutique store in the early 90s and have had what would be regarded as a high end system for at least 20 years.

I have yet to meet anyone who can consistently tell the difference between speaker cables and interconnects in a double blind test. I do know that the commissions paid and margins on mains cable, interconnect and speaker cable is considerably higher than on the actual kit.

Some equipment as has been said stabilises after a period of time and valve and class A gear does need to warm up to it's optimum working temp.

My Lavardin IT was fine after around 3 mins and I never left it on. I used it with Martin Logan electrostatics and I can honestly say that Van Damme blue cables at 2 quid a meter sounded no different to the extremely expensive cables I was allowed to "dem" at home (£2.5k for F'kin cables IIRCC).

If I'm deaf hooray for me, I've saved and fortune on cables and am happy to have done so.

Goertz cables and certain others are specifically designed to change the sound of a hifi and I freely admit they do, not for the better mostly.

I regularly listen to music by the way, both live and recorded.

Joolsburger, good points there about how how people ‘listen’ to music. I used to sell audio equipment years ago, early eighties actually, when CD's first came in, and I used to go to the big hifi shows in London, which gave me an opportunity to listen to high-end systems using different media, usually vinyl, but with a lot of CD as well, and the variation was astonishing, with some systems that I was expecting to be blown away by proving to be unlistenable, then hearing a quite modest system delivering a warm, involving experience that I didn't want to leave. The first one I recall had a Pink Triangle t/table, a NAIM amp with Mission speakers, IIRC, the second I think had a Rega t/table, Castle or B&W speakers, but I don't remember the amp. I remember early CD players were very different as well, Technics ones were very harsh and ‘thin’ sounding, whereas Denon players were pretty warm. There was no fancy cables used, just QED 39 strand, and usually a Rotel RB820 amp, just affordable kit, along with B&W, KEF or Monitor Audios. Customers used to come in looking to replace some crappy Amstrad tower system with something similar, a cheap all-in-one, and walk out with £8-900 worth of separates, and often they'd come back and thank me for showing them just how good their music could sound, actually listening to it, rather than having aural wallpaper. Sadly, I think things have rather gone backwards, a 128Kb MP3 being considered ‘Hi-Fi’ quality by many. I love music, and still put aside time to actually listen to it. I'm in the process of replacing a DVD-A/SACD player that's gone shonky with a new one, a Cambridge Audio DVD99, just to get the best from my discs, but very few people I know really care very much. There isn't even a hifi dealer in town any more, just Currys…
…says it all, really. 🙁

here isn't even a hifi dealer in town any more, just Currys…

That is a tragedy. 😯

I mean, the bird opposite me at work thought Cheryl Cole was "amazing" on the brits becasue she mimed badly to a backing track, but apparently her clothes were stunning. If she had any taste whatsoever, any idea of the craft of musicianship, she'd have understood my hoots of derision, and pointing out it was just a load of old shite….

As if she'd have been any different a generation ago? She'd have been rocking out to the bay city rollers on a crappy transistor radio just the same.

There was no golden era where everyone was a music afficionado or a hifi buff.. Those that care about quality still do, and those that don't still don't 🙂