leave it on, or turn it off?

[smopo24]

Originally Posted by Whoopysnorp

It is my understanding that SOP for people running extremely expensive computer components is never to cycle power unless absolutely necessary. I guess it's especially hard on hard drives--every time you turn it on, you're spinning it up from a cold state, which is worse for it than leaving it on and active all the time. I say leave it on.

i have heard the same thing about tube mics; i think i read about someone in tape op a while ago that just left his plugged in and running all the time.

[Whoopysnorp]

Originally Posted by smopo24

i have heard the same thing about tube mics; i think i read about someone in tape op a while ago that just left his plugged in and running all the time.

That's the case with any tubes--the biggest strain on any tube is the warming up and cooling off.

[Nubus]

Originally Posted by Whoopysnorp

That's the case with any tubes--the biggest strain on any tube is the warming up and cooling off.

The tube inside of a mic isn't on a high enough voltage to worry about stress from powering on and off, otherwise they would have a standby.

[dolivas]

I have to say recently i've gone so far to conserve energy as to turn everything off and unplug the power plug when not using any of the items connected to it i.e. the cpu, interface, keyboard etc.. Haven't seen any detrement at all visible or otherwise on my devices, I don't own a tube mic though so I can't vouch for that. The upside is that my "recording room" feels much cooler and doesn't require me to turn on the AC to cool up a room that has so much gear pumping out heat.

Im just trying to cut down on electrical bills and be more energy efficient than before. Gotta do my own part to stop environment degredation somehow, however small the sacrifice seems.

[Nubus]

Originally Posted by dolivas

I have to say recently i've gone so far to conserve energy as to turn everything off and unplug the power plug when not using any of the items connected to it i.e. the cpu, interface, keyboard etc..

Me too. I have all the gear on a couple power bar strips, and I just make sure to turn them off. My laptop never leaves my desk, so I even removed the battery and just leave the power cord attached, which will prolong battery life.

Another thing I hate is the standby mode on my dvd player, stereo, tv, and anything else with that feature. What the heck is that for? Just wastes power.

[dolivas]

Originally Posted by Nubus

Me too. I have all the gear on a couple power bar strips, and I just make sure to turn them off. My laptop never leaves my desk, so I even removed the battery and just leave the power cord attached, which will prolong battery life.

Another thing I hate is the standby mode on my dvd player, stereo, tv, and anything else with that feature. What the heck is that for? Just wastes power.

Yeah I try to put as many items like you're doing on power strips because it's way easier to just turn off the power and unplug the power strip if its within reach. I've gotten pretty deep into trying to see how to use as little power as required for my living area.

The standby feature gets on my nerves as well. I really see no point to that in tv's radios etc. other than to run clocks which hardly anyone uses to tell time. Sadly my TiVO-like Dish DVR receiver requires it to be on all the time to update it's tv listings but ah well I'm still unplugging that stupid dish receiver's plug. I can manually record most of the stuff I'm TiVoing either way. Good rule of thumb I use nowadays is to buy stuff that has the Energy Star compliant logo on it (consumer electronics mostly).

[Chaorta]

I leave my stuff on all the time.