We all know (or do we) that the most important thing you need to provide for an amplifier or receiver is good heat dissipation room. This influences overall performance of the equipment and its lifespan.
When you buy used receiver and you see under the PCB board it has a large burned stain, well most of the times that is from overheating due to bad heat dissipation. Providing large enough area for the gear to "breath" is even more important with tubes and SS working in A-Class operation. Regardless if your amp has ventilators on the back, it needs cooling both top, back and sometimes (depends on design) on the sides.
Over the years I have seen people who are experienced in this hobby and have 10000$+ equipment yet amazingly bad positioning for heat dissipation. Their answer always is because putting your hifi in a tight rack will steer away dust from the inside electronics. Folks, dust can be cleaned once a year but bad heat dissipation doesn't have "click undo" once the damage is done. Heat is suffocating your closed up amp every second you have it turned on even without playing music.
A year ago I boosted my integrated amps idle current as many DIYer recommended for that model and I got sonic improvements that pleased me. However the amp is heating up way more than his cooling block can take and I was worried. The solution was simple: I raised the amp by an inch on small rubber feet and the amp is optimally cool again. One inch makes all the difference as "they" say
I wrote this as a small reminder to all of my fellow AKers who have their focus elsewhere in their system and forgot their amps and receivers. And there are some people new to this hobby who are just picking up the basics.
So love your amp/receiver and give it proper care. :smlove:
When you buy used receiver and you see under the PCB board it has a large burned stain, well most of the times that is from overheating due to bad heat dissipation. Providing large enough area for the gear to "breath" is even more important with tubes and SS working in A-Class operation. Regardless if your amp has ventilators on the back, it needs cooling both top, back and sometimes (depends on design) on the sides.
Over the years I have seen people who are experienced in this hobby and have 10000$+ equipment yet amazingly bad positioning for heat dissipation. Their answer always is because putting your hifi in a tight rack will steer away dust from the inside electronics. Folks, dust can be cleaned once a year but bad heat dissipation doesn't have "click undo" once the damage is done. Heat is suffocating your closed up amp every second you have it turned on even without playing music.
A year ago I boosted my integrated amps idle current as many DIYer recommended for that model and I got sonic improvements that pleased me. However the amp is heating up way more than his cooling block can take and I was worried. The solution was simple: I raised the amp by an inch on small rubber feet and the amp is optimally cool again. One inch makes all the difference as "they" say
I wrote this as a small reminder to all of my fellow AKers who have their focus elsewhere in their system and forgot their amps and receivers. And there are some people new to this hobby who are just picking up the basics.
So love your amp/receiver and give it proper care. :smlove:
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