Do ampliofers go off????

[shaheen]

Discuss.......do amp after a certain amount of time sound different, do they behave different ...I know speakers do after a while , but the question is do the same things that affect speakers plauge amps too

[joerg]

I believe that temperature is in fact a thing that has influence on how an amp performs and sounds.

[shaheen]

Just the man I was hoping to reply.....I know temp affect them and too hot or too cold could affect how the transistors switch ......I am guessing too much heat is not a good thing, but too cold is not too good as well....same as tube amps need time to warm up , what I am after is do you think an amp degrades over time....

[joerg]

I´m pretty sure that eric_d would be better to chime in here and can tell alot more than i ever could. I believe that when the caps dry out or start leaking that it will affect the performance of an amp for sure.

[Kurt Wild]

Things like DC bias and such can change over the time, which affect sound quality.

[Eric D]

I don't have enough long term amplifier knowledge to really answer this. The longest I have used an amplifier for is around one year.

I would guess that they don't change much over time, as a lot of us here seek out old amps like the MS series, and some of those amps have been in people's installations for 10-20 years and still sound great.

An amp with leaking caps sounds no different than one with new caps, at least to my ears...

I will say this, most electronics work better when cold. However, most people feel amplifiers sound better when warmed up. At cold temps electronics have higher performance, but a well designed amp will have its bias optimized for its operating point, which will be warm, or even somewhat hot. If the amp is "tuned" this way, then it will likely sound the best under these conditions.