Hirnilein0815 Posted June 11, 2019 Share Posted June 11, 2019 From the DT25 Pilot's Guide: 3. Standby Switch – Allow the amp to warm up for one minute before setting STBY to ON. This extends the life and performance of your vacuum tubes. It is not necessary to set the amp to STBY before setting the Power Switch to its OFF position, but it can be a good habit, if only to ensure you’ve got it set properly next time you power up the amp. There are quite a few sources in the internet that say a standby switch in a guitar amp doesn't make any sense: https://www.londonpower.com/standby-switch http://www.valvewizard.co.uk/standby.html https://www.sweetwater.com/sweetcare/articles/great-standby-switch-myth Since the DT25 is a relatively new design, why does it have an standby switch and what exactly is it doing? Can we savely ignore it (i.e. leave it on all the time)? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
seldon1 Posted June 11, 2019 Share Posted June 11, 2019 Sounds to me like the pilot guide is recommending exactly what the sweetwater articles suggest. It's not necessary these days because of the higher quality capacitors but use standby for 5 minutes or less when first warming up the amp and not for anything else. That's pretty much what I've done my whole life. I knew that the standby wasn't for beer breaks and I also knew leaving the amp on and on standby for long periods will burn out tubes. The pilot guide says it's not necessary to go to standby when powering down the amp and I never do this because of the pop you get, especially with older fender models. I just turn it off and then reset the amp to standby for the next warm up. Very informative however, thank you for this post. We all need to know the correct, even though not entirely needed, use of the standby switch. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hirnilein0815 Posted June 11, 2019 Author Share Posted June 11, 2019 If I understand those articles correctly (which is not certain, because I don't know much about electronics) the standby switch does not protect the tubes. If it protects anything at all, then it's the capacitors in the power supply. But today, where a properly sized capacitor is cheaper than a high voltage switch, why would anyone implement a standby switch, if not for nostalgic reasons? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
psarkissian Posted June 11, 2019 Share Posted June 11, 2019 It's not a myth, it's the extremes of thermodynamics. Too deep and lengthy to get into here. Leaving on in standby give it a chance to settle in. Biasing too soon after turning on can leave you with bias error after a half hour. Doing a turn on and standby, then bias, then run tests, and checking bias at the end of the tests, shows that there is less bias offset. Not letting it settle in at the start can show a bias offset later on. And that's not good. Major recording facilities with Neve and SSL boards will leave them on 24/7 whether they're being used or not, for similar related reasons. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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