Eddie TX

DrLumen
I agree with storing mics for safe keeping.
 
Except for monitors, I leave all my gear on 24/7/365. Like bitflipper was saying, I tend to think the initial current rush is part of the cause of electronic failures but also the heat/cool cycles. I think the insulation (like shellac) on transformers and chokes and the various capacitor materials tend to age quicker with heating and cooling (expansion and contraction)
 
I may spend more on electricity in the long run but I think I save time by not having to recover from as many failures. Either way, "The world may never know."

An electronic tech told me a while back that it's best to leave gear powered up all the time, for these exact reasons. Makes sense to me. 
 
Part of "aging tests" routinely done by major manufacturers is to repeatedly heat-cycle the products in question. 
 
As for saving electricity, I'm all for that, but most modern studio units like interfaces and even PCs don't consume that much power, esp. when idle. If you're curious, buy or borrow a meter like the Kill a Watt.
 
Cheers,
Eddie

Yes, that is what my electronics professor told us as well. That was in the 70's though. :) I would tend to think it is still true though.
 
Just doing a napkin type calculation, if I spend about $300 a year on electricity and it prevents a HDD from going bad then I think it is worth it. Every few years I will have a drive go bad but there is really no way to know if the drive would have gone bad if turned off every night. It might have happened quicker but I still wouldn't know which strategy was better. <shrugs>
 
Like bitflipper was saying about light bulbs, my system problems always show up after a reboot or cold start.

DrLumen
I agree with storing mics for safe keeping.
 
Except for monitors, I leave all my gear on 24/7/365. Like bitflipper was saying, I tend to think the initial current rush is part of the cause of electronic failures but also the heat/cool cycles. I think the insulation (like shellac) on transformers and chokes and the various capacitor materials tend to age quicker with heating and cooling (expansion and contraction)
 
I may spend more on electricity in the long run but I think I save time by not having to recover from as many failures. Either way, "The world may never know."

On the other side of the coin I dont agree. I have been turning my studio on and off now for 37 years! Not one failure due to this approach either so how do you explain that! Except I do do it in a sequence though. Not everything at once. Leaving gear on is a myth. (Older gear yes but not these days) Especially computers. Windows does not like being on for a long periods of time. It is well known that you should cold boot your computer.  Leaving your gear on also consumes a lot of power over a year.  Electricity is getting far too expensive to do it these days. Leaving your  computer on even in standby is running the power supply as well. Basically you are wearing it out faster, much faster.
 
And if you go away for three weeks and leave you gear on then you are even more silly. You are leaving yourself open to some real potential problems due to storms etc.. Lightening strikes etc..You need to totally disconnect power when you go away. 
 
I used to teach sound engineering in a school that had an old Harrison M32C console and yes that had to stay on for sure.  It just did not like being turned on and off.  It drew over 1KW permanently and the power supply got so hot it had to be in a room of its own with an air con permanently aimed at it in order to keep the temp under control. But a lot of modern gear these days e.g. digital mixers don't have to operate this way.

Electronics don't mind being on at all. Think about all the electronics we have out there that run 24x7 with no issues. On or off it really doesn't matter, other than leaving something off for a real long time can cause electrolytic capacitors to die off a bit faster (if the unit has any). There's no particular reason to leave them on (power cycling really doesn't hurt them) but no reason to need to turn them off.
 
Also Jeff your view on Windows is a little dated. You can leave it on as long as you like. The days on 9x where memory leaks would slowly kill a system are long gone. The Windows desktop and server code bases are fully integrated, Windows 10 runs the same kernel as Server 2016. You can leave your system up and running 24x7x365 and just let it reboot for patches and it'll be fine.
 
Depends on the stability of your hardware, of course, but if you have good hardware, continuous run isn't a problem.

I have encountered the odd situation in Windows where it was doing something strange.  Restarting did not cure the problem.  Only turning off completely waiting minute and doing a cold boot did the problem disappear.  This is with current systems.  It still happens today.  Not as often I agree bit still can happen.
 
People who leave their computers on permanently will put up with a situation like that and probably waste quite a lot of time trying to rectifying it as well.  Not even thinking that a complete turn off and a cold boot would fix it.  It happened to konradh recently in the Sonar threads.  
 
 

There are plenty of scenarios where shutting down the computer completely and restarting can be helpful and resolve driver or hardware issues.  The classic "have you tried turning it off and on again?" IT Crowd line hasn't lost its relevance. 
 
Even though mic's are a given to pack away after use since it is the physical transducer that needs to be kept clean and protected, I would still suggest turning all your gear off after use.  Some electronics don't mind being powered 24/7 but LEDs and display screens, and several other heat dissipating electronics, have a limited life span.  I can't think of any modern small signal audio electronics that would suffer from frequent on/off cycles. 

With microphones yes the best approach is to definitely keep them packed up.  And if they do have to stay out overnight or for a few days due to a long session a good thing to do is to cover them with a small open ended bag of some kind. Note, open ended is important otherwise moisture could build up.  The worst thing that may have happened in the OP's case is the diaphragm being exposed for week while charged to airborne dust.  But if there was no one around at least for a week the amount of airborne dust would have been minimal.  I am sure your microphone is fine.  Your preamp will also be fine too.  Please don't be tempted to clean the diaphragm or even apply any air dusting to it etc.. It is very delicate and can be damaged permanently very easily.  Just keep it stored in between uses safely. 
 
I agree with Daniel re turning gear on and off I think these days with gear drawing so little power now too and being able to immediately offer identical performance as well the moment it is switched on.
 
Like I mentioned with the Harrison console and also with me in the 80's with a lot of vintage analog synths they did not mind being powered up but they did often take a while to warm up and get back to the sounds they had previously or in most cases they never actually returned to their previous sounds anyway.  I used to leave some stuff on if I was very tired and not able to track a part say.  I would leave them on and then next morning get up and do it.   With digital synths now of course this is not an issue anymore as they do power perfectly to the same sounds they had previously.  The argument for leaving your studio on is weak now. 
 
There is also an argument against leaving stuff on too.  With the Harrison console we were in an area that was prone to voltage fluctuations and spikes and the disadvantage was although the console would be very stable due to being left on, sometimes it used to take a power spike in the middle of the night and then we had to get the power supply repaired which was usually very very costly. We had to carry a spare because of this.  In the end we had to get a special UPS that totally isolated the console. But it cost a fortune because the console drew well over 1KW and the cost of a UPS that can handle that sort of power starts to get very serious. 

As an IT person I can only offer an opinion...today's servers should run 24/7....today's workstations / home computers can be shut down daily. Today's hard drives can be powered off daily. I've followed this pattern for years without problems personally.
(Your experience may vary).
I can say there is a percentage of hardware that will fail in one year whichever way is followed.

Others will run for a decade. But always operate like your hard drive will fail anytime because you never know. 😊

Now, because I've said something....if my PC or laptop doesn't boot up tonight I'll be upset.....

A side note...I've had my Edirol FA 101 on for the last 5 years except for hurricanes. No reason, just where it sits on my desk.

Jeff Evans
I have encountered the odd situation in Windows where it was doing something strange.  Restarting did not cure the problem.  Only turning off completely waiting minute and doing a cold boot did the problem disappear.  This is with current systems.  It still happens today.  Not as often I agree bit still can happen.
 

+1
I can also attest to that.
 
I've also had a lap top that would need to be unplugged and battery pulled, hold the power button on for 10 seconds (The draino approach) in order for it to run again for long periods of time.
I would like to think there was some sort of defect but it ran great, as I said for long periods of time.
But it would once in a while have a quirk with it that needed special attention.
 
I leave my PC's on 24-7-365.
I cant say ive ever had an issue where I thought came from leaving my PC on all the time.
 
I will most deff agree that a good cold boot/ leave off/even unplug/ for a minute is much needed to do once in a while.