Is it wise to use an audio interface at all times?

[RottenToTheGore]

What I mean to say is, even when I'm not using Ableton.

At the moment, when I go into Ableton I plug my headphones into my interface, and when I'm done, they go into the computer. I don't have speakers at the moment, so I figured I'd hook the output of my PC into the interface and use it for everything.

But would that be a bad idea and reduce the life of the interface? Thanks!

[Warrior Bob]

I can't see any reason why - I do this myself.

[yur2die4]

This is just me being picky, but I tend to think that the less times you have to connect/disconnect a jack, the longer it will last.

In this case, you will probably be doing your headphone jack on both the headphones and the interface a favor by leaving it in there

[RottenToTheGore]

This is just me being picky, but I tend to think that the less times you have to connect/disconnect a jack, the longer it will last.

In this case, you will probably be doing your headphone jack on both the headphones and the interface a favor by leaving it in there

Good point. I was thinking more about leaving it powered on for so long wearing it out, as it's my only computer so it's not just used for music. Sometimes it'll be on for a few days at a time.

But there isn't an on/off switch for it, and I'd have to unplug the firewire cable everytime I want to turn it off, so that's a good idea to leave it on I suppose

[crumhorn]

The most likely time for any piece of electronic equipment to fail is on power up. So I was always told.