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Amplifier Damage

Had a question, can an amplifier's input stages be hurt, driving an audio signal through it while it is in Stand By/Powered down. The reason I am asking is I have two integrated amps hooked up to the DAC, one to the unbalanced out and the other balanced out. The one hooked up to the Unbalanced out was powered down while I was listening to the one hooked up to the balanced out for several hours. 

Once I realized that, I disconnected the Amp powered off, Everything seems to work fine, but I had the nagging question. Does the input audio signal get shunted to ground through a diode in the input amp stages when its powered off or something to protect the circuitry? 

Any inputs will be great

rman9

Showing 1 response by carlsbad

carlsbad's avatar
carlsbad
1,551 posts
 

I recently rewired my tube amp and now have two inputs, one balanced with a transformer input, and one RCA.  I put in a selector switch.  

Currently I have both RCA and XLR hooked up to my preamp so I can select and listen to one and then the other for AB testing.  I think this is similar to what you are reporting with your luxman, When one input is selected, the other one is disconnected.  Non problem.

Jerry

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