California electrical shortage audio


California is experiencing an electrical power shortage and has random brown outs. Many current audio products are now designed to be left with the power on (they say producing no harm or wear to the unit). Many manufactures recommend that leaving the power on allows the circuitry to remain at a constant operating temperature, providing better performance and longer life. Should I continue to leave my CD Player and integrated amplifier on in mute mode considering the California electrical power shortage and random brown outs? thanks...
hgeifman

Showing 3 responses by garfish

Hi Hg; I'm in neighboring Oregon, so I have an interest in this issue too. Personally, I would rather turn my equipment off rather than have it receiving only partial power as in a "brown out". This is just my opinion. Having said that, I presently leave my transport, DAC, and pre-amp (tube) in standby as recommended by the manufacturer, but turn my big power amp off when not listening (300 wpc). According to R. Vandersteen, a solid state power amp will sound very good within 20 minutes of power-up, and that's been my experience too. Cheers. Craig.
Cornfed; Yep, I pretty much agree with you re: leaving amps on. My amp does sound pretty good after only 20-30 of "on" time, but IMO it sounds even better if I leave it on for 2-3 days. This amp (McCormack DNA-2DX) automatically goes into a standby mode after not getting a signal for 10 minutes, and then draws only about 130 watts (rather than about 325 at idle). I typically turn it on 2-3 hours prior to listening. I just thought R. Vandersteen's position on this might be interesting. Cheers. Craig.