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 1 response by tsquared

As a resident of LA, I think that we all have a responsibility to help in the energy crisis here. I agree with most of the sound related posts that my amps sound harsh at first turn-on and about 95% after around an hour warm up. They still get a little better over a day or so. I really like how my system sounds after a long warm up.
That said, I am running Aleph 2 monos and at 600w/ hr just being turned on, that's not only a heap of change, but is a little irresponsible in light of the current (no pun intended) situation.
As far as the political tangent on this thread, I think one of our weaknesses as Americans is we often look to blame (or lynch) someone else for causing just about any problem. Everyone who consumes enregy is at least a part of the problem.
If we spent half as much energy trying to fix, or better yet prevent problems, rather than finding scapegoats, we'd be a hell of a lot better off. Responsibility is what helped make America great. I wish we all would accept a little more nowadays.
Now back to the thread from a pure audio sound/safety standpoint. Most of my equipment has built in protection. I also run pretty good conditioning/ surge protection on the lines. However, I have had several days in the last 5 mos where I return home and my preamp (Muse 3) is, for lack of a better word, "shorted". The LED lights are incorrect and I need to unplug and replug it to get it to work again. I also had a Faroudja DV-1000 fry one night this fall in spite of line conditioning. Fortunately, it was repaired for only a couple hundred bucks. My VCR's and clocks were reset at these times too, so it's wasn't isolated to the components. For these reasons, I turn my stuff off most of the time.
I turn off the amps due to the electricity shortage. I do admit that I justified leaving them on over the "cold" LA winter as they were serving as heaters for my home. (Pretty good rationalization anyway). Peace,

Todd