to get rid of the power up 'pop' or thud i hear when i turn on my power amp... its my understanding that i need to put a .1uf 240v cap across the active/ switched active wires...
assuming this is correct (and please correct me if its not) would that mean that my amp would effectively be constantly using a certain amount of power when plugged into the wall?
I think you mean putting a cap across the power switch. In some cases this will help if you are turning on/off a device and the amps are already on. It will reduce RFI caused by the switch arcing. I don't think it will help with the amp turn on thump. Some (many) amplifiers have relays on the output to prevent any turn on noise. The relays don't engage until the amp has stabilized. They also will disengage if a fault occurs to save your speakers. Some amps do not have such relays. My Outlaw 750 does not have them and exhibits a nasty thump at power up. It has done this since day 1 and hasn't been a problem other than I always dislike hearing it.
My solution was to just leave the sucker on. In my home cinema the pre/pro keeps the outputs muted until it's good and ready.
Sometimes too much... So, I don't have any noise when powering the system up or down. Now if your preamp is not well behaved this isn't a good solution. Not a good solution for a class A amp either as the current draw at idle is very high. Most class A/AB amps don't have a real high idle current and don't draw a lot of power just sitting there. My Odyssey Extreme mono's draw about 40watts each. Our electricity is currently about $.06/kW-hr. This works out to 13.44kw per week and just over $0.80 per week or about $3.25/month. To me this is an acceptable price for having the amps ready to play when I get ready to listen.
HTH,
Mike G.
