[hertz]

I have been observing with curiosity the thread below about the Stratos extreme monos needing to be kept on 24 x 7 for it to sound good.
Is this true only with the mono extreme version of the amp ? Is it the same story with the stratos plus / extreme version of the stereo amp also ?
I have used quite a number of amps including classe, bryston, Nad, Mf etc in my system and none required this. They start sounding good probably
in 30 to 45 minutes time. The differences after that are rather minuscule. Is this some design thing with the amp ?
SS  amps sounds slightly better if kept on 24x7 but I hardly hear any such vast differences in sound with any other brands I have used.
Any thoughts ?

[djbnh]

I used to own a Stratos w/cap upgrade, prior to moving to the Mono Extremes, and found the warm up time for the Stratos (after a power outage, etc.) to be a bit less than for the Mono Extremes.

Regarding your other questions, I'd be guessing and not offering an informed opinion.

[DMi]

I'll add some educated guesses.

I have owned (own) both stereo plus and mono extreme se units. Most amplifiers do not have anywhere near the power supply that is in the Odyssey line of products or they use different methods of supplying the instantanous reserves that these amplifers have. It depends on which specific models so I am generalizing and not disrespecting any of those amps you mentioned. The stereo plus had 60K of cap per channel in the power supply and the monos have 180K per channel. That takes a while to charge and smooth out given we are plugging into a 15 amp outlet and running through a toroid transformer that Klaus has made custom to Odyssey specs.

I think part of what we are getting non-warmed up is less power reserve for the output transistors from a over built power supply. I also think that the transistors they use take time to come to temperature and that contributes to them sounding more open than they do when cold. Although they are listen-able in perhaps a few hours the sound really opens up after 4 to 24 hours of run time. 

Overall, I think that the sound quality changes very dramatically in these amps which isn't the case with a lot of other transistor gear. I can certainly sit and listen to them in an hour or even thirty minutes after turn on but once you have heard them fully loaded for bear you know why Klaus tells folks to leave them on all the time.

Just my thoughts,

Doug