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Looking for a new Amp or Preamp? If you're after tubes, post over here.

It's all that Thermal Mass........

Your amps will cost you over $1200/year to leave powered ON 24/7.

I've had a few older Pass Labs amps including the Aleph 3, X3, X150.5 that sound best after a couple hours warm up. All those transistors and aluminum heat sinks take a while to reach thermal equilibrium. It was always a trade-off between leaving them ON 24/7 or powering them ON Friday night for weekend listening.

Tube amps stabilize in much less time as the tubes get hot relatively quickly.



Each Pass Labs X260.8 monoblock draws 370-Watts from the AC mains at idle just sitting there doing nothing. Multiply that times two or 740-Watts of constant power draw for both amps. That's like a space heater set to Medium.

According to your Profile you're in Ann Arbor MI and according to my research the average electricity cost there is 19-Cent/kWh. By my calculations for both amps:

0.740-kWh X $0.19/kWh = $0.1406/Hour to leave your amps ON for 1-Hour.

24-Hours X $0.1406/Hr = $3.3744/Day

365-Days X $3.3744/Day = $1231.65/Year



These days I run Class D and the amp sounds great after a minute or two. They draw 0.5-Watts in Standby or I leave them ON 24/7 as the idle power draw is only 25-Watts or so.




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