Which to power on first? (1 Viewer)

[Vlad D]

Does the order in which you power on equipment matter? I have a Parasound 855 amp and using a Denon receiver as the pre/pro. Just wondering if it made a difference in any way if I turned on the amp first; harmful or otherwise.

 

[BrentPollard]

I just purchased a Rotel RLC 900 line conditioner and it powers things up in sequence with the power amps powering up last, I guess that is to prevent possible popping as things come on.

 

[Saurav]

Yup, power up the amps last. In general, power up going downstream (source first, preamp next, amps last), and power off in the other direction. The reason is as Brent said - when you power a component on or off, there's a brief noise transient at its output. This could be as harmless as a slight pop, or as bad as a high DC voltage that trips your amp's protection circuitry, or worse, fries a speaker driver. So, you power on something, give it a few seconds, then power on the next downstream component, and so on. If you have tube gear, I'd give it a little more than a few seconds.

 

[Vlad D]

So in essence, downstream to power on, in my case would be: CD/DVD -> receiver -> amp. And, I would power down in the opposite direction. What about my TV? Where would it fit in? Or does it matter.

Thanks guys.

 

[JackS]

If your receiver has a built in delay and there is no "pop" during power up going to your amp first may be okay. After all may people leave their amps on 24/7. Source first amp last is the way you must go , only if you do get this pop.

 

[Saurav]

If your receiver has a built in delay

I've read some posts here where people discovered that the receiver's delay only worked on its internal amps, not its preouts. So, people who were using external amps for the front channels got a loud pop in those, but not in the center/surrounds, which were being powered by the receiver's amps.

 

[chella]

Parasound 855 has 12 DC trigger; if you receiver can support the same, that would be the best way to go. Alternatively you can also use the receiver's switched mode power output to connect to the DC trigger using a simple AC-DC converter that would deliver 6/12 volt DC signal.