No luck lately

[scarpi]

You know I don't have any good luck anymore when it comes to home theater gear. Recently I just had my B&K Reference 30 preamp repaired at the factory (for the second time). It now works good so in July 08 I bought a new B&K Reference 200.5 series two amp to go with it after my Sherbourn amp blew its capacitors. Lately it has started to blow the breaker on its line intermitantly when I turn it on. And it is on its own dedicated 20 amp line. When it does this there is a kind of pop that comes from the amp internally. This pop is louder than the usual click when the amp turns on without a problem. This happens only occassionaly. I called B&K and they told me if they can't duplicate the problem, there probably isn't much they can do. You know, I hate to say it but, I've had better luck with good home theater receivers than all this "high end stuff". I've got a Sony receiver in another room that has never had a problem. Also no problems with a Sony eleven year old dvd player and one of their new blu-ray players. Anybody have a problem like this with a B&K amp? Why would an amp blow the breaker on its own 20 amp line at turn on?? I'm kind of disgusted and tired of sending gear out to be repaired. What ever happened to Audio stores with good service departments? :M

[scarpi]

Well, my mistake. I think the power to the amp was being shut off by my 20 amp Panamax surge suppresor. After just plugging the amp into the dedicated 20 amp line without the surge suppresor, it has been turning on normally without a problem. Boy this amp just does not like anything between it and the current from the wall. The only down side is that there apparently is no way I can protect it from surges. I guess I'll have to use the old fashioned way....when a storm comes....unplug it! Sorry for the previous rant. ops:

[GregLett]

Well, my mistake. I think the power to the amp was being shut off by my 20 amp Panamax surge suppresor. After just plugging the amp into the dedicated 20 amp line without the surge suppresor, it has been turning on normally without a problem. Boy this amp just does not like anything between it and the current from the wall. The only down side is that there apparently is no way I can protect it from surges. I guess I'll have to use the old fashioned way....when a storm comes....unplug it! Sorry for the previous rant. ops:

Try using a simple surge protector something like this.

http://www.monstercable.com/productdisplay.asp?pin=1218

[scarpi]

Thanks for the reply Greg. The surge suppresor I had my amp plugged into was a simple one. It was the M2A20 unit made by Panamax that basically just plugged into the 20 amp wall outlet and hung at the outlet. It was meant for high current amps according to the literature.

[GregLett]

Thanks for the reply Greg. The surge suppresor I had my amp plugged into was a simple one. It was the M2A20 unit made by Panamax that basically just plugged into the 20 amp wall outlet and hung at the outlet. It was meant for high current amps according to the literature.

OK. Then that's very strange. Does the suppressor work with other components otherwise? I have plugged in tube gear which pulls a lot an not have a problem using the a simple monster surge suppressor.

[Kevin D]

Keep in mind that most cheaper surges fail when doing their job. It might have protected you and is now compromised. Might want to try a new unit of the same model and you may not have any issues.

Kevin D.

[scarpi]

I'm not an expert on anything electrical, but I just think that the amp pulls so much current quickly at turn on that maybe any suppresor I have tried can't provide enough current flow at a fast rate so things shut down. Remember I also at first had this amp connected to the "high current" 15 amp outlet on the back of my Panamax Max 5510 AC Regenerator which I now only use for the rest of my gear. The ampmeter actually used to get pegged offscale (15 amps) when I used to turn on the amp and eventually the 5510 had to be repaired. Sorry to repeat myself, I know I've made other posts on this issue. But I think all is well with the amp just plugged into the 20 amp wall outlet. I've had it on and off about 20 times since without any surge protector in line and it has worked fine.

[scarpi]

As a further note, I called my hifi dealer and told him that the amp occasionally blows even a breaker on my 20 amp line at turn on. He told me that he has had that issue with other B&K amps like mine and the solution to the problem is to use a 12 volt DC trigger cord that allows the amp to be turned on by my B&K Reference 30. So I bought the cord and connected it to the DC out plug on the back of my Ref 30 and then connected it to the DC in plug on the back of my Ref 200.5 amp. It sure does work great. Now when I turn my ref 30 on from the standby mode with my remote, it turns on my Ref 200.5 amp. So in a sense when the amp is not being used it is in the standby mode and its front panel blue light is off. I didn't even know my amp had a standby mode. So far so good! :T