Why all these JC-1's for sale?

I think that many people confuse "leaving the amps turned on but with little to no signal passing through them" with actual "break-in" time. While the idle current consumed and heat generated will help somewhat, there's nothing like throttling the amp to move things along. This has to do with the dynamic stress that components undergo when amplifying a signal, varying amplitude output levels and switching specific circuitry off & on, etc...

On top of that, and while i'm a big proponent of leaving high bias amps turned on, i do recommend turning these off after being on for a few days and letting them heat-down. This increases the thermal swing that the components under-go not to mention the increased "stress" caused by the massive in-rush current drawn when firing them back up.

As a side note, if a component is going to fail, it is most likely that it will fail when firing it up from being stone cold. This is due to the aforementioned problems with in-rush current and rapid thermal changes. As such, turning the amps off every now and then, letting them discharge fully overnight and then firing them back up in the morning is a good way to find out if you've got a unit with a potential problem.

If you're going to do this, do it early in the week so that when you turn it back on, the amp will be back up to a stabiized temperature for week-end listening sessions. As i've stated before, high bias amps sound best to me after being powered up for an uninterupted 48 - 72 hours or so. Just make sure that they have more than adequate ventilation. Sean
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Denf, would you be kind enough to post your impressions of the Musician II compared to the JC 1's. And did the Spectron have 400 hours on it. I know from personal experience my digital amp took at least that long to really open up.

One of the attractive aspects of digtial amps for me is the lack of heat. Should I need more power with a speaker change, the Spectron would be a consideration.

I am sure the JC-1's are great, but not in Hawaii !

Denf, never mind.

I did a search and found my answer. Much as I suspected.

In regards to Denf's comments, I also had an extended listening period (couple of months) with both, the Huricanes and a year old pair of JC-1s. The point of my post is to reinforce the importance of system synergy and personal preferences. IN MY SYSTEM, I much preferred the Hurricanes to the JC-1s due to wider, deeper, more holographic soundstage, more natural instrument voicing, and finally, a better, fleshy midrange (perhaps I favor tube colorations?)

Just for the record, my Hurricanes were using EH KT88s and EH 6SN7s for the drivers and NOS Brimar CV1988s for the input.

That being said, both monoblocks are wonderful, especially at their respective price points, and I could have easily lived with either if I didn't have one or the other.

Sean - the bias on my particular monoblocks was not set the same. One was much higher, so I adjusted them to be the same. They still get 20-25 Watts of class A. This misadjustment is fairly common - many have reported more buzz and higher heating from one monoblock.