Electrical Outlet?

[Chip Roberts]

Hey all,  I've had a B200s for a while now and, so far, it's probably my favorite of the poweramps I've paired up with my MP1.  Super warm and the colors go great with my Quadraverb!

My question is, what the hell's the deal with that white electrical outlet on the back?  Can I just plug anything into it?  I've seen this type of thing on other power amps as well and can't find anything in the manual about it.

[rnolan]

Hi Chip, I've not seen that on a B200s before, IIRC the B500B has the power outlet.  It's basically there so you can plug your preamp (MP1/2, MB1 etc) into it so you only need to plug the amp into the mains, so like with other units that have it, it's there for convenience.  You should be able to plug "anything" into it but it's probably no designed for high current draw devices like other power amps.  So I'd say preamps or Fx or a mixer should be fine.

[Kim]

I remember the B200s I once owned had that Unswitched electrical outlet, too.  I had no need to use it, but it was nice that it was there should I ever wanted to use it.

For those wondering, an "Unswitched" outlet is an outlet that is powered when the unit has power to its own Mains regardless of whether the unit is switched On or Off.
A "Switched" outlet means the outlet is only powered when the unit itself is switched On. 

One scenario for using this is that the preamp could be plugged into this outlet to allow proper sequence of powering up and down the preamp and poweramp if using a power strip or rack power supply (Power On:  preamp first, poweramp last.  Power Off:  poweramp first, preamp last.) since a lot of preamps have their power switch on the back of the unit where it's not so convenient.  Here you'd leave the preamp switch On, and power up the rack with the main switch on the rack power, then reach down to toggle the poweramp switch ON.  Reverse the sequence when powering down the rack.   There's more ways to utilize the "unswitched" outlet on the back of the B200s (and others) but this is just one.

[rnolan]

Thanks KimGood explanation  and makes lots of sense why they would include it.  All my Australian B200s' (3 over time) didn't include it, but then an unswitched power outlet may not have been legal/Aust standard here