My Rega amps didn’t cause a pop on startup, my Naim 250 did but my 500 doesn’t, I don’t remember whether the Nait 5 did but I only had it for a month before replacing it with the Rega Cursa/Maia. My first amp, a Sansui au217 was £80 new and had a softstart relay, and rumble filter and tone controls.
Naim have something of a hairshirt tradition, which included no zodal network, necessitating high inductance speaker cables, or softstart relay, they’ve got more sophisticated over the years but there is some vestige still. The pop included.
Some of my old school power amps in the past also had this pop. One of the loudest one was my Audio Research D250. Not only was it a POP, but it was a THUD which caused the woofer to abruptly move. I faxed (no internet yet) Bill Johnson (then owner of ARC) about it. He said it was perfectly normal, and that my speakers will not be damaged, but he can provide an easy fix to remove the thud. He however mentioned that this additional circuit will degrade a bit the sound quality of the amp. I just decided to live with the THUD. This was a tube amp with over 30 tubes (inclusive of 16 power tubes) so leaving it ON 24/7 was not an option. For over 10 years of daily ON / OFF operation, my speakers were never damaged.
I believe newer ARC amps no longer have this thud. I guess they opined that on a marketing standpoint, amps with no pops and thuds will generate more sales.
If there’s no power switch on the front I usually leave things on. The inrush of current is tougher on electronics. I owned a Mark Levinson No.26S preamp with the 226 outbound power supply. Neither the Preamp or Power Supply had a power switch!
@fdm D250 was a beast! I owned ARC Classic 120 monos. Amazing sound until a tube would blow
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I’d agree with this fully. The noise is just something that happens.
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