How many monthly kilowatt hours, including hi-fi, do you use?

blue states are always more pricey. I figured I either need to "run for office" or become homeless, because being working taxpayer in blue states is definitely the worst.

@czarivey Not to sideline or make this political, but that’s not completely true.  Less populated “blue” states (think Colorado, New Hampshire, etc.) have income tax rates that are comparable to “red” states.  Higher tax rates are generally more highly correlated to population than to political leanings although there are a few exceptions.  Interestingly, four of the five states with the highest sales tax rates are deep red states — for example, Tennessee’s sales tax at 9.55% is 45% higher than New Jersey at 6.6%.  Anyway, not all blue states are more pricey is the point here.

@soix

Go for income tax. Sales tax isn’t that of a big deal. Blue states are really cost prohibitive there. To NJ also add some draconic tolls on the roads you’re riding and highest property taxes that are also cost prohibitive + draconic insurance rates it all goes to the "office" deep pockets with lil-to nothing remaining for others. TN is still a lot cheaper than any of blue states overall you pick. So all blue states are a lot pricier than any of red states factually. 

Math is more important than politics.

So all blue states are a lot pricier than any of red states factually.

@czarivey No, not all blue states in terms of math. I’m not gonna post the numbers here because it’s not the place, but there are several rural blue states that are comparable in overall cost to red states. Not every blue state is New York or California, and saying all blue states are a lot pricier than all red states is just flat out wrong. I’ll just give one example but there are more — New Hampshire that voted Democrat in last five presidential elections spanning 20 years has 0% income and sales tax that are lower than most red states.  If you put politics aside and just go look at the numbers this is easy to see.

I think $.20 per kilowatt hour is not so bad.  I think us audio people should be more sympathetic and not leave our equipment on all the time.

I turn on all my tubes about an hour before and they run for about 4 to 5 hours and then they go to sleep when I do.

Otherwise, I loath incandescent bulbs and think they have no place in your home and are grossly wasteful.  And while many in the audiophile world may be a very wealthy nature I think we all should be concerned about Energy use. 

I have no idea what percent of my electric bill is because of my equipment, nor do I particularly care. The system is always on. The mono blocks draw 75 watts each, when they are on standby and the preamp is maybe 25. The DAC and streamer are on 24/7 maybe 25 watts each. The CD transport uses about 10 watts, And the power conditioner uses a watt or two. So I’m using say 250 watts when the system is at idle and add 1500-1700 watts if I crank it when I’m rocking out.