Audio/Video power phantoms

This week, I measured the power consumption of my Audio/Video system in the den. As I mentioned in a previous post, I've been using a Kill-A-Watt to measure the energy consumption of various electrical devices.

My A/V stack consists of a DVD player, 6 disc cd player, dual cassette player, stereo receiver, XBox, a projection TV, and a cable DVR. I have set everything except the DVR into a power strip that I can turn on and off to cut the phantom power usage. The complete stack (minus the DVR) uses 33 watts when everything is turned off. Using the power strip saves me about $17 per year (since electricity is about 6 cents per kilowatt-hour this month - Thanks for the October surprise Entergy). Just for comparison's sake, the projection tv, the xbox, and the stereo use 282 watts when running.

The Cox DVR uses 24 watts when booting, but then goes on to use 44 watts whether the on/off light is on or off. This means I'll pay about $23 per year for its power, since it's always on and doesn't seem to have a low power mode.