Yes! Sorry, I should have explained my scenario (I had posted about this in another thread so apologies for not explaining in this one). I live on a boat and rely on 12v, so I count every amp of power consumed. I can't afford to leave my instruments on all the time and they're only turned on as required. It's one reason why I'm swapping the NUC for the Android Minix - I save over half an amp - and will swap from externally powered hard drives to USB-powered drives - the idle power consumption will save me another half an amp or so. Since we listen to music mainly in the evenings we can't rely on solar to power our equipment.
With this in mind I'm trying to work out how I can improve my audio set-up without using too much power, which was one of the reasons why I was trying to work out if it's possible to bypass the HU altogether. Another reason for trying to reduce the power consumption is because I want to add an amp, and obviously that's going to introduce more power consumption... so if I can save in one area then I can afford to give a little more to the amp. What hadn't occurred to me, however, was that using an external amp will reduce the power the HU uses, so thanks for pointing that out.
If a DSP can manage my audio sources in the same way a HU can and more, and it consumes the same in power, then maybe I should be looking at this as an alternative. I think without realising it this is what I've been looking for. I need to look into them more because it's a new subject for me (so I appreciate the replies to this thread).
