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Power up
Flip the switch on the wall
Switch the amps one one at a time

Power Down
Switch the amps off one at a time
Flip the switch on the wall

However, the start-up procedure in many sound systems could be an issue. There are some Cinema Processors that can throw a nasty spike into the power amplifier inputs, so you want to make sure the processor is powered up before the amplifiers are. Many amplifiers are time-delay protected, but some are not.

If this is how it is wired up, you have no alternative but to use the on board device power switch.

This is our sound rack:

The crossover doesn't have a power switch, but the CP650, the monitor, and the amps all do. And I believe the switch on the console does control a contactor, because you can hear a loud pop (although not as loud as some theaters I've seen) when you turn on the sound rack, whether each piece of equipment was turned of with its power switch or not.

This is a brand new installation, so I can only hope that all the breakers were wired properly. Although we never touch the breaker boxes on the wall, I'll check those out next time I work.

If your cinema has prescribed a shut-down procedure you should follow it; I wouldn't advise you to go ahead and develop your own way of doing things on your own. You're going to get a lot of good advice here but just make sure it doesn't put you in harm's way.

Not to be a pessimist or anything, but there's that old adage: "No good deed goes unpunished."

There also tends to be politics in the booths and if it looks like you're making a bid for Booth Lead or Supervisor, your coworkers can start doing stuff to make you look bad. The solution to that is to stay in communication with your superiors regarding what you are doing and why you do things the way you do.

As for tweaking the equipment, just make sure that you don't end up creating extra work for your tech. I've had some booth operators who got ahead of themselves by trying to be "helpful" and they created extra work for me and one of them eventually became an usher as a result.

Just some friendly advice.

I'm not sure what brand/manufacturer these sound racks were as most of the text had rubbed off over the years, but I will try to describe them the best I can:

The entire "sound rack" was a self-contained processor, monitor, and amp unit. They were "christie teal" in color, the larger ones sat on the floor (8 amps in the cabinet) and the smaller ones were wall-mounted (3 to 4 amps in the cabinet). The wall mounted ones would swing open for servicing. I have also seen one of these exact same units in the "cinema" our university was interested in restoring at one point. Ultra Stereo perhaps?

I remember one day one of the amps didn't come on when I flipped its corresponding switch. I went to flip it off, then back on and it shot sparks at me!

They have since replaced the processors and such with Dolby CP-50s I believe. Perhaps Mr. Donald Dixon who works at the location now (posted here a few months ago) could give more details.

=TMP=

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Without a power sequencer, some processors (CP-50 for sure and, I think, CP-200 as well) _will_ damage speakers if you power up the entire rack at once, unless the amps are QSCs or some other type that has a delayed power feature. The CP-500 and CP-65 do not have this "feature," however. I've never seen a CP-650, so I have no idea if this is an issue (probably not, but...). This is the problem that Paul and others have mentioned.