actually, emotiva themselves are not saying you have to run this on a 20A circuit. they only did this because that was the only way to get the amp to put out it's full output. i would imagine that no one on earth would need this amp to put out it's full output and we could all live just fine with 90% by just plugging it into our wall outlet. it has nothing to do with "fire risk", i doubt emotiva would tell people it's okay to run it on regular wiring if it would present any kind of fire risk.
from the owner:
"In order to pass testing under lab conditions, which are very demanding, we must use a 20A line cord.
As we all know, in a home environment while listening to music, this type of long term power consumption is not going to be encountered due to the low average power levels found in music and movies.
Furman makes a very nice line cord adapter with a internal circuit breaker that can be safely used to convert the 20A plug to a standard wall outlet, part number ADP-1520.
Hope this helps!
Cheers,
Big Dan"
now, from a marketing perspective i think this whole "20A" thing is stupid and confusing to everybody. they should have just listed the specs running on a standard wall outlet.