Naim & ecology?

Isn’t it usually just a fiddle calculation in UK, as your electricity actually comes from the national grid which combines it all, mainly regionally, so the electricity someone uses still gas the same real renewable to fossil fuel to nuclear ratios as anyone elses?

There wouldn’t be much music if we did…

as much as possible :wink:

I am far from convinced, though it likely depends on components and their thermal tolerances etc, especially capacitors, while thermionic valves (tubes) certainly have a finite on-life. I have always turned my amps off when not in use, none has ever failed (touch wood!)

Obviously it is all mixed up on the grid. We use Octopus, which buys only from green suppliers, which means that what we pay goes to the green suppliers. It’s as good as you can get without wholly generating your own energy.

Sorry, I was thinking about Naim and similar electronics .

Don’t be sorry, you are correct.

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We sell our excess solar energy to Octopus so it goes people who could feel better for wasting energy, and we are glad to be of help regardless. Still though, hopefully everyone should try to waste less. Also, Octopus only pay us 3-4p and sell it on for 10 times or more (and mix it up with all kinds) which is all good business. We like them as they make an effort, are quite friendly and have shown excellent customer service and support so far. Still though, slightly disappointing if this helps with excuses to waste at the other end:)

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My supplier “Eon Next” apparently generates it’s own energy from a couple of biomass power stations with the rest coming from renewable suppliers. Presumably this covers times when there is no wind or sunshine?
I’m not wholly convinced and I think there is an element of ‘smoke and mirrors’ involved.
:thinking::slightly_smiling_face:

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Do they run a dedicated line to your house? :thinking:

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Define ‘waste’.

Sure, I’d rather pass our solar energy on to the grid for free than use it on my Naim staying on when not used.

That’s fine for you with your definition of ‘waste’ but others may wish to power their equipment in the manner that gives the best sound quality and doing so is not waste.

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I’m deeply worried about climate change, mass extinctions and the future we are leaving to our children. I switch off every night (except the preamp) for 12 hours.

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Don’t worry about your system being on 24/7. It plays no role whatsoever for the environment and the only thing such thoughts can lead to is completely unnecessary feelings of guilt. Let it go.

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Look, we can’t have people going around with scientific and factual truths over marketing, spin and virtu signalling :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

Before you know it, people will be claiming that their EVs powered off coal power plants are good for the environment……

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Your stereo isn’t the problem for the environment, it’s more likely all the other crap you’re doing. :smiley:

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The electricity used is only small part of the picture. Consider that the majority of appliances die on power up. So powering off greatly increases the chances of early failure. And lower cost appliances are made to poorer standards and you are far more likely to power those off when not in use.

Assuming the item can be repaired, just one failed box generates a trip to a service centre (6000 miles in my case) and requires parts. So in that scenario the demand stimulated for transport and spare part manufacture of just one black box probably blows the constant power on resource footprint of 6 boxes combined out of the water. With a lower cost item, you’re more likely to replace it so you’ve stimulated demand for every leg of the supply chain and manufacture.

For these reasons, it’s very difficult to always know whether or not power on or off has the lowest footprint over X number of years.

The variables are many and I’m skeptical of anyone who thinks they’ve got the definitive answer.

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The average demographic/income-bracket of the Naim audiophile probably means that the size of our houses are a much bigger contributor than the amp being left on (yes, generalising). The initial construction of a house uses roughly a third of all the energy over a 90 year period if I recall correctly).
The decision to have a dedicated music room would probably outweigh the cost of running the system 24/7 for life (but I am still jealous and want one).
My foot is in both camps…usually turned power amp off most week nights when next listening session is 20-44 hours away, and on in weekends when I can’t get back to it soon enough…but then mine uses closer to 200W.

I leave mine powered up all the time. But I do have solar panels, and a share in a wind turbine, an air source heat pump and two EVs. (And didn’t fly on holiday this year). The EVs mean we are net importers of electricity

“Green” suppliers of electricity such as octopus cannot supply electricity to individual homes that is definitively “green” - it’s all mixed together on the grid with all other electricity. But they act as a stimulant in the dramatic increasing renewable generation / lowering of the uk’s dirty generation, with coal-burning massively less now in the uk (and many other countries) than at any time in the last 150 or so years.

The uk grid is getting cleaner all the time - here is a National Grid link from May 2023 marking a milestone in cumulative renewable generation that includes a graph showing its growth UK hits major clean energy milestone | National Grid Group

People grumbling about the “fact” that EVs use coal burned for electricity ignore factual reductions in coal generation, have swallowed propaganda from fossil fuel producers, and ignore all the damage caused by oil’s discovery, extraction, transport, refining (refining uses huge amounts of energy) and then burning in internal combustion engined cars. Which the complainers about renewables have no problem using and happily fly around the world with huge emissions

So my Naim kit is left on all of the time

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