Naim kit - on or off?

In my opinion, as a general rule, if one can’t afford 300 GBP worth of extra electrocity a year, then one propably shouldn’t have 100k tied up in audio kit. Simple budgeting practices. (Or even 50k for that matter).

Certainly a valid point, although I think we have to also consider that £300 of electricity now was just £200 last year, and may well be £600 next year, none of which would have been planned for.

Also if we consider people who brought their system second hand, then their £100K system may have only cost £20-30K over possibly a lifetime of building it up, so it isn’t always that simple for some.

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Yes, I agree. Some second-hand systems, like mine, aren’t in that price range. But the person complaining about 300 a year, has an Nd555, a 552, a 300dr, 2 555ps, p8 ++. 1000 a year wouldn’t be too much.

Since moving one of the planned improvements to my new home is installing Solar Power and storage. The primary consideration initially was reducing net CO2 production for my power requirements. The price rises in energy have just increased my desire to do this. In the meantime, I feel very fortunate to afford the cost of powering the system and the rest of my home.

Having read posts about the power amp not needing to be on 24/7 for optimum SQ, I will also be trying powering off my 250 at night now for a bit, as I usually listen to R4 through the system in the morning and music later in the day.

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When there are thousands of people who cannot go to a NHS dentist and have to resort to pulling
their own teeth out with pliers, when there are thousands of people who cannot get urgent operations done and are waiting 2 years or more, when there are patients waiting in hospital corridors or in ambulances because there is no room for them , when patients have to wait hours for an ambulance
even thoughn they nare having a cardiac arrest, when there are millions of people who are scared that they cannot afford to eat or heat their homes, that is what in my opinion means a third world
country and yes as a youngster I did live on the African continent.

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My system was built over 30 years of part exchanging and when I had disposable income now as a pensioner I don’t have excessive savings to fall back on. Also I am not complaining I merely wanted to ask the forum members if and how they are approaching the sky rocketing prices of energy.

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Granted - We were quite lucky due to a lot of other stuff going on at the time, we stuck with our supplier and put our energy on a 2 yr fix which runs to Oct23. Given unprecedented times, that worked out well.

Even so we’re very conscious of energy usage in the house. From a Hi-Fi perspective, my Roon Core is pretty low power and both my streamer and amp go to into low power standby when not being used. They both ‘warm up’ quickly so no issues there. Having a lot of kit powered 24x7 would not seem right these days so I’m quite glad I don’t have a load of Naim boxes, idling away as I used to.

I hope you find that powering down a few items helps keep that lovely system you’ve built up. Music brings a lot of enjoyment.

As well as powering down the 300DR, it might be worth checking with Naim if you can power down the 555PS supplying the ‘digital’ section (via the Burndy to Input 1) of the ND555 and just keep the ‘analogue’ PS powered. Every little helps.

Good luck :crossed_fingers:

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Hi James
Great advice glad you have a 2 year deal wish I had but my supplier went bust and was put with another supplier on a variable monthly tariff - not ideal. you sound as though you have a very good hand on the consumption of your system. Thanks for your advice and views.

I have a similar system to yours (it’s been boxed up for the past year whilst I renovate my cottage). In the mean time, I’m using a £100 bluetooth speaker (with Spotify): it’s nowhere near as good as my/your system but it serves its purpose and allows me to continue listening to music. You could perhaps do something similar (whilst the energy prices are high)?

I have a boiler which uses kerosene (no mains gas) and the price has more than doubled since last year (at one point the price had tripled). Last year I nearly froze to death and I’m not particularly looking forward to the forthcoming winter. I can understand your predicament and hope that it all works out for you :relaxed:

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In answer to your question - and i apologise if my answer was in anyway flippant or seems that way - a Star or a Nova are very good and much more friendly with their deep sleep mode.

I am also very appreciative that the current conditions have hit some people hard .

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lovely message Satori gosh you must have a big job on your hands renovating the cottage for over a year! It will I am sure look fantastic when done and your /my system will complement your refurbishment to a tee! Your patience must be tested listening to blutooth speaker/Spotify but as you say it is still that powerful draw we all love i.e. music!

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Hi Ian,
I already have as part of my system the nova and am currently using this instead of the full system

The answer is switch off.
Electricity expenses vary, but off will be good economic logic.

Being retired too, I do switch off when out and in nights.

Can’t detect much difference as I could when young, back then green light on 24/7 that was half your number of boxes.

Our hearing is not what it was 35-40 years ago.
Thats human.

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Hi PerF
Yes Specsavers want me to buy one of their superior products saying my hearing has deteriated
I am sure it has but for 2000 I dont think so! I can still all the nuances my system delivers as well as the sheer delight my music is to my ears

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Yes, I get that now, Granted. Sorry for assuming otherwise. I’m also retired so I do understand.

Dave

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Hi Dave
Thank you for your response

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I have tended to leave my system powered on 24/7 as to me it takes a good 48 hours at least for it to come on song if it has been off for a few days though I haven’t tested whether some components are at their best quicker than others and saw with interest Richard Dane’s comments on that.

However endeavouring to be environmentally conscious as well as having an eye to how much this costs, in July this year I turned the system off except at weekends when I do most of my listening. It seemed to reduce the electricity bill for the month by somewhere between £5 and £10.

My suggestion would be to test turning the system on and off. With 12 boxes it sounds like an active system so it is important to turn things on and off in the right order.

I had a quad 33/303 (for about 40 years) and then moved to Naim 32.5/snaps/250 and my dealer told me to leave the pre-amp on all the time and turn the power-amp off when not using it.

I had various upgrades and always turned off the 250 power-amp. However, since I got a NAP-300 (a few years ago) every time I switch it off and then switch in on the circuit breaker trips. I reset it (the circuit breaker) and then try again. Eventually it settles down. For this reason I leave both the pre-amp and the power-amp on all the time.

[I understand that the circuit breaker trips because of the massive current surge to charge the condensers in the NAP-300 power supply. I also know that maybe I could change things in the fuse box but I don’t want to start looking for an electrician to do this stuff. I have a dedicated mains supply for the hi-fi but it has the standard fuse/circuit-breaker for a standard 13amp ring main].

Given that I listen to the system most days it probably makes sense to leave it on. Also as class AB it does not use that much electricity.

[A friend of mine has a really good Class-A valve amp and, with the present hot weather, is finding it too hot to listen to. It heats up the already hot room].

I understand the reluctance, but I don’t think it’s very healthy for a system when you get a fuse tripping. What you could do is to take a photo of your HiFi consumer unit with the fuse types showing, pop down to somewhere like Screwfix, and ask for an equivalent TYPE C fuse. Then for an electrician or in fact I think the wording is Competent person, could swap it over in minutes, and probably wouldn’t charge an awful lot. Just a thought.

I have been powering down my system because of the heatwave we are currently experiencing in the UK. My SN3’s casing was really warm just idling away, so to preserve the caps i’m now switching it off until the climate starts to really cool down again.

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