EU energy efficiency regulations

Fair point - it was the BBC news article that stuck in my mind but upon rereading you are correct. 

Do we actually know how much energy a typical Naim component uses when powered up but is quiescent?  I suspect it's a lot more for a power amp than a pre or source. 

In many cases the quiescent power consumption is quoted in the specification of Naim components. 

Others have have tested this quiescent power consumption and found apparently diverse levels ...

A good guide is how warm these things run. I found that Power Supplies ran warm all the time, and power amplifiers tend only to warm up in use.

ATB from George

and that keeps the room warmer and cuts down on central heating fuel consumption, so better to leave the kit switched on during winter ; )

Debs

Dear Debs,

I used to use that argument as well. Fine so long as your main heating is electrical [as heating by hifi electricity is very expensive compared to gas or even oil formal heating], and while you are using it. Four months of the year perhaps? 

Twenty four hours a day? Well I have never done that. I turn off when I go to bed, and turn on again when I get in from work. So never more than five or six hours in the day in the working week.

I realise that I am a bit of a heating Puritan! 

Very best wishes and Happy New Year to you, from George

The very crux of the matter is ones definition of waste. 

If leaving my hi-fi switched on gives me 1% or 2% more in sound quality (figures plucked out of the ether for arguments sake) then I am happy to pay for the extra electricity I use and for me it is not wasted as no amount of effort on my part can improve the sound of my hi-fi; take it as read that I have taken all steps in system dressing etc.

I offset this usage by not using a tumble dryer to dry my clothes, a dishwasher to wash my pots and pans or a car wash to clean my car; heaven knows how much electricity is required to turn those rollers. 

A pound to a penny my hi-fi uses less energy in "stand by mode" in a year than those appliances do. 

Regards,

Steve O.

Offsetting is not an argument that holds water.

Waste is waste, and that is why the law to prevent unused new appliances being left on will come.

The law will be correct and the unsustainable argument about offsetting will not matter then.

Of course you can continue to run out of date machinery in a wasteful way, but eventually it will be almost entirely gone, just like most old cars disappear before they get to twenty years old. Recycled into much more ecologically sound new ones.

ATB from George

Dear Scot,

I have often wondered why any car - even for the most elevated echelons in our society - need have more the 100 hp and perhaps also a limit of 1500 cc? It would make sense that very heavy vehicles and ones with relatively poor fuel economy figures were taxed on a Exponential scale compared to the lowest emission vehicles, not a linear one. I am talking about polution tax [i.e. what we used to call the annual tax disc] levels that are in the thousands of £s PA not hundreds for the least efficient vehicles ...

Then government ministers and lower graders in the executive would feels shamed by wasting tax payers' money on such a display ...

I used to run a car till four years ago, and in the four years before that notched up some 2,500 miles. I hardly missed it when it went.

Eighteen months ago I was given a Nissan Micra, which I ran for twelve months and covered 800 miles in the period. I found that it was cheaper and more enjoyable to let the train take the strain!

I suspect that many things will change in the coming decade, and inefficient cars will soon be addressed. 

ATB from George

PS: I agree entirely about these big climate change conferences. A bloody farce considering the environmental cost of transporting people there when a video conference would serve just as well.

You are quite correct George in saying waste is waste and offsetting is not an acceptable alternative.

but you continue to ignore the big picture. If somebody makes better sounding hifi that sounds just as good "cold" as it does "warm" and it is cheaper (both financially and environmentally) than Naim, we would all buy it. 

This hasn't happened yet, and I don't anticipate it will happen anytime soon Hugo excepted. When it does, and assuming Naim respond with aa new line of eco-friendly kit, i'd want to be satisfied that the new "warm" performance levels hadn't simply been downgraded to the level of the old "cold" performance levels  

We can all write elegant aspirational prose. The EU and its agencies is as good at this as any other organisation.

The Chinese love it. especially when the EU tries to force it upon us.

George, Frank, anybody ? facts, figures ? or is this just a hot air discussion ?

It woul be not a joke, as electrical energy conversion into heat is very efficient, much more then burn gas or oil or choke. Then if electrical devices we have at home release some heat, intentionally or not (because of warm up or because of working principle likes an air dryer or toaster) this is not lost, generally speaking.

 I wuould clarify my point with one example: passive house are design without any heating system, or so, because it is so well insulated that the heat dissipated by electrical devices, humans activities, and eventually solar radiation are enought to keep it warm. Here the "waste" from electrical devices is necessary (boiling water and cooking are inevitable human necessity), heat is also release by human activities.

If you google on that example you will discover interesting evolution on the concept of energy waste. And at which price and cost could be reached.

Coming on topic, I likes all would get a more suistenable world. But looking at this electrical efficiency of electrical devices is not a so solution.

what is the % of energy wasted by heating system at home? What is the waste of energy for transport everything from everywhere, and often trash a large amount because is old (and can't be eat).

the list going longer, just depend on % of energy used, and at home we use not so much if you consider that some devices can't be improved more: a toaster needs heat, you get from electricity conversion (the most efficient) and there is not improvement possible (in the past this idea of improvement push the microwave that is not usable for all time of delicious food but is very good for long term conserved frozen food... You see the result?).

simplify complex problems alway let some misunderstood, so apologies if I have done, my contribution is just for sac of discussion.

I don't know if/how Naim devices will be affected by these regulations, but I'm confident that Naim will come up with a solution that is minimally invasive to the sound. Which probably means that an automatic power switch would be located on a separate board, perhaps with a separate power supply and, as a corollary, be easily disabled by your friendly Naim dealer.

George,

So if such regulations caused a redesign of equipment and you eventually had to replace you Naim components with new models which were say 10% more expensive then the previous models and had poorer sound quality too, what would your reaction be?

My reaction is that I wouldn't be happy.  With the old design it would be my choice whether to power down or not, with the new one that option is taken away from me.

So on the basis of doing approx. 600 miles/year (likely around 30 minutes in a car per week) and then 800 miles in a year you wonder why more than 100hp/1500cc could be desirable?  Your car usage profile is not typical of the average UK driver, so I'm not sure you are best positioned to make that determination.  Maybe you should be the UK Transport Minister? 

More seriously though, that kind of thinking is dangerous - assuming that what is satisfactory (or even perfect) for you should therefore apply to everyone else.  Clearly the market and the industry don't accept that model as can be seen by the huge variety that is available.

Imagine if Naim applied that approach and only produced a single model within each of the relevant areas?  I doubt we'd be spending so much time talking about them or using their equipment!

Apparently the sensitivity of the fuse in the XPS2 is down to the type of fuse they were required to use to meet safety regulations.  So that's a perfect example of where imposed regulations have a detrimental affect on usage.

Sure, no one would want to see someone injured during appropriate usage of their equipment but if the fuse were say 10% more resistant to surges the additional risk to user would likely be negligible and fuses wouldn't be popping everywhere but that's "NOT ALLOWED" by the regs.

If tax were only levied on fuel (so no VED in UK for example) then people would only pay for what they use which seems the fairest approach to me.

Well remembered Jon!  Here's what you posted in 2007.  Hope you enjoy CES.

OK, nothing quite like having the right tool for the job (Voltech PM100 Power Analyser!)

I switched everything off, started at the turntable end, turned on each piece, noted the new power, then dropped the lot into Excel to get the power consumptions of each piece. This is true power consumption, *not* volts times amps

Linn/Armageddon   -- 4.13 Watts
Hicap/Prefix      -- 5.51 Watts
CDS1 at idle      -- 23.66 Watts
52/PS          -- 23.58 Watts
Supercap/snaxo362 -- 13.6 Watts
1 x 135          -- 12.55 Watts

So adding up my complete system (6x135s), I get to a running idling power consumption of about 150 Watts.

Isn't this discussion a waste of energy, in the literal sense? A bunch of screens glowing at their users' faces while talking about how everyone else should live, suggesting using the government to enforce that, and not actually changing anything.

I'm certain even among the most thrifty of us someone can find a source of waste, depending on how broadly you define it: watching reality TV could count, for example, or listening to music on a high-end system at high levels, which certainly consume more than the same system at a lower level - why do you *need* that?

Truth is we are all offsetting something.

Charge for electricity and let people choose what they want to do with their money. They shouldn't be forced to optimize the same objective function as you across all dimensions when you yourself certainly don't.

Discussion is never really a waste of energy, though is it? Without discussion and debate ideas never get disseminated, or improved upon.

You seem to see the issue as one of interference; I see it as one of overcoming inertia.

Forty-five years ago, we put a man on the Moon; in the 1970s, smallpox - a disease which has probably caused more suffering than any other in human history - was eliminated in the wild; we can transplant a  face; we can "see" individual atoms; only last year we landed a probe on a comet.

Surely it is not, therefore, beyond our wit to create more energy-efficient electronics which also sound good? The problem is not of technology, but of (overcoming) inertia and (summoning up the) will.

If legislation from the EU or anywhere else helps overcome these two hurdles, then surely that is a good thing, no?

I totally agree with George's comments.  I am in the process of replacing my existing Soulution preamp and possibly my Vitus Poweramp with Solution Pre and Poweramps.  Their new 725 preamp and 711 power amp both have a standby power consumption of less than 0.5Watt.  And, they sound great from startup, with little change in sound quality even after hours of playing.  To stay competitive, all hi-end audio manufacturers have to be able to have their equipment sounding great from start up or very soon after that.  No excuses.  We are living in the 21st Century.  You wouldn't keep your Ferrari idling, so why should you do so with your Naim ?

That's part of the issue.  Development costs and final retail pricing also needs to be taken into consideration.  Some of the items you mention above were government funded.  Naim doesn't have that luxury.