Equipment - power on 24/7

We bought a new Miele fridge freezer last year and its power consumption is ridiculously low. That, with a really efficient washing machine and dishwasher, a modern condensing boiler, and led light bulbs, will save far, far more than what you’d save by turning off the Naim. 

I have the same including the boiler but it still doesn’t give me an excuse to leave things on around the clock. I also have LED lamps throughout the house....sorry don’t get your logic. It’s about overall reduction in demand not selective justification and would we all prefer it if Naim could deliver that extra ounce of performance without burning the juice?

Don’t forget to turn the boiler central heating flow temperature down in the spring, when the weather gets warmer.

If it’s set to 60C or higher, it isn’t condensing.

Hungryhalibut posted:

..................  , and led light bulbs, will save far, far more than what you’d save by turning off the Naim. 

.....  far, far more,  you can say that again;  With a few exceptions,  all my house lighting is LED.   I have a coffee table lamp that originally had 2x 40 watt incandescents that gave aprx 450 lumens each,  I replaced them with LED,  also aprx 450 but consuming only 4 watts each;  thats 72 watts saving with just 1 lamp,  thats more than all my Naim bits.    Take that further to the 7x 50 watt halogen downlighters in the same room = 350 watts.  I replaced with same lumens rating of 4.5 watt dimmable LED's = 31.5 watts,  they don't register on the Smart Meter when dimmed.   There's a lot of watts saved in just my living room to run a whole stack of Naim  

Better still cold showers

Or even better we have our solar hot water, comes into its own from Spring onwards.....can be hotter than 60c, with a mixing feed so you don,t boil yourself.

Ravenswood10 posted:

I have the same including the boiler but it still doesn’t give me an excuse to leave things on around the clock. I also have LED lamps throughout the house....sorry don’t get your logic. It’s about overall reduction in demand not selective justification and would we all prefer it if Naim could deliver that extra ounce of performance without burning the juice?

They do,  the new platform all in one & new streamers have very low wattage standby.  I expect the same technology will get backed into other new product as & when.

I haven’t posted on here for some years as I no longer have any Naim kit but was told about about this post and it’s something I’ve been thinking about for some time.

My particular amp has lots of caps, nearly all Nichicon FW series that are rated at 85c rather than 105c.  The amp consumes about 70 watts even when idling.  The lid gets to about 36c and slightly higher inside.  Most caps are rated to remain in tolerance at their maximum operating temperature after 1000 hours but this doubles with every 10c drop, so around 35c this would be 32000 hours.  I would say that this is most likely a conservative rating but having said that, 32000 hours is only just over 3.5 years.

So what I've settled on is a compromise is that if I want to listen at some pining during the day I’ll just switch it on and leave on until bed time. 

With all that said, someone told me a while ago that in reality you’re most likely to buy another amp for example than ever need it servicing as far as I know it's only Naim that really only offer a recap service as standard, Arcam for example just said when asked about servicing just said “just to get it fixed when t goes wrong” and seems to be the awnswer from many other companies.

just my two pennys worth...

Nice to hear people’s energy efficiency moves - though it only makes sense, three things being guaranteed in life, death, taxes, and that energy prices will rise. I too am all LED lights, condensing boiler (though that one is an over-hyped saving because people’s heating systems are rarely designed to ensure the boiler runs optimally), as much thermal insulation as I could squeeze in, whole house heat recovery ventilation, Fridge is only moderate, and washing machine usually run at low temp, it and dishwasher using house hot water, and freezers improved with added insulation. The biggest electrical energy users in my house now is my sons’ computers!

Returning to the consideration of people’s Naim stacks, of course it depends on the contents of said stacks -  and in the context of the other energy saving steps people may have taken, bear in mind you are talking about the stack being on 24 hours a day everu day, whereas the average number of hours lighting a living room over the year is a lot less, and other rooms like bathrooms and corridors considerably so unless you are in the habit pf leaving on permanently. Of course, easy enough to do the maths.

Now consider: with all those other things reduced, the hifi is a much bigger percentage of the energy bill, so a greater percentage of the current fuel bill could be saved having it off most of the time...

Did an energy role many years ago, simple put Kettles (especially the 1.5kw +) and old electric heaters, sap the most in a very short span.

Invest an in energy monitor plug, TP links with Alexa and Google can give your voice control in addition to Monitoring - a real ear opener.

When you have come back home from a long holiday. What is the first thing you think about turning on ?  (apart from the heating if it's a bit cold).

Lights if it’s dark, otherwise kettle for a cup of tea!

Obsydian posted:

Did an energy role many years ago, simple put Kettles (especially the 1.5kw +) and old electric heaters, sap the most in a very short span.

Invest an in energy monitor plug, TP links with Alexa and Google can give your voice control in addition to Monitoring - a real ear opener.

 

But kettle is only on for a few minutes at a time. 

Energy monitor plug is useful for checking usage, right down to individual amps etc, music playing or silent (might not help sound quality, but just short term is all that is needed to measure).

But a Kettle is usually 1KW and often 2KW, even at a short burst it is using way more then most devices running at a few watts.

The monitoring checking i was referring to non Hifi related, househoold.

Obsydian posted:

But a Kettle is usually 1KW and often 2KW, even at a short burst it is using way more then most devices running at a few watts.

The monitoring checking i was referring to non Hifi related, househoold.

A 1.5kW kettle, taking maybe 4 mins to boil, used say 10 times a day is 1kWh = 1 unit.

My point was that there are other things that use more, even though lower rated: e.g an energy efficient fridge or freezer may have an average consumption of 100-200W depending on size. Running 24 hours a day the bottom of this range is 2.4 units per day, more than twice that of the kettle - and a less energy efficient one might be up to 5 times more, while many people have both a fridge and a freezer.

For people still using incandescent lighting, the kettle example is the same amount of electricity as 2x 100W bulbs, or 4 x 50W  spotlamps etc) used for 5 hours a day - and many people’s space lighting uses more than that. But yes, if they are using LEDs or other low energy lighting something like 5 times the area area could be illuminated before using that much electricity.

Relating it to HiFi, I don’t know how much any Naim amps use on standby, and it will vary between models. Picking a number that seems reasonably modest, say 60W for a single stereo power amp, if left on for perhaps an average of 18 hours a day more than it is actually being used, that corresponds to just over 1 unit per day, similar the kettle example. Triamping = three times as much. Anything running with much power in class A can ramp these numbers up considerably. 

Of course, other than triamping with class-A amps, hifi energy usage is nothing compared to high performance PCs running intensive gaming software for many hours every day, so for anyone with several teenagers or young adults (or indeed old ones!) in the house to whom that applies, that could be the cause of high electricity consumption!

Edit: the corrent version of the NAP250 claims a relatively low 25W quiescent, so only 40% of the 60W example above.

I tend to view my system as a luxury and a few bob a year to leave it running so I can enjoy it at it's best is a small price to pay.  It's not made by Hotpoint, I don't need a A+ energy rating 

Does anyone know if when the Nova is in deep sleep, the key circuits stay juiced or is it all cold turkey?

I have had Naim equipment for too long to state. From 32/160 on and upwards, It has always been left on from the day it was purchased to the day it was sold except for holidays.  This is what was always recommended by Naim.

Every 10 years or so a service which includes replacement of all the caps etc. I have only ever had one call for a breakdown, in the power supply of a 250.

I think one of my older hicaps has been on for, 30 years!