Does audio gear need to be sustainable?

[SIY]

Heaven forbid that people have the freedom to make their own choices. Thank god that the smarter folks in Brussels can make those decisions for them, else the proles might make incorrect choices based on their own concepts of costs and benefits.

 

[JJB70]

As electricity generation converts to low emission and renewable modes such as wind, solar, tidal, nuclear etc then the energy efficiency of goods sort of becomes moot in environmental terms. I'm a bit of a tree hugger but I'm profoundly cynical on this particular subject as it is one of those subject areas awash with funding available for research and political opportunity with the result that a lot of the science I read on the subject is less than impressive and there is a lot of political posturing.

 

[Sylafari]

1. There is a lot more to the Apple story than the media shouted. Battery lifetime is limited and capacity diminishes. Someone probably thought it a great idea to slow down the processor and extend the battery life for older devices, saving consumers from having to buy a new one. Never let a good deed go unpunished.

Making devices that are difficult to repair has been attacked, and I tend to agree with that, but OTOH making something like a phone or MP3 smaller, lighter, and more resistant to the environment (like water damage) means seals and tightly packed products touch to repair. The consumer wants it all, and sometimes reality gets in the way...

Finally someone said it! Tired of hearing this Apple planned obsolesce battery argument as some super evil that has been committed. Phones with chemically depleted batteries will actually just shut down when the processor needs to consume power during peak load.

As for all the other stuff (proprietary screws, non user replaceable batteries), yes they are problems but hearing people constantly talk about this Apple planned obsolescence as some sort of corporate super evil scheme is really starting to get on my nerves.

 

[Ron Texas]

Power is about $0.11/kWh here.

My pair draws 200W at ready to go idle.

The Utility is building some solar farms, so, maybe supporting them isn't a bad idea.

Newer Krells go into standby to save power, do yours.

$0.10/kWh is what I pay excluding the transmission system charges of around $0.05 /kWh. Are you quoting an all in cost or just power without transmission?

AC is the big deal here but most of my heat is from cheap natural gas.

 

[Ron Texas]

Finally someone said it! Tired of hearing this Apple planned obsolesce battery argument as some super evil that has been committed. Phones with chemically depleted batteries will actually just shut down when the processor needs to consume power during peak load.

As for all the other stuff (proprietary screws, non user replaceable batteries), yes they are problems but hearing people constantly talk about this Apple planned obsolescence as some sort of corporate super evil scheme is really starting to get on my nerves.

The non replaceable cords on their proprietary laptop power supplies wear out in a year with a replacement PSU costing $85+tax. I replaced my 5 year old MacBook Pro with a Lenovo which uses a USB C psu for which there are generic replacements. Apple refuses to fix anything they declare obsolete and doesn't sell parts. I am so done with them.

 

[Blumlein 88]

Was natural life sustainable prior to humans? It was solar powered by photosynthesis. At best maybe 2 % efficient. There is some thought efficiency does not ultimately promote sustainability.

 

[Ron Texas]

Heaven forbid that people have the freedom to make their own choices. Thank god that the smarter folks in Brussels can make those decisions for them, else the proles might make incorrect choices based on their own concepts of costs and benefits.

Sarcasm, I trust.

 

[svart-hvitt]

Depends on your POV. People who want tobacco and enjoy it are able to buy it in their preferred form. You might not consider that a "contribution to society," but my smoker friends would strongly disagree. And shocking as it may seem, people have (in freer societies) the liberty to make choices that you or their other Besserwissers may not approve of.

In welfare societies the burden of tobacco users is on society too.

In societies less developed the burden may be more tilted towards the users and their families.

Fact is, tobacco companies lied. Lying is a sin.

 

[JJB70]

I think that products should be accurately described, but provided people are made aware of the risks of certain activities I think it is their choice whether or not to partake of such activities. I am 48, the health risks of smoking had been well established before I was born and all of my generation were fully aware of the dangers, yet many started smoking (I never did, maybe because I detested the smoke filled house I grew up in with two parents who were both heavy smokers) and exercised their free choice. However now I listen to people who started smoking when the dangers were fully known try and blame others for their choice which is nonsense I think. I'm a bit of a libertarian and advocate free choice on all of these things, but I also think we are responsible for our choices in life. So I'd defend the right of anybody in terms of exercising their free choice to do something, equally don't expect much sympathy from me if the result is you end up with lung cancer. Some may call that reprehensible, to advocate the right for people to harm themselves then say it's their responsibility when they get hurt, but for freedom to mean anything it has to include freedom to make mistakes and to make bad decisions. None of which has anything to do with audio though.

 

[svart-hvitt]

I think that products should be accurately described, but provided people are made aware of the risks of certain activities I think it is their choice whether or not to partake of such activities. I am 48, the health risks of smoking had been well established before I was born and all of my generation were fully aware of the dangers, yet many started smoking (I never did, maybe because I detested the smoke filled house I grew up in with two parents who were both heavy smokers) and exercised their free choice. However now I listen to people who started smoking when the dangers were fully known try and blame others for their choice which is nonsense I think. I'm a bit of a libertarian and advocate free choice on all of these things, but I also think we are responsible for our choices in life. So I'd defend the right of anybody in terms of exercising their free choice to do something, equally don't expect much sympathy from me if the result is you end up with lung cancer. Some may call that reprehensible, to advocate the right for people to harm themselves then say it's their responsibility when they get hurt, but for freedom to mean anything it has to include freedom to make mistakes and to make bad decisions. None of which has anything to do with audio though.

I am so happy public spaces are smoke-free now. I wouldn’t accept a 10-dollar offer - hardly a 100-dollar offer - if the person next to me wanted to fire up a cigarette. The externalities of smoking were always understated and the price of a cigarette would be much higher (10 or 20 dollars per cigarette?) if they were to be smoked in public. I remember we went to a 2 star restaurant with our children and a young woman started fuming. How are we to use the market to prevent such episodes?

 

[Blumlein 88]

I am so happy public spaces are smoke-free now. I wouldn’t accept a 10-dollar offer - hardly a 100-dollar offer - if the person next to me wanted to fire up a cigarette. The externalities of smoking were always understated and the price of a cigarette would be much higher (10 or 20 dollars per cigarette?) if they were to be smoked in public. I remember we went to a 2 star restaurant with our children and a young woman started fuming. How are we to use the market to prevent such episodes?

Allow restaurants to have smoking area like they once did. Everything costs extra in that section. Or only allow smoking of cigarettes purchased at the restaurant, and those cost extra.

 

[svart-hvitt]

Allow restaurants to have smoking area like they once did. Everything costs extra in that section. Or only allow smoking of cigarettes purchased at the restaurant, and those cost extra.

In Norway, I’ve never heard a restaurant lamenting ban of smoking. The complaining by smokers has vanished too. A very intelligent ban, that was.

 

[SIY]

Or let the restaurant owner decide what he wants to do. It's his restaurant.

If demand for smoke-free restaurants exceeds supply, and bureaucrats don't get in the way, there will be smoke-free restaurants. Just like I have a choice to go to restaurants where I don't have to smell burned animal corpses.

 

[JJB70]

I am so happy public spaces are smoke-free now. I wouldn’t accept a 10-dollar offer - hardly a 100-dollar offer - if the person next to me wanted to fire up a cigarette. The externalities of smoking were always understated and the price of a cigarette would be much higher (10 or 20 dollars per cigarette?) if they were to be smoked in public. I remember we went to a 2 star restaurant with our children and a young woman started fuming. How are we to use the market to prevent such episodes?

I would let the owner decide, this is an area where the market tends to work. Many restaurants were all non-smoking long before the smoking ban because customers were demanding it. I wouldn't go in a restaurant that allowed smoking (unless it was a separate smokers room/saloon), that is my choice. If the restaurant owner wants to allow smoking and lose my business that is their choice. Equally, if they ban smoking and lose the business of smokers that is a choice made by the business in response to their market. I tend to think that the smoking ban stuff was a good example of politicians following behind a trend then enacting laws once it was clear that they were pretty much codifying choices already made by society.

 

[SIY]

Sarcasm, I trust.

It's a paraphrase of my favorite Orwell quote.

No one believes more firmly than Comrade Napoleon that all animals are equal. He would be only too happy to let you make your decisions for yourselves. But sometimes you might make the wrong decisions, comrades, and then where should we be?

 

[JJB70]

Freedom is precious, so precious it should be controlled and rationed to prevent it being wasted.

 

[Ron Texas]

In Norway, I’ve never heard a restaurant lamenting ban of smoking. The complaining by smokers has vanished too. A very intelligent ban, that was.

At one time in the US restaurant owners were very opposed to banning smoking. They had research which showed smokers had higher tabs because they ordered high margin alcoholic beverages more often than non smokers. New York State was the first to ban smoking in restaurants and bars. Restaurant owners there found their profits went up. What they did not realize was smokers tended to camp at their tables. Higher table turnover increased profits. Bar owners have not been as lucky. Some of them have been able to turn parking spaces behind their businesses into outdoor smoking areas or pursue other strategies.

 

[Willem]

I am a great believer in freedom and the market. Yet that is not the issue here - the difficult issue is what economists call externalities. You may do what suits you best, but what if that has negative effects on others, on society, the environment etc? Should your freedom extend to the right to harm the health of others, or destroy nature? The common view is that it should not, and that the rights of others should be safeguarded, even if that limits your freedom. So to be precise, this is a separate issue from the question whether you should have the right to harm yourself, including the right to commit suicide or demand euthanasia. The issue of enforced sustainability is about externalities, and, of course, about effectiveness (but that is a different thing again).

 

[JJB70]

A few years ago I got into trouble for erupting into laughter and accusing the eco-sustainability department of my employer of being complete dumb asses. Why you ask? They nominated themselves for an environmental award for installing PV panels on the roof of the office/admin building of a 2.6GW coal fired power plant. They were genuinely oblivious as to why I found it so hilarious, this was a plant where there was literally a constant stream of coal trains arriving to off load coal 24 hours a day seven days a week and where a plant operator could save more in terms of emissions by a single judicious tweak of the boiler controls than these dippy PV panels would save in centuries. I just thought it all summed up so much of where the eco debate has gone, we'll stick a PV panel on the roof and not worry about the thousands of tonnes of coal the same place is burning every day.

 

[jasonq997]

I am a great believer in freedom and the market. Yet that is not the issue here - the difficult issue is what economists call externalities. You may do what suits you best, but what if that has negative effects on others, on society, the environment etc? Should your freedom extend to the right to harm the health of others, or destroy nature? The common view is that it should not, and that the rights of others should be safeguarded, even if that limits your freedom. So to be precise, this is a separate issue from the question whether you should have the right to harm yourself, including the right to commit suicide or demand euthanasia. The issue of enforced sustainability is about externalities, and, of course, about effectiveness (but that is a different thing again).

If we are worried about whether people's amplifiers are causing negative "externalities" or destroying nature we are either spending our time worrying about the wrong things (very likely), or these crazy eco-bolshevists are right and some kind of environmental dystopia is just around the corner unless we accept their authoritarian dictates. Either way, a forum dedicated to testing consumer audio equipment suddenly took a dark turn.