That’s not quite right.
The unit uses only 6 or 7 relays for volume control; the rest are for input/output switching.
This type of volume control has been around for over 40 years, and in the 30 years I’ve been using it—and often retrofitting it into other units—I have never seen a relay fail.
For one thing, the low-level signals impose no problematic load or switching voltage/power; for another, the cycle ratings are based on a load of 30V/1A, meaning the actual lifespan is far closer to 50,000,000 switching operations than to 100,000.
Even at 100 operations a day, that would amount to only 1,100,000 operations over 30 years—a negligible number given the light load.
Standard potentiometers wear out much faster and almost always exhibit channel imbalances; it’s more a matter of luck if they don’t.
If a relay were to actually fail, replacing it at a workshop or a repair café would be neither difficult nor expensive.
Like most combined headphone amplifier/preamps, the H200 features dedicated preamp circuitry separate from the headphone circuitry—with distinct paths for the RCA and XLR outputs.
You can tell this by the three additional op-amps for this section and the output impedance of 22/44 ohms for these outputs.
