On the longevity of stereos

[lethargic_man]

When my father married my mother, he made a bet with her he could get their washing machine to last for twenty-five years. After twenty-one he gave up, not because the thing was a write-off, but because it was requiring constant maintenance.

It was also after twenty-one years that I decided it was time to get a new bike, my old bike similarly requiring ever more frequent maintenance.

It struck me a little while ago my stereo is now twenty and a half years old, and whilst performing adequately for what I use it for most of the time, does not do so well outside of that. It has no line out, and to output to epicyclic I have to go via the headphones socket, which is getting a bit flaky. The microphone is also starting to work intermittently, though I don't know whether the problem there is with the mic or the socket. One of the plastic tabs for inserting the wires from the loudspeakers snapped off several years ago, and now I have the wire wrapped around a nail to make a connection, but that keeps coming adrift from time to time. The tape heads are worn and need replacing, and after recording, I need to turn the machine off for several minutes, or I get a terrible noise from it. (Demagnetising the tape heads did not help. Fortunately, I have little recourse to record nowadays. I have replacement tape heads waiting in Newcastle, but my father says it's extremely fiddly to replace them.) It also has only one set of sockets for CD and auxiliary, which means unplugging and replugging when switching between listening to my CD player (a mere sixteen years old). (I tried cable splitters from Maplin, but found half the sound from my CD player goes back down the other branch of the splitter, requiring me to up the volume sufficiently that the background static becomes significantly noticeable.)

Nevertheless, most of the time it performs adequately. I have a nasty suspicion that modern equipment wouldn't be built to last (and given that I take the environmental consequences of disposal of electronic equipment seriously^*—this is a concern). Can anyone confirm or deny this?

* I've never yet thrown a pooter out—phlogiston, a cast-off from my father's surgery, went back to him as a spare server when I got epicyclic, and the duff laptop I found in my flat when I moved in went to ewtikins (and will now feature in her not-then-planned dead computer resurrection party). I'm also still using my first mobile 'phone, and my second camera (the first, a >20-year-old analogue one, is sitting forlornly on my shelf in Newcastle).

Comments

[curious-reader.livejournal.com]

You always use something until it is completely broken or worn out. You do the same with the closing. I would not recommend the other extreme like my parents do especially my mum. She buys clothes every day. My parents sell their car when they have a few problems immediately and get a new one. I never know which car they have next year.

[green-knight.livejournal.com]

I threw out my stereo system (which was crappy to start with) when the last part gave out and bought a new one. I went for something that a) looked as if it would last and b) gave me the sound I wanted while c) being affordable - and I fell totally in love with it and wondered why I hadn't done it years ago. (It's now five years old and good as new; though I don't use the tape much)

Really. I understand how you feel; but there is absolutely no need for you to deny yourself things. Being a martyr isn't cool and it isn't funny; and the current arrangement obviously doesn't suit you on several levels. Go, if you can possibly afford it, for high quality equipment. I've always been fond of Denon, for example; go and ask a few enthusiasts what they would recommend for someone who wants to keep their equipment for the next ten or twenty years.

Then go and treat yourself.

[snjstar.livejournal.com]

I agree treat yourself and then you wont have problems to complain about.