It actually does matter in some cases. A friend recently told me that his Audio Note M 8 linestage had developed a problem with turn-on—it would frequently blow a fuse when the switch was thrown. The problem turned out to be caused by a massive collection of cat hair inside the linestage chassis—the warm linestage was a favorite sleeping spot of the cat.
When I wanted to sell my Acoustat 1+ 1 electrostatic speakers to a use equipment store, they would only buy it if I took off the outer sock so that I could confirm it was used in a smoke free environment. Smoke is attracted to the charged diaphragm and leaves a thick sticky deposit that degrades performance.