Queston On Burning In A New Preamp

@stevehardy1 

I’m toying with getting the PMG preamp myself and will be very interested in hearing your thoughts. 
 

And as far as burn in,  most of the components only need a few minutes, but capacitors take longer, with the electrolytic cans taking the longest. I used to travel a lot and I’d unplug my equipment while I was gone. If I was gone more than a couple weeks, I could hear the difference in the sound when I came home. I’m retired now and I try to listen to at least one album a day so I leave all my equipment either on or on standby.

Next to the interconnects and speaker cables, this is a topic with wast opinions and debate.  Given that, and my many years of going through hundreds of components and systems, I generally take the folks who have all in or all out opinions with a grain of salt.  Last year I did a seven dac shootout, and I followed the same pro ess.  I hook up the new component, let it run for 1 hour and then I take the same reference songs and listen to it for an hour and take copious notes regarding fairly standard audiophile parameters.  I quit listening for 50 hours and then listen again, and take notes about those same parameters.  I rinse an repeat at 100 hours and then again at 200 hours.  I have four systems, with each system have both a tube path and a solid state path.  The large system shares a pair of Estelon X Diamond Mk 2's and the small system uses Joseph Audio bookshelf speakers.  This took several months.  A lot of work, and money, but Iearned a lot about many things.  All systems changed after the break-in period.  Some changed more than others.  I am an Electrical Engineer, so  I am pretty disciplined and detailed oriented:-)  I have done this with many other components besides dacs.  I think, next to dacs, power amps change the most.

Next to the interconnects and speaker cables, this is a topic with wast opinions and debate.  Given that, and my many years of going through hundreds of components and systems, I generally take the folks who have all in or all out opinions with a grain of salt.  Last year I did a seven dac shootout, and I followed the same pro ess.  I hook up the new component, let it run for 1 hour and then I take the same reference songs and listen to it for an hour and take copious notes regarding fairly standard audiophile parameters.  I quit listening for 50 hours and then listen again, and take notes about those same parameters.  I rinse an repeat at 100 hours and then again at 200 hours.  I have four systems, with each system have both a tube path and a solid state path.  The large system shares a pair of Estelon X Diamond Mk 2's and the small system uses Joseph Audio bookshelf speakers.  This took several months.  A lot of work, and money, but Iearned a lot about many things.  All systems changed after the break-in period.  Some changed more than others.  I am an Electrical Engineer, so  I am pretty disciplined and detailed oriented:-)  I have done this with many other components besides dacs.  I think, next to dacs, power amps change the most.

@stevehardy1 

+1 @faustuss 

I cannot imagine having a new component and missing out on whatever transformation it could make over time.  That is your new preamp in your system in your room playing for your ears.  Who cares what everyone else says or thinks...you decide what happens after 100 hours, 400 hours and so on. 

I have only purchased used equipment so everything has always been fully burned in and I never knew if it was a bunch of BS.  Well, I got my Audio Research REF 160M amps upgraded to MkII a few months ago.  When I got them back and set them up my heart sank.  They sounded a bit shrill and bright to me and I am uber sensitive to bright sounds.  I was sick to my stomach...what the hell just happened.  I called them and they just assumed I knew....with all the new caps and wire they need about 200 hours.  Sure enough, I could hear the sound evolving and all that bright sound disappeared.

I hope your new preamp works out for you!

OP, I have a well seasoned emmLabs PRE preamp.  Next week, I will be receiving the new PREi which is emmLab's reference level preamp.  I will follow the same break-in  process I described in my "long winded" post above:-)  If you like, I can report a summary level report-out in a few weeks.  I am expecting the new PREi to sound better, so I will focus on the changes of the new preamp as it goes through the break-in process.