@douglas_schroeder You admitted your beliefs tend to change over the years. But you choose to die on the hill where you fully relied on your hearing when it's at its weakest.
Break In Question?
I have been under the assumption that in order for a component to break in there must be a signal pass through from one piece of equipment to another. That is, running a Dac/Preamp into an amp, the amp must be turned on for the Dac/Preamp to break in.
But is this really true? Does the amp really need to be turned on?
ozzy
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- 178 posts total
I got a new solid-state DAC that was gaining traction in the pro market but not in the home market. I was one of the first home users to buy this DAC. I met the designer of the DAC at a meetup and told him the DAC sounded fatiguing at first and needed about 150 hours on it to sound good. It has a feature to add 2nd order harmonic distortion to "tube it up" a bit. I told the designer I could not listen to the DAC without the 2HD cranked up at first. He was a little horrified at that statement since he discourages using that feature, except for edge cases. After 150 hours on this DAC, I dropped the 2HD level to a very low number. Now with 1000+ hours on it the 2HD is turned off and the DAC is running ’naked’ as the designer suggests on his web site. However, one difference is that he now burns in the DAC for 150 hours before shipping. I had 2 brand new units to try this with and both had the same result. A more well know home user DAC which I also love is the Meitner MA3i. I also had 2 of these in the house at separate times. The RJ45 Ethernet input on the MA3i is excruciating to listen to under 50 hours, after 100 it sounds very good. The USB was good right from the start. Let your ears be the judge. @ozzy I do not turn on my amp when burning in a preamp + DAC. With my latest DAC it does direct to amp, so I hooked it up to a Class D amp to burn it in. |
I'm sorry I never believed in break in your audio equipment. I have been buying audio equipment since 1970.I read all the stereo and audio magazines at the time and I never believed leaving your equipment on and never shutting it off .Broke in the equipment or using it so many hours and then BINGO is sound unbelievable and us ready to go really.....if you believe in Santa Claus,then perhaps but ,I think it wears it out....Nope.Not for me. |
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