Listening impressions, Burn in or ?

[joessportster]

So whats the deal with an impression that your system is sounding better all of the sudden ??

 

I refer specifically to my setup which admittedly is not the typical setup here on the forums, I have been reduced to using headphones exclusively (not complaining here as I can say that they definitely have some advantages)

 

I have had Justins Kenzie amp for awhile and have under 200 hours on it, however I feel like I have a good grip on how it sounds

My normal listening sessions consisted of a couple hours maybe 3 hours at best B-4 something came up, interruption is like the death nail of listening for me as I then lose interest 

 

Last week I started reorganizing my music files on J-River (Thanks Thad  ) and let the setup play in excess of 8 hours a couple days in a row..................After the extended sessions I can hear more separation and air around the individual and instruments, the background has become so silent I literally thought my player had stopped and had to check the system, The inner detail has cleared up and decaay seems to hang out just a bit longer.............This will sound like   iT SOUNDS LIKE A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT AMP

 

I was never much of a believer in burn in for equipment, tubes, wires, cables etc.... Something has definitely changed and it is

certainly for the better.

 

I have been through countless systems and gear and to date I have never experienced a change like this, I feel like I dont want to change a thing and am now scared something will happen forcing me to lose the sound I have.

 

I would like to hear others experiences and what piece of the system would be most likely responsible for this change (I personally lean twords the tubes coming into there oun) 

 

Color me Happy !!!!!!!!!

 

Happy Holidays and God Bless 

 

[Don Richard]

Tube amplifiers need to warm up and it may take a while for the tubes to drift into their operating range. Speakers could also require some play before settling down. Cables and power cords... nope.

[joessportster]

I know what you mean all tube amps need to warm up but this goes beyond that, I have heard the tube warm up difference in many amps and the kenzie in particular seems to hit its stride in about 1 hour, and though it would change the sound character it was not nearly as drastic as what I am hearing now

 

I know speakers as well have to break in but on my phones the manufacturer states approx 150 hours burn in, I have about 300 im guessing on my phones

 

Whatever the culprit its a good thing

[muel]

Yes, tubes and caps sound different over time.  Most of the time, I would call this "breaking in" as most tubes I've tried seem to sound better after getting a number of hours on them. I assume the ones that didn't seem to change much was because they had already seen some use. I've had similar experience with capacitors.  New film caps can take 100's of hours where they will have a bit of sibilance until they have been running for a long time.  My experience with the caps was that the change was sudden and unexpected.  Of course, with age they can sound like krap.  Leaky caps might even still sound pretty good but I wouldn't trust that for long.

 

The change isn't always for the better. I've tried tubes where they actually sounded worse after 50 hours of break in time.  These were brand new and sounded pretty good at first.

 

Congratulations on your new found level of musical enjoyment!

[Thaddeus Smith]

Have you gone back and played those tracks in WMP to rule out JRiver as the source of audible change?

[joessportster]

Have you gone back and played those tracks in WMP to rule out JRiver as the source of audible change?

I actually started noticing this just B-4 switching to j-river (which by the way I am loving) 

[moray james]

Tube amplifiers need to warm up and it may take a while for the tubes to drift into their operating range. Speakers could also require some play before settling down. Cables and power cords... nope.

Don: not looking to have an argument with you just want to show some balance in opinions.

I have been designing and building cables since 1988 and my experience is that cables and interconnects do very much require burn in time. Some of my older designs took many weeks (5 - 6) of steady use to settle but now with current designs I get most of what they are going to do in about three days of solid play time and the remainder slowly fills in over 2 - 3 weeks. Regarding capacitors I have found some are very slow to form. I recently added some Silmic caps to my power amp to bypass the main filter caps. On turn on they sounded stellar but within the hour the magic was gone and I rode a roller coaster for over a month, at two weeks I was considering taking them out, at about the fourth week they came around and sound superb now. I was aware that this was going to be the case but I must admit that at the two week point I was not a happy happy camper. These caps are well known for this quirk in their behavior but they are so good when they settle it is worth the pain of waiting. Just my findings but as they say YMMV. Best regards Moray James.

[justinsweber]

I too try not to believe in break in. But have been told many times by transformer winders that the transformers need to be exposed to music (varried freq) to fully break in... I can give you their explination... but I want to put the words BS after it... I do think for whatever reason, things change... exposing transformers to music for ext periods (or acumulation of long hours) stabalizies their behavoir... Im sure this is true of caps too. Im less sure about resistors, esp 1%s.

[Audible Nectar]

Burn in/break in is a phenomenon I have repeatedly observed through new gears, rebuilds, re-tubing, as well as interconnects. Sonic changes do occur over time as a new component or part is used.

 

The most striking experience I have had with the break-in phenomenon was with the capacitors that were installed into my McIntosh MC30s - a teflon formulated cap known as "Sonicap Platinum". These caps took the better part of a year - an estimated 1000 hours of use - before they finally stabilized sonically into the supremely rich and clear sonics they possess today. They seemed clean and clear when I first got them - I THOUGHT they were "accurate" - then they started to open up and become more detailed, even a bit "etched". Just about the time I thought they were done changing, they changed some more, and finally began to become very liquid sounding, clear and rich.

 

Anyone who decides to play with any of the teflon caps - Sonicap Platinum and V-Cap in particular, needs to be prepared for some serious break-in time before passing judgement on them. It's those final changes that make them worth the seemingly insane prices charged. They sound for a long time like "analytical" caps, but in time they become liquid as can be once they fully mature.

 

Another observation was with my McIntosh MX110 preamp, which had been rebuilt partially then later had the coupling caps rolled. Ended up choosing the Daytons, begrudgingly, as space was too limited for the more esoteric choices. The change brightened the unit's sound - but it took a good 3-400 hours before the cap's "newness" finally disappeared and things smoothed out, sounding like a Mac again.

 

Had similar, although usually shorter break-in experiences with vacuum tubes (200 hours is usually enough, even on those tough break in Russkie tubes).

 

My Oppo Blu-Ray machine was another unit that took several hundred hours to "relax".

 

Bottom line is that I never pass full judgement on gears until I've had a chance to run them for an extended period of time. When I was tube rolling, I left those changes for a few weeks, unless it was just a complete sonic failure. It takes time to evaluate those changes too, because often what sounds good with some recordings doesn't always sound better with others.

 

I own big Klipsch to be able to hear those sonic differences, and sometimes that detail can become it's own version of hell. But when it's done the right way, it's well worth the time taken to get those stellar results. It takes a LOT of patience.

[muel]

It took almost a year for those V-Caps (TFTF) to finally break in!  Strange how it seemed to be a sudden change when I expected it to seem more gradual. 

[muel]

 

Have you gone back and played those tracks in WMP to rule out JRiver as the source of audible change?

I actually started noticing this just B-4 switching to j-river (which by the way I am loving) 

 

There are a lot of variables to PC setup for audio but jriver will sound better than Windows media player normally. 

[dtel]

Burn in/break in is a phenomenon I have repeatedly observed through new gears, rebuilds, re-tubing, as well as interconnects. Sonic changes do occur over time as a new component or part is used.

 

I never rally believed in break in,  but I did hear it with a new set of Cornwall lll's, it took a few months. I heard it but didn't say anything and within a week or so my wife said "they are sounding better and better lately", I just laughed. She thought I was making fun of her until I told her I thought the same thing but didn't say anything. 

 

We used them for probably 8 hours a day for 2-3 months when this happened with no changes in the setup at all during that time, that's a lot of time to suddenly hear a difference.  

 

I believe in break in or burn in now.

[joessportster]

good info  here,Headphones are the only reason I can hear the changes, I am still leaning to tubes as the main element for the sonic change

[Audible Nectar]

It took almost a year for those V-Caps (TFTF) to finally break in!  Strange how it seemed to be a sudden change when I expected it to seem more gradual. 

 

:Looks at your system profile:

 

That two channel setup looks like one helluva rig. I'm strongly considering an NBS with the Duelunds. I'm also curious about that BMS midrange driver. Someday I'll hear one of those setups and can evaluate that.

[Schu]

burn in in Inter Connects?

[justinsweber]

I once saw a DIY cable fryer... anyone remember where that was?

[Don Richard]

I once saw a DIY cable fryer... anyone remember where that was?

 

As an aside, we were working with a company who wanted us to make parts for a high current (2200 amp) breaker. There were cables the size of welding leads connecting the breakers to the test equipment. When the "test" button was pressed the cables would jump about a foot off the floor, the magnetic field generated by the current flowing through the cables reacting with Earth's magnetic field.

 

If one wanted to truly fry some cables, I know where to get that done.

[LarryC]

I'll simply add my agreement to others' that burn-in is very real, and I agree with all the above observations to that effect.  I was told by Ken Steverns once that my then-new CAT preamp would need 100 hrs. of music, and he was right almost to the minute.  It frequently sounded quite weird until 100 hours.  His 100 hrs burn-in even applied to the phono circuit -- I couldn't burn that in with just a line input.

 

Two other things in my setup:

 

• Even moving just bending and moving cables around -- interconnects, power cords, and the fiberoptic cables between my Wadia transport and DAC -- causes a moderate increase in irritation and tinny sound until re-burned in for a few hours.
• My high-current tube amps sound very degraded if they haven't been used for a while, and it takes a several hours of playing music to bring them back up to snuff.  (Craig NOSValves has agreed with this observation).

[joessportster]

I once saw a DIY cable fryer... anyone remember where that was?

I believe Hagerman had one out for awhile as a kit

[Shakeydeal]

 

I'll simply add my agreement to others' that burn-in is very real, and I agree with all the above observations to that effect.  I was told by Ken Steverns once that my then-new CAT preamp would need 100 hrs. of music, and he was right almost to the minute.  It frequently sounded quite weird until 100 hours.  His 100 hrs burn-in even applied to the phono circuit -- I couldn't burn that in with just a line input.

 

Two other things in my setup:

 

• Even moving just bending and moving cables around -- interconnects, power cords, and the fiberoptic cables between my Wadia transport and DAC -- causes a moderate increase in irritation and tinny sound until re-burned in for a few hours.
• My high-current tube amps sound very degraded if they haven't been used for a while, and it takes a several hours of playing music to bring them back up to snuff.  (Craig NOSValves has agreed with this observation).

 

I agree with everything in this post!

 

Shakey