timbley Posted September 11, 2004 Share Posted September 11, 2004 I've been reading on other forums that digital amplifiers such as the Panasonic SA-XR50 improve siginificantly with use. I'm really hoping this is true, since I just bought two new 50s, and compared to my old, well used SA-XR25, they sound thin, peaky, compressed. Just plain bad. I don't know how I can stand to listen to this for the 200 to 300 hours that's supposedly required for the amps to really start sounding good. Might it be effective to run an 8 ohm resistor with a high current rating across the speaker outputs and play white noise into the amps with the volume turned up? Thanks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnA Posted September 11, 2004 Share Posted September 11, 2004 If you can afford a resisor with enough power capacity, it won't hurt. I doubt it will help or change things. I don't think an amp's sound changed after the first few seconds and that is done in the factory. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
timbley Posted September 11, 2004 Author Share Posted September 11, 2004 ---------------- On 9/11/2004 6:47:56 AM John Albright wrote: If you can afford a resisor with enough power capacity, it won't hurt. I doubt it will help or change things. I don't think an amp's sound changed after the first few seconds and that is done in the factory. ---------------- Thanks John. Radioshack has 8 ohm resistors rated at 20 watts for about 2.50. I hope you're wrong about run-in changing things. If these new amps sound the way they're always going to, then Panasonic has really gone down hill since the SA-XR25, and I'm stuck with two really unimpressive receivers. Most people talking about these receivers on other forums are of the opinion that they show a rather dramatic improvement with use. I will test this theory since I have the 25 which sounds great to me now, and the 50s which don't. I'll run them in for a good time and try it again. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
timbley Posted September 12, 2004 Author Share Posted September 12, 2004 ---------------- On 9/11/2004 6:47:56 AM John Albright wrote: If you can afford a resisor with enough power capacity, it won't hurt. I doubt it will help or change things. I don't think an amp's sound changed after the first few seconds and that is done in the factory. ---------------- I've got resistors on the outputs of one of my SA-XR50s. I'm continuously feeding white noise generated from my computer into the digital coaxial input. If I listen to this through the speakers, it's quite loud. The resistors are mercifully silent and pretty hot, sitting in ceramic bowls. After those resistors have been heated for a while, I plan to do a blind test of this receiver against the other SA-XR50, which is sitting dormant. Other people who have no idea what I'm trying to do are going to listen and give me their impressions. None of us will know which amp is which until it's over. I'll mark the burned in amp with tape on the bottom and have my roomate shuffle them for me out of view so there's no way to know which is which without looking. This test may prove to me that burn in really does happen. It can't really prove to me that burn in doesn't happen ever. But it could at least prove that running white noise into the amp and feeding the output through a resistor doesn't do the job. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
D-MAN Posted September 13, 2004 Share Posted September 13, 2004 I would estimate that amplifiers have a slight break-in but it is very subtle at best. It is not the same (or as dramatic) as speaker break-in, for example. I would guess that if you don't like the sound of the amp from minute 1, it won't ever get much better, regardless of the amount of playing time. DM Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
timbley Posted September 14, 2004 Author Share Posted September 14, 2004 ---------------- On 9/13/2004 1:14:20 PM D-MAN wrote: I would guess that if you don't like the sound of the amp from minute 1, it won't ever get much better, regardless of the amount of playing time. DM ---------------- If that's true it sure makes picking an amplifier a lot easier. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
formica Posted September 15, 2004 Share Posted September 15, 2004 To add a little excitement to your experiment why not add a semi-blind ABX test to the mix. Have someone play one unknown amp (X) then switch between the two (A& so that the listener has to guess whether A or B is the initial X amplifier. Tally up the results and see how often the listeners were right and wrong This will indicate if there is an actual acoustic difference... or if it's just psychoacoustic. Rob Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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