Esoteric C-03 Break In Time

Mine smoothed out after a couple hundred hours.

Put a cd on repeat or leave your tuner on so there is an active input.

Of course leave it powered up as the lack of on/off switch would indicate.

Dealer disclaimer

Like most electronic equipment, it will probably take 600 to 1000 hours.

I agree with the estimate of 600 hrs to 1000 hrs of breakin. . . would not be surprised if the C-03 kept on sweetening until about 1200 hours. Guido

Mine has reached the 200 hour mark and it has smoothed out considerably but is still closed in or narrow if you will. I suspect the large capacitors and power supply require several more hours to totally open up. Solid state gear generally runs cooler than tube stuff so maybe I'm a little impatient. Thanks for any responses

Hmmm, there are clearly 2 schools of thought.

1. Mr. Feil, with over 50 years of audiophilic experience on hundreds of components, a respected Esoteric dealer with broad Esoteric brand experience in his own regard, and a proud owner of C-03 himself, assures us with well founded authority that at the 200 hours mark, the device has reached peak performance.

2. JBM and I, eternally skeptical of any hopes of an even moderately quick gratification, prefer to err on the side of a perhaps over conservative caution, and recommend a long break in of 600 to 1200 hours. I in particular, being a notorious and unabashed fan of Esoteric products, although I regret that I do not own a C-03 preamplifier, suspect that the unit will still open up considerably for several hundred hours to come.

Who is right or wrong is of course of little importance.

Rather, I suggest that you continue the break in of the utterly unbrakable, and let us know if the sound evolves further, or if it has now already reached its performance limit at 200 hours.

Saluti e buone cose,

Guido

>assures us with well founded authority that at the 200 hours mark, the device has reached peak performance<

That is incorrect.

I never claimed at 200 hours it "reached peak performance". That is your inference and quite flawed I might add.

My post states "mine smoothed out after a couple hundred hours".

Please read my post more carefully so as not to mislead the readers

Ah I see Bill, I clearly misinterpreted your "smoothed out" to mean complete breakin. This is what Chris means by the term, hence, here is a very direct question to you. . .. how long did it take your C-03 to complete the break in process and stabilize? G.

 
The greatest change I heard in the C-03 occured early on and it easily needed two weeks just to settle down from travel. I think Bill has it about right - from my time with it, the C-03 did indeed 'smooth out' after a couple hundred hours of play, and for the most part reached a steady character after another couple hundred hours. I can't say no further break-in occurred, but I heard no substantive changes beyond that point. Wonderful engineering and sonics from Esoteric.
 
Tim
 

I found it needed considerable time. I also recommend turning it off once in awhile to lets the caps dissapate. Then turn it back on and let them charge back up. I would also highly recommend changing the global gain setting from 0db to the +12db setting. This gave the pre a bit more attack and has a huge imrovement in low end authority and definition. It is the most silken and musical SS pre I have yet to hear.

Rydenfan, could you quantify "considerable time"? Thanks, G

Frontier: Do you still have the C-03? What are your impressions after all this time with this pre-amp? Thanks!