Hi Tpsonic,
I feel a bit uncomfortable talking about the MP-1 in a "review" context, since I sell Atma-Sphere, but in the next 10-14 days, I'll set up an Atma-Sphere section on my forum and I'll comment about it in detail over there.
I think break-in is a legitimate topic to cover here, and I'd be interested to hear the experiences of owners of the Essential and the Doshi as far as break-in is concerned.
I'm about 450 hours into the process, and I still sense subtle changes having occurred since my last checkpoint.
I'd agree that in some systems, one could be convinced that break-in is complete at about 120 hours. It's at about this point that the MP-1 becomes very enjoyable, but It's very clear to me that it's still changing and improving like a fine wine.
The first 20 hours were shut in and dead sounding as previously reported, and from hours 20 through 100, the MP-1 swung back and forth over the "neutral" line from sounding restrained to slightly agressive.
This "swinging" is not all that unusual a break-in phenomenon.
In the 120 hour range, the MP-1 begins to show its pedigree.
There's a fairly good review of the MP-1 over here:
http://www.soundstage.com/revequip/atmasphere_mp1iii.htm
The reviewer likens the break-in process to one of a flower blooming, but the sad part of it is, that as much as he fell in love with it, he was not experiencing an MP-1 in full bloom if he thought he was done at 120 hours.
200 hours brought further refinement. At that point, I began traveling 4 days/week, so my subsequent timeline has been in in approximately 120 hour chunks as I continued to avail myself of the Hagerman inverse RIAA and a burn-in CD.
With my next "visit" home (the 320 hour point), solidity of presentation, subtlety, and nuance continued to improve, and I was getting more than hints of what this unit is capable of.
In my current "visit" home, I'm at the 450 hour point and I sense some subtle yet significant improvements since last week - all the normal things you'd expect - improvements in delicacy, space presentation, base solidity and harmonic development, etc.
I'm not prepared to say that we're done yet. I'll spend considerable time this weekend bonding with it while I work on some turntable builds. I'm very interested in hearing how it changes over the next 50 hours (continuing to run the Hagerman inverse RIAA through it while not listening).
If I were a betting man, I'd say that as good as it sounds now, we're not quite done yet. I get a sense of an asymptotic process going on here.
As an aside, cartridge loading (XV-1s) is in the 50-70 ohm range. This is within the range I'd expect. While most of my experience with the XV-1s has been in the 100-150 ohm range, this was when employing step-up transformers, so all bets are off. I've heard for example, extremely musical implementations of the XV-1s where it has been loaded as low as 35 ohms.
I'll file an update at the end of the weekend or early next week.
Cheers,
Thom @ Galibier
I feel a bit uncomfortable talking about the MP-1 in a "review" context, since I sell Atma-Sphere, but in the next 10-14 days, I'll set up an Atma-Sphere section on my forum and I'll comment about it in detail over there.
I think break-in is a legitimate topic to cover here, and I'd be interested to hear the experiences of owners of the Essential and the Doshi as far as break-in is concerned.
I'm about 450 hours into the process, and I still sense subtle changes having occurred since my last checkpoint.
I'd agree that in some systems, one could be convinced that break-in is complete at about 120 hours. It's at about this point that the MP-1 becomes very enjoyable, but It's very clear to me that it's still changing and improving like a fine wine.
The first 20 hours were shut in and dead sounding as previously reported, and from hours 20 through 100, the MP-1 swung back and forth over the "neutral" line from sounding restrained to slightly agressive.
This "swinging" is not all that unusual a break-in phenomenon.
In the 120 hour range, the MP-1 begins to show its pedigree.
There's a fairly good review of the MP-1 over here:
http://www.soundstage.com/revequip/atmasphere_mp1iii.htm
The reviewer likens the break-in process to one of a flower blooming, but the sad part of it is, that as much as he fell in love with it, he was not experiencing an MP-1 in full bloom if he thought he was done at 120 hours.
200 hours brought further refinement. At that point, I began traveling 4 days/week, so my subsequent timeline has been in in approximately 120 hour chunks as I continued to avail myself of the Hagerman inverse RIAA and a burn-in CD.
With my next "visit" home (the 320 hour point), solidity of presentation, subtlety, and nuance continued to improve, and I was getting more than hints of what this unit is capable of.
In my current "visit" home, I'm at the 450 hour point and I sense some subtle yet significant improvements since last week - all the normal things you'd expect - improvements in delicacy, space presentation, base solidity and harmonic development, etc.
I'm not prepared to say that we're done yet. I'll spend considerable time this weekend bonding with it while I work on some turntable builds. I'm very interested in hearing how it changes over the next 50 hours (continuing to run the Hagerman inverse RIAA through it while not listening).
If I were a betting man, I'd say that as good as it sounds now, we're not quite done yet. I get a sense of an asymptotic process going on here.
As an aside, cartridge loading (XV-1s) is in the 50-70 ohm range. This is within the range I'd expect. While most of my experience with the XV-1s has been in the 100-150 ohm range, this was when employing step-up transformers, so all bets are off. I've heard for example, extremely musical implementations of the XV-1s where it has been loaded as low as 35 ohms.
I'll file an update at the end of the weekend or early next week.
Cheers,
Thom @ Galibier