Phono pre "Break-In" process? Necessary?

I actually have eight - count ’em!! - products that reduce distortion in the sound. None of these products affect the audio system per se - not the electronics, not cables, not the house AC, not the house wiring, not speakers, and not room acoustics. Did I leave anything out? So, no matter how well you do with reducing, ameliorating, attenuating, or plain getting rid of distortion everywhere else, including the amplifier, there is a long way to go. Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water.

geoffkait,

All you need to start with is a new power amp - it has the most difficult job of maintaining constant velocity with linear gain that cannot vary (at all). It has built in Auto-Focus

You will be back for the preamp.(also no distortion w/ Auto-Focus)

Roger

Funny you should say that. I actually don’t use an amplifier. Or a preamp. Pretty ironic since you're the big amp guy and I'm a non amp guy.  Let me riddle you this: is no amplifier better than any amplifier? I also eschew fuses, transformers, interconnects, house AC, power cords, speaker cables and digital cable.

geoffkait, so you’re the one. Organic neuron stimulation? telepathic-enabling technology?... like in the film Æon Flux?! That’s way cooler then this gear thing.

"Handler... connect me to, Elvis Costello’s - Red Shoes"

Happy Experiencing!

wolf

With all due respect, let me clarify a few things.

wolf - The "same as live" concept is irrelevant

If you are listening to a live band on stage and you turn your head – what happens to the band members? Do they follow your head and stay in front of your face? No.

Their positions on stage are fixed. The drum set is still sitting where they set it up.

The stability I’m referring to does not have to do with turning your head – instead its how you perceive their location while listening. When there are problems with velocity, the resulting image is out of focus. You have a good idea where the drum set is but not the exact location. When the focus becomes sharp and crystal clear you begin to identify the exact locations of each drum in the set separately.

wolf - (I’ve mixed and recorded hundreds of live concerts from Richie Havens to the Baltimore Consort)

I am no stranger to recording. I have built recording studios in the ‘70s.  I also recorded Duke Ellington live.

wolf -"black backgrounds" exist in a vacuum only. We really have to ban the "black background" term…really…perhaps the most overused and patently useless audio bullshit term since it appeared a few years ago.

 

You can have an amplifier that is dead quite when no music is playing. There is a big difference between noise at the noise floor and noise that appears when music is present. What I am I referring to is the simultaneous projection of sound objects into space while STILL having a black background (like a canvas). That scenario is difficult if not impossible to achieve with conventional amplifiers. Conventional amplifiers produce a phase noise while trying present sound objects in your image. Objects that are side by side on stage have clear air space between them. If your image is out of focus (and it is) the blurry portion from both will overlap to some degree and not allow the output to drop all the way down to the noise floor. This results in a “grey” background. Once the music stops – it returns to a black background or at least as quiet as the noise floor. That should be happening between individual notes but it doesn’t.

Roger