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Why does it take so many hours to brea in arc preamps and amps?

I recently purchased a like new ARC 5 SE pre amp.  The unit had less than 200 hours on it.  Everything I have read states that ARC preamps take up to 600 hours to fully break in.  Why is this so and what improvements can I expect to hear as the unit accrues hours?
ewah
kalali's avatar
kalali
1,977 posts
 

dlcockrum speaks the truth.

George, with all due respect, you seem to argue against common knowledge supported by facts...


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gpgr4blu
1,096 posts
 
I have yet to hear a tube amp that sounds as good after 5 minutes than it does after 1 hour let alone 4 hours. That I know for sure.
Currently explainable science be damned----and I love science.

georgehifi's avatar
georgehifi
10,312 posts
 

Warm up is fine for correct bias to be reached and dc offsets to stabilize.

From new first power up, a few hours are fine for all caps and components to form.

But 600hrs to reach optimum sonic ability is shear voodoo, and as has been said it's just "expectation bias" or as Nelson Pass calls it " burn-in of the listener"

Cheers George 
mechans
3,048 posts
 
In the final analysis all we can listen to is manipulated power. But it is manipulated power,  be certain of that.
Is it even possible to listen to precisely the same signal every time, even if we wanted to?
Conversely could we possibly hear marginal differences, even  if we wanted to?

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