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Burning/breaking in new equipment?

I am a complete beginner to stereo equipment, never having even owned so much as a record or CD, but I have been reading about it and found what I thought were good deals, so I pulled the trigger this weekend.

The following are on their way:

Benchmark DAC3 (DAC and preamp)
Bryston 4B3 (power amplifier)
KEF R900 (speakers)
XLR cables (from Benchmark)

I have read that new equipment needs to be broken in for about 100 hours. Does that mean I have to play music through them for 100 hours at the same volume I would use when listening or can I play it at a much lower volume?

Note: I am a little worried that the above system might be too bright, sharp or clinical (as I have read about the previous generations of Bryston amps) but I am trying to go for clean, pure, true, honest, accurate, transparent — whatever that means, but I am thinking I want it to sound like what the artists, producers, directors, audio engineers, etc intended when they created, mixed and mastered each track, with nothing artificial added by the equipment. I also went with companies with more solid engineering and less marketing.

.

bobk3
gdnrbob
4,445 posts
 
Very nice gear for a first system.
All previous advice is great.
If your electric rates are not too high, you can leave things on 24/7.
Burn in takes some time, so just listen and enjoy your new stereo. When things come together, you will notice a subtle change. Nothing major, but a change none the less.
If you need to turn things off, then it will take an hour of so for things to settle down.
Most of all, enjoy the music.
Bob
williewonka
3,075 posts
 
One last thing to add to the above burn-in advice - during the burn-in period you may experience times where the system does not sound as good as it did previously.

This will pass after a few more hours burn-in

e.g. I have cables that sound great initially, but after around 25 hours the system sounded worse than before. By around 60 hours the system started sounding much better and things just improved after that. I observed less focus in the image and clarity suffered.

In my system everything took around 400 hours for everything to sound their absolute best.

One other note: unplugging IC’s and speaker cables and then reconnecting them - you should allow time for them to re-settle - a couple of days is normally adequate.

Regards - Steve
mr_hosehead
210 posts
 
Seems like you've gotten about 98%+ of everything answered that you'd need to know.  And BTW, that's some fine gear on the way - I've heard that there might be "someone" who may be just a little jealous... 

One last thing - the only time I ever seriously asked about burning in new gear I was told to look into using something like a "CobraCo Hand-Hammered 100% Copper Fire Pit".  Whatever you do, do NOT go that route.  Trust me on that...
glennewdick's avatar
glennewdick
1,669 posts
 

take one of your speaker cables and reverse it then point your speakers at one another a few inches away from each other. they will cancel each others sound out quite a bit so you can leave them on all day when your out/work/etc.

this is the same principle as those head phones with noise cancelation.  the two channels are out of faze so they cancel each other.  this will allow you to run them for longer with out it disturbing others and get max time for break in.  

waterzlife
139 posts
 
Re: burning in a speaker....
An audio friend came over with a new aquisition that he wanted to try in my system ...a used digital processor.  He plugged it into my system...flipped on the amp and...
WHUMP-POOF!
In an instant, the square wave amplified by my 250w/ch amp pushed the woofers cones several inches further than they were designed for - and started smoking mightily.  

Instant burn-in...no long waiting.
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