tube rolling with Schiit Freya +

I'm not sure about my Freya burn-in...it simply sounded great from day one (a couple of years ago...original version). I tried all sorts of tubes and landed on NOS GEs as my fave...a taste thing. I'm now breaking-in a Schiit Aegir amp...it's amazing, and if it gets any better (been 2 days) my head might explode.

I'm not sure how much burning in the Schiit stuff really needs.  My Vidar did not go through much change, and neither did the Saga.  And the Freya+, with maybe 75 hours on it so far, hasn't gone through changes I've noticed.  That is to say, it was pretty damn  impressive out of the box.

It's my first tube pre, so the following comments should be taken with a grain of salt, but it gets pretty warm after about 1.5 hours.  Even hot, though not too hot to touch.  But I was wondering about some kind of active cooling, just to sate my OCD tendencies!  

Way to go on the Aegir, Wolf, you keep one upping me!  I bought the Freya+ partly based on recommendations such as yours, so keep a lid on the Aegir praise until the end of January when my audio-use-only cc gets paid off, will ya?

Whether or not the Freya+ needs break-in (and I think it needs very little) new tubes need a good deal of break-in to sound their best.  NOS need perhaps 50 to 100 hours of use.  Current production perhaps half that.  The time can be reduced by just letting the tubes burn for a couple of days.

Most (or should I say many) so-called NOS tubes don't need that much, or any, for they are not NOS, but really pulls that may test as NOS.

On breaking in the tubes, with the Freya + one would need to have the tube mode selected, because it turns them off in the other two modes.  

I’m listening to the Mission soundtrack as I type this, the sound is clear, open and impactful. The bass has good weight to it, it’s the best I’ve heard this music sound.

I should add that I went over my notes and I only had about 55 hours on the Freya at the time of my last post.   I just noticed tonight as I’m closing in on 70 hours that the jfet buffer mode is starting to have more depth to the soundstage than the tube mode.  

So I let the tube mode run for an hour and noticed that it’s improving as well.  In either mode, things like piano and cymbal have an authenticity that I’ve never heard from my Tannoys before.  This is fun!