2. amps-preamps
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Break in time that extends to months or maybe even years!!

On another thread, we have a well known and well respected piece of gear ( and great sounding too, IME) that according to the member who is reviewing it, needs in excess of 1000 hours to fully break in!! 

While we have all heard of gear that needs immense amounts of 'break in' time to sound its best, usually gear that involves teflon caps, I question whether this very long break in time is the job for the consumer? Is it reasonable for a manufacturer of audio gear to expect the consumer to receive sub-par performance from his purchase for potentially several months ( years?) before the true sound of the gear in question can be enjoyed? Or, is it ( or should it be) perhaps the job of the manufacturer of this gear ( usually not low priced) to actually accomplish the 'break in' before releasing it from the factory? Thoughts...
128x128daveyf
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daveyf OP
2,837 posts
 
@atmasphere  Well that's a good point, but according to our esteemed member, on his review of the product, 900 hours has been reached and he is still hearing advances. 
I suppose another question could be...how long is acceptable 'break in' time for a product? Remember that the ARC preamp that utilized Teflon caps was 'supposedly' only broken in after 600 hours! To me, that seems excessive and should have been done at the factory, others obviously didn't feel this was an issue, as the preamp apparently sold well.
luxmancl38
580 posts
 
I had a CJ ET3 SE w/Teflon caps and it took around 300 hrs to break in. On the other hand my current Luxman CL38U se needed less than 100 hrs. This unit uses oil caps.
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cleeds
5,722 posts
 
daveyf
... according to our esteemed member, on his review of the product, 900 hours has been reached and he is still hearing advances ...
That's just hearsay and the claim is unsubstantiated. Please note that there's a difference between correlation and causation, something that's discounted in claims like this.
Remember that the ARC preamp that utilized Teflon caps was 'supposedly' only broken in after 600 hours!
Key word: "Supposedly."

almarg's avatar
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almarg
9,670 posts
 
While I hold the esteemed member who has been referred to in the highest esteem, IMO the only way to meaningfully test this claim would be to perform a direct comparison between two identical components, one of which has been broken in for 1000 hours or so, and the other of which has been broken in for a far lesser number of hours. And with everything else kept equal during the comparison, including the warmup state of those components and all of the other components in the system, the AC line voltage, and the temperature and humidity of the room.

Regards,
-- Al
 
guidocorona
4,298 posts
 

Hmmm, actually the longest successful maturation time that I have experienced was on an SS digital component: about 3 months of mostly simmering at low volume 24/7, interspersed with actual listening sessions.

Saluti, G.


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