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How Soon Do You Realize You Don't Like a Piece of Gear?

I've been running all Allnic H3000 for a bit and love it. I decided to try a solid state transimpedance phono, The Grail by Van Den Hul and am coming out unconvinced of the change. The VDH has only been powered on for 24 hours and not fully broken in yet, which is estimated to be around 50-100 "listening hours". 

I don't hate the VDH, but am curious if it's going to grow on me or not. It has the detail, silence and linearity in spades, but my Allnic has the gravity, lushness, depth and ethereal timber I've grown to absolutely love. How soon until I should cut my losses and move back the Allnic and what are your thoughts on break-in time and waiting it out? 

128x128j-wall
noromance's avatar
noromance
9,821 posts
 

Why change? You obviously prefer the Allnic. The VDH isn't going to suddenly get better to such an extent that it will surpass what you enjoy about the Allnic.

yogiboy's avatar
yogiboy
5,701 posts
 

The Allnic is tubes and the VDH is SS. I always prefer tube phono preamps over SS. Cut your losses and dump the VDH. I doubt that it will ever grow on you!

knotscott
932 posts
 

Some things we like, some things we don't.  It's usually obvious as soon as the expectation bias wears off, which can be remarkably fast if we really don't like a change.

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