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Poor man's IC cooker?

I'm in the process of testing a number of new ICs for my preamp to amp link, and was debating what to do about burning them in. I want to get a quick turnaround on the burn in so I can spend more of the 30 day trial period offered by the manufacturers listening and comparing.

Since my peamp has dual outs I figured I could use one set as a burn point, letting me listen to the other output while cables are cooking on the first. So what I did was go to Ratshack and buy their 4 jack RCA phono board (274-322). I soldered 100KOhm 1/2W dummy loads to each of the outer jacks. I plug the cables from the preamp to the loads and have a nice stable load for burn in. I decided to use my FM tuner as a source. I have a Yamaha T-2, which allows me to tune so that I get a combination of FM white noise and some signal from a selected station. I set the preamp to half volume and let it go. My only concern is whether that's a good signal mix for burn in.

I figure 3-4 days of this and each pair of ICs will be burned in pretty well. And I can do it 24 hours a day without keeping myself awake. Does this sound like a decent plan?

I will, of course, run the cables with actual music for at least a couple of hours when they get inserted for listening.
tonyptony
jeffreybehr's avatar
jeffreybehr
805 posts
 
I just connect mine between my VCR and preamp and let it run, for days.
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jman66
54 posts
 
That's a fine idea. I do a similar thing with speaker cables, hooked to the amp but not to the speakers. I place 8ohm power resistors on the speaker side of the cable. This way, I can burn them in without having the speakers play 24/7. For the sound source, I use an FM tuner also but fully tuned to the station. I should try your tuning method sometime.
tonyptony OP
617 posts
 
I'm glad to hear that this seems like a good way to go. Jeff, unfortunately the only sources I have are my turntable and CD player, neither of which I want to run for a couple of hundred hours straight.

I picked 100KOhms because that approximates the input impedance of my amp. I've been wondering if I would actually be able to do a better job if I cut that in half. That would still be high enough to provide a decent high impedance source for my preamp, and as it is pretty much a resistive load I shouldn't have any trouble with any sort of weird reactance. Or I could just turn the volume up on my preamp, I guess.
jeff_jones
418 posts
 
Agreed with others, oughts to work fine, couple thoughts tho.
Twere it I, I'd probably drop the resistors from 100K to the minimum I could get by with without taxing the source and probably have the tuner sitting on a station that played music similar to what I listened to. However, your method may be better.
FWIW, last time I was in a goodwill store picking up $1.88 used albums I noticed a LOT of dirt cheap used recievers, cd players, etc.. This would keep your pre-amp from doing burn in duty and could prevent any negative audible effects from having additional cableing connected to the 2nd pre-out.
tonyptony OP
617 posts
 
Hmm, that's a great thought, Jeff. We do have a Goodwill store a short drive away.
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