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
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.
Hmm, that's a great thought, Jeff. We do have a Goodwill store a short drive away.
I just had a thought. I'm sure this has been discussed, but WRT dropping the load resistance... what is the more important component to burning in an IC - voltage or current? If I drop the load value I also drop the voltage across the two conductors in the cable. Granted I do increase the delivered current, but which one is more important?
Isn't a value that low a little risky, Bob? Is there a concern that a preamp may not be able to drive into a load that small without potential problems?