Do yourselves a favour and pick up the Ayre Acoustics break in disc entitled "irrational but efficacious". Slip it into your player and hit "repeat" for as long as you can. Set your volume control as high as it can go without doing damage to the speakers. Be forewarned though, the first five seconds of the disc are silent, so keep the volume down and gradually ease up after that. This disc can eat woofers, blow tweeters and / or damage amps if you aren't careful. Then again, it is this "stress", both thermal and bandwidth wise, that causes the system to settle in.
If you can let this play for a few days, even at reduced volume, you'll notice a big difference in your entire system. It will be MUCH smoother, have more spatial info and sound more cohesive.
I did this with my Father's system a couple of years ago. He was in the hospital, so my Brother and i took it upon ourselves to "fix" his stereo system for him. He would never let us do what we wanted to do, so this was our only chance : )
The first thing we did was to modify his speakers. After modifying the speakers in drastic fashion, they sounded like hell. All new wiring inside, fresh solder, etc... VERY shrill and brittle sounding, no bass extension, lacking warmth, etc... It was almost to the point of wondering if we did something wrong. My Brother left the house and then i put the Ayre disc in.
Upon returning to my Dad's house the next day, the sound was much better. When my Brother showed up, i had him sit down and listen. I asked him what he thought. His response was "you changed ALL of the cabling in here, didn't you?". I told him "no, this is exactly the same gear you heard last night". He didn't believe me, so he looked over the entire system. Needless to say, he was amazed at how much "break in" was clearly audible.
After a few more days, the sound really began to gel. Things were falling into place nicely and we could really start to hear the benefits of the speaker mods. FAR more linear presentation with drastically increased liquidity. I'm quite certain that a good portion of this was due to the Ayre disc speeding the process up.
After about a week of playing this disc on repeat non-stop and listening to other music while we were there, the sound was by far the best we've ever heard in that house. When my Father came back, his first words after listening to his stereo for about 20 minutes were to the effect of how good his system sounded. He couldn't recall it ever sounding that good before, but he chalked that up to being away from music while in the hospital for so long.
After explaining what we did to his system in total, mostly his speakers, he was both appalled and amazed. Appalled that he had been listening to such an inferior product for so many years, thinking that it was "excellent" due to the fabulous reviews. Amazed that such a "well reviewed product" could be made SOOOOO much better by his two "knucklehead" sons.
If given enough time and amplitude, the Ayre disc can REALLY help your system out. Like i said though, BE CAREFUL with this disc. It has the potential to "wound" your system AND wallet.
As a side note, i lent Albert an inexpensive SACD player a while back. He was breaking in his Dali's and mentioned needing a digital source that he could play multiple formats on repeat for an extended period of time. I had an inexpensive SACD player sitting here, so i shipped it to him. When i sent this to him, i also sent two other discs for his use. One was the Ayre. Albert later told me that the Ayre disc not only "shook the house", but also helped to break his speakers in MUCH quicker than anything he had ever experienced. At the same time, i'm sure that the other components were getting a work-out too. As most of you know, Albert is not a newcomer to this hobby and has other "break in" discs. Needless to say, i think that his comments qualified as a "ringing endorsement" of the attributes of this disc.
I know that i've used this disc for "break in" purposes many, many times. Every digital source that i, my Brother and my Father have owned in the last several years has been "burned in" using this disc. Listening to the players as they "settle" during the "burn in" period, one can easily hear how the sonics change. After these "test listening sessions" were done, the Ayre disc goes back in on repeat.
In most cases, somewhere between 3 days and 2 weeks of continous play of this disc will get the digital source and / or system up to what it can do in that form. Most people don't do anything like this, hence the very gradual break in over a very extended period of time. Check it out and let me know what you think.
Other than that, this component in your system may never give you what you want, especially if you leave it as it is in terms of cabling, etc... As previously mentioned in other threads, components have different mating impedances and the sound / performance can vary when cables are changed. If in doubt, try some moderate cable changes between mating components ( source to pre, pre to amp, etc... ) and see what you get. You don't have to spend a lot of money to potentially improve what you're hearing and experiencing now. Sean
>
PS... many THANKS to Bob Bundus for turning me onto the Ayre disc.
If you can let this play for a few days, even at reduced volume, you'll notice a big difference in your entire system. It will be MUCH smoother, have more spatial info and sound more cohesive.
I did this with my Father's system a couple of years ago. He was in the hospital, so my Brother and i took it upon ourselves to "fix" his stereo system for him. He would never let us do what we wanted to do, so this was our only chance : )
The first thing we did was to modify his speakers. After modifying the speakers in drastic fashion, they sounded like hell. All new wiring inside, fresh solder, etc... VERY shrill and brittle sounding, no bass extension, lacking warmth, etc... It was almost to the point of wondering if we did something wrong. My Brother left the house and then i put the Ayre disc in.
Upon returning to my Dad's house the next day, the sound was much better. When my Brother showed up, i had him sit down and listen. I asked him what he thought. His response was "you changed ALL of the cabling in here, didn't you?". I told him "no, this is exactly the same gear you heard last night". He didn't believe me, so he looked over the entire system. Needless to say, he was amazed at how much "break in" was clearly audible.
After a few more days, the sound really began to gel. Things were falling into place nicely and we could really start to hear the benefits of the speaker mods. FAR more linear presentation with drastically increased liquidity. I'm quite certain that a good portion of this was due to the Ayre disc speeding the process up.
After about a week of playing this disc on repeat non-stop and listening to other music while we were there, the sound was by far the best we've ever heard in that house. When my Father came back, his first words after listening to his stereo for about 20 minutes were to the effect of how good his system sounded. He couldn't recall it ever sounding that good before, but he chalked that up to being away from music while in the hospital for so long.
After explaining what we did to his system in total, mostly his speakers, he was both appalled and amazed. Appalled that he had been listening to such an inferior product for so many years, thinking that it was "excellent" due to the fabulous reviews. Amazed that such a "well reviewed product" could be made SOOOOO much better by his two "knucklehead" sons.
If given enough time and amplitude, the Ayre disc can REALLY help your system out. Like i said though, BE CAREFUL with this disc. It has the potential to "wound" your system AND wallet.
As a side note, i lent Albert an inexpensive SACD player a while back. He was breaking in his Dali's and mentioned needing a digital source that he could play multiple formats on repeat for an extended period of time. I had an inexpensive SACD player sitting here, so i shipped it to him. When i sent this to him, i also sent two other discs for his use. One was the Ayre. Albert later told me that the Ayre disc not only "shook the house", but also helped to break his speakers in MUCH quicker than anything he had ever experienced. At the same time, i'm sure that the other components were getting a work-out too. As most of you know, Albert is not a newcomer to this hobby and has other "break in" discs. Needless to say, i think that his comments qualified as a "ringing endorsement" of the attributes of this disc.
I know that i've used this disc for "break in" purposes many, many times. Every digital source that i, my Brother and my Father have owned in the last several years has been "burned in" using this disc. Listening to the players as they "settle" during the "burn in" period, one can easily hear how the sonics change. After these "test listening sessions" were done, the Ayre disc goes back in on repeat.
In most cases, somewhere between 3 days and 2 weeks of continous play of this disc will get the digital source and / or system up to what it can do in that form. Most people don't do anything like this, hence the very gradual break in over a very extended period of time. Check it out and let me know what you think.
Other than that, this component in your system may never give you what you want, especially if you leave it as it is in terms of cabling, etc... As previously mentioned in other threads, components have different mating impedances and the sound / performance can vary when cables are changed. If in doubt, try some moderate cable changes between mating components ( source to pre, pre to amp, etc... ) and see what you get. You don't have to spend a lot of money to potentially improve what you're hearing and experiencing now. Sean
>
PS... many THANKS to Bob Bundus for turning me onto the Ayre disc.