"burn In"

[20to20K]

Burn-in my Bun-ion!

I just hooked up my brand new ATI 1502, but before I did so I listened to one of my favorite reference CD's on my Denon 3805...Herb Albert's Rise. Great sonics...one of the first ever digital recording ('79) on a 3M-32 track digital recorder and mastered my Bernie Grundman. The cuts "Rotation" and the title track are particularly great for evaluation.

Wife and kids were gone so I cranked it up first with the Denon...then switched to the ATI (225 RMS into 4ohms) and it was incredible. I thought
the Denon was sounding pretty good but I could get it to clip on the second bass solo on Rise. Rotation has a lot of percussion and faint sound effects in the background that hard to single out. Hard to single out until I heard them through the ATI...the detail was just amazing. I also heard a triangle playing towards the end of "Rise" that I NEVER heard before...I've listened to that CD a few hundred times and I was actually missing an entire musician. The ATI brought it right out...faintly...but it was clearly there.

I can't imagine this amp sounding any better than it sounds now...don't know how I would notice it at this point. I think I need a $20,000 Classe' now!

 

[mtrycrafts]

Hey,


Then again they can also justify $150,000 Wilson speakers with $10,000 cables so that should be my first hint!

You don't have to go that far of an example How about those telephone poles under speaker wires? They are relatively inexpensive. Or some miracle polish, or the green pen trick, etc.

I guess one mans snake oil is another man's Cognac!

But of course. Some buy the more expensive sugar on the self too


Watchin' that Fox weather girl in the pregame is NOT a waste of electricity!

Oh, but you didn't say that up front, or did I miss it somehow. Maybe I am slippin

 

[mtrycrafts]

going from a hk to an hk back to back i dont see it as being my hearing. there was a definate difference which is now gone. i am not the only one who can tell a difference. friends who were here upon hookup noticed it right after the 230 was pulled. they have not been here on a regular basis to have their ears adjust, so much for that theory......


i am not saying it burned in, i am merely saying due to some cosmic alignment my tonal qualities have changed with this new 630.

Well, it is hard to test after the fact. But who knows what was really heard with no bias controls implemented, including your friends. One's imagination is unlimited.
However, maybe the tone control was not centered. Lots of maybe this maybe that. Certainly not an issue of break in, period.

 

[mtrycrafts]

***** Edit ********

I forgot to mention that I verified the break-in of my new NHTs by comparing them side by side against my old NHTs using the A/B speaker button on my old Stereo receiver. My wife listened to the comparison blind before and after and heard what I did without me suggesting anything. "How did you fix them?" was her question after the first week. This expansion is relevant to the question of how anyone could verify break-in occurred if it takes a week and audio memory is short. -And no, NHTs don't require a week to break in. I just listened to music and conducted the test after a week of normal useage. It could be that they were broken in within the first hour, but who cares? New out of box they gave Frank Sinatra a slight snake-like speech impediment and partially emasculated him. Poor Frank!

I am not sure how your comparison went as you indicate your wife listened before and after. If it is side by side, then before and after what?

Are these the exact same speakers? Maybe the new ones have different drivers if they are many years apart in their manufacturing dates?

 

[sjdgpt]

Speaking of break in.

I had to buy a new computer display. Had to. The old CRT was dying really fast.

Ran to OD, really wanted a big CRT, but had to settle for a big LCD.

Got the LCD back to the office, and hooked it up, let it do its auto adjust, and then took a peak.

Damn bright screen.

Fellow office workers were practically yelling about how bright the display was.

Left the screen on with my favorite screensaver running and went for a long lunch.

A few hours later, brightness has been tamed.

Office workers are commenting... "what did you do to it".

Nothing. I changed no settings.

Just let it warm up? burn in?

Or did everybody adapt to the screen brightness that quickly?

 

[gregz]

mtrycrafts, the comparison I spoke of was the new NHTs vs the old NHTs before and after one week of use. They are actually different models, but the old speakers still served as a control in providing a non-changing reference over such a short time interval.

I'm not claiming my test constitutes undeniable proof, but rather that it IS possible to evaluate a speaker's change over a short period of time by comparing it to a known stable reference. Even if I don't remember the exact sound it made a week before, I still remember the perceived gap between the speakers and the noticeable effect it made on music in side by side comparisons. At the end of the week, the speakers were much harder to tell apart.

Actually, the break-in test comparison was unintended. We liked our old pair of speakers and would rather have bought another pair of those, but they had been discontinued and we wondered how the new speakers would compare side by side. As it turned out, the new ones seemed to sound much worse than they did at the store, and even worse in comparison to the old speakers. We were ready to return them but I thought I'd give them a chance to "break in." Upon our second comparison test, it was surprising just how much the new speakers had improved.

 

[mtrycrafts]

mtrycrafts, the comparison I spoke of was the new NHTs vs the old NHTs before and after one week of use. They are actually different models, but the old speakers still served as a control in providing a non-changing reference over such a short time interval.

I'm not claiming my test constitutes undeniable proof, but rather that it IS possible to evaluate a speaker's change over a short period of time by comparing it to a known stable reference. Even if I don't remember the exact sound it made a week before, I still remember the perceived gap between the speakers and the noticeable effect it made on music in side by side comparisons. At the end of the week, the speakers were much harder to tell apart.

Actually, the break-in test comparison was unintended. We liked our old pair of speakers and would rather have bought another pair of those, but they had been discontinued and we wondered how the new speakers would compare side by side. As it turned out, the new ones seemed to sound much worse than they did at the store, and even worse in comparison to the old speakers. We were ready to return them but I thought I'd give them a chance to "break in." Upon our second comparison test, it was surprising just how much the new speakers had improved.

Thanks for the further explanation. You have an NHT speaker. You bought the same maker, different model NHT. Compared the New NHT to the old NHT. Then a week later you compared the 1 week old new NHT to the old NHT and from memory of a week gone by, you are surmizing that there are differences between the new NHT and the 1 week old New NHT?

I wasn't looking for absolutes here but there is just much to be desired of your experience
Nousaine compared and measured drivers with a null result. Same make, same size, and with different hours on them, 0 hrs to 150 hrs.
I am still looking for evidence

 

[mtrycrafts]

Speaking of break in.

I had to buy a new computer display. Had to. The old CRT was dying really fast.

Ran to OD, really wanted a big CRT, but had to settle for a big LCD.

Got the LCD back to the office, and hooked it up, let it do its auto adjust, and then took a peak.

Damn bright screen.

Fellow office workers were practically yelling about how bright the display was.

Left the screen on with my favorite screensaver running and went for a long lunch.

A few hours later, brightness has been tamed.

Office workers are commenting... "what did you do to it".

Nothing. I changed no settings.

Just let it warm up? burn in?

Or did everybody adapt to the screen brightness that quickly?

Don't know about LCD screen brightness Certainly they are not speakers and cannot draw parallels. But, I would surmize that without an accurate lumen measurements out of the box and after your long lunch, it is like comparing paint chips at home and then in the store with no reference chip at the store, just relying on memory
All the others can have the same memory problems too. So, we are back to square one.