What are opinions on breaking-in when comparing time spent to sustained volume level? My last upgrade were power cables about 3 weeks ago. After the install, they sounded a little better than stock and improved ever so slightly over this time. Yesterday while doing some chores, I blasted some cuss music really loud, (essentially bombarding the system with volume and frequency) for a couple of hours. There was little seated, critical listening here. Things mellowed out last evening, as I sat and played some smooth Jazz and Classical. It sounded as good as usual.
I woke this morning and put on some slower tempo R&B and all I can say is, there was a night and day difference. Everything I’ve played this morning sounds balanced, separated, articulate and deeper in soundstage. Typically (like many others) my system sounds better in the evenings, but this morning was a clear exception. Could I be imagining something, or could playing music at a high volume have that much of a difference in such a short time?
Burning in with my ICS and speaker cables accomplised
with the "The Best of Chesky album track 38. Equipment and
Cable burn in track set to repeat…low moderate volume…
Burn in lengthy several hundred hours for burn in to complete.
Normally I don’t use loud volumes for burn in as there are neighbors
to consider…
When I do get the real want to let it go…Time Warp is a go to
high impact album with a lot of strong dynamics…
My thinking is that for burn in there area various methods…
Time is a key factor for dielectric to settle in while loudness
the amount of energy flowing through the cable…both have
impact. Overall though time is the main one for me…
There is burn in, break in, demagnetization, and equipment warm-up. New equipment typically needs time to run, some components are not going to change based on volume alone. Amplifiers, power conditioners and power cords are going to appreciate current flow. Amplifiers and speakers are going to benefit fro full range frequency presentation, and as they break in gradual increase in volume until they are broken in. Regarding volume and frequency, some restraint and common sense applies for new equipment. I can say if I have not run my system for a while, weeks to months in this case, there also can be a bit of the speakers loosening up again. Hard to say what is contributing to it in your situation. Just sit back and enjoy it.
I do agree. The volume was only up because I was moving about and mostly in an adjacent space. I would never have sat that close with it up that loud. That’s the one lesson age, experience and having much better equipment has provided.
Just curious because I hadn’t listened to my system for over a year and I’ve been letting it run for about 2 weeks/24 hrs a day now at pretty low volume.
That’s good…though at times I would shut my system down overnight
to give things a “break” then back at it again…seems to speed
things up a wee bit…just my .02
Years ago Herman VanDendungen of Der HiFi Winkle
came up with the Ah!! 4000 Njoe Tjoeb using 6922 and
variants…One of the options was the upsampler…
that critter took 1000 hours of burn in time…reviews indicated
that once burned in would be sweet…and so it was…
Some components and accessories just plain do wonky things when they are new. Sound meh, sound great, sound meh, sound bad, sound fantastic, all in consecutive indecipherable patterns. That’s been my experience. Perhaps that is a factor here.
Time certainly was involved in my case - likely more than anything. I’d been working from home thanks to a COVID outbreak in the office, so the system was on and being played for no less than 8 hours each day.
I played some new tracks for the first time yesterday evening and thought the vocals were more focused, clear and pushed forward in a way I’d never heard from my setup. This was an hour or so after the full blast. It should have been some indication but when I played music this morning, that was the clearest indicator. I gather no amount of high volume would have done, in a short time, what that 200+ hours at moderate levels did.
I’d side with the extended play time. Moderate and even lower levels work. It does take time. I admit that though the new power cords didn’t sound bad over the time I’d had them, I didn’t think they sounded as good as reviews made them out to, until this morning that is.
Thumbs-up on this idea. Use this myself and works fantastic. I was using a Stereophile Mag test CD for years, and it still works great for everything except modern DAC’s. The disc was 16/44 and needed 24/192 and DSD to burn-in DAC’s.
Yes! Material with high dynamic range works great.
Power cords rarely do. Use a high gauge off the shelf cable and a new hospital gauge outlet from Lowes or HomeDepot for $20 and you likely fixed any cable problems.
Also most people overlook the outlet which is likely 15-40 years old and has all the quality a $.97 outlet has to offer. Very very poor mechanical contact with the plug.
Hospital plug has over 4x the copper and larger mating area to the plug.
Beyond a quality outlet and commercial power cord, get PS audio’s Power Regenerator.
If a person puts $1400 into a near useless cord instead puts it into a Regenerator will hear results.
I don’t know the specifics about what hospital grade means, I only know these cables were recommended to me by someone who reviewed a lot of cables and found these to be a great economic option.
I have two of these cables in my system and have sound them to be a clear upgrade from stock power cables.