I follow another forum, new DAC release

[r042wal]

I follow another forum and they recently released a new DAC that just came out of beta testing. I am pulling my hair out in frustration. I already have one of their $8000 DACs (CDN) that is a few years old. What is getting under my skin is "burn in time" for solid state electronics. I have a fairly substantial background in electronics. I was a hobbyist since grade 6 and have a diploma in electronic engineering technology (3 years). My career veered off to computers and I have been a a network engineer for over 20 years. That being said, I have a fairly linear and logical line of thought.

Why do golden ear audiophiles think that solid state electronics require a break-in period? Since all of our audio equipment runs on DC, why do all the idiots proclaim that conditioning the AC make a difference to the sound stage or sustain or whatever jargon they use? All the Bryston user manuals for their amplifiers state that 'out of the wall' AC is all you need need because the amps have the proper filtration and conditioning.

Am I torturing myself or do any of you feel the same frustration (and contempt) I do?

 

[NiagaraPete]

Oh I like it when someone pulls back the curtains and says WTF. Welcome to ASR.

 

[Killingbeans]

Why do golden ear audiophiles think that solid state electronics require a break-in period?

Because the effect is real. Only, it doesn't have anything to do with physics, IMO. It's 100% brain plasticity.

I also suspect that's the main reason why people can enjoy just about any cottage industry hack job audio product out there.

It's amazing how much garbage you can put on a piedestal when you allow yourself to confuse familiarity with actual personal taste... or even worse, with high performance.

Am I torturing myself or do any of you feel the same frustration (and contempt) I do?

I do feel frustration now and then. Mostly because I'd like to understand how things works, and these misguided tangents aren't exactly making it easy.

I try to avoid contempt.

 

[JSmith]

Why do golden ear audiophiles think that solid state electronics require a break-in period?

It's often a little trick by some companies... the end of the recommended burn in period is often after the trial period of return. It's likely some of these products have a baked in "sound", so waiting for the burn in period ensures the customer becomes used to this and doesn't return either.


JSmith

 

[kemmler3D]

Am I torturing myself or do any of you feel the same frustration (and contempt) I do?

Welcome to ASR... this is the main reason many of us are here, as a refuge from the anti-physical, anti-science approach to audio that many self-described audiophiles take.

Why do golden ear audiophiles think that solid state electronics require a break-in period?

1) A reviwer they read said so, and 2) they believe it, so it produces a placebo effect that is audible. They heard it, so it's real, end of. Their worldview with regard to audio hinges on never acknowledging the high likelihood of hearing something that isn't there.

I would add that maybe contempt is not the right attitude, though. Keep in mind that if they say they heard something, they probably really did hear it. It's just that the alteration of sound they heard (in many contexts) was probably produced by something more mundane than they think - like loudness effect, ears adjusting after a listening session, moving gear around, or (in many cases) just placebo effect.

Many people are really ignorant of science at a level that is hard to appreciate if you aren't, and get a lot of self-image mileage out of talking the subjective audiophile talk. The objectivist view is a threat to that self-image. Not only have they invested a lot of time and energy (and money) into learning what amounts to magic spells that don't work, they have to admit they've been fooling themselves on a regular basis and then making definitive statements based on those self-illusions. This is a very bitter pill to swallow, any of us would have a hard time with it, if the tables were turned.

 

[McFly]

Sadly I often see the “engineers” and even “electrical engineers” that get sucked into the hifi snake oil, ironically. Even I very early on. We eventually find the light.

Also while we’re on that note, some that move to the objective side take it too far and chase SINAD and ultra low THD numbers, when in reality anything over/under 96dB is perfectly adequate.

 

[kemmler3D]

Sadly it’s often the “engineers” and even “electrical engineers” that get sucked into the hifi snake oil, ironically. Even I very early on. We eventually find the light.

This is interesting, I wonder why? On DIYAudio there are heaps of EEs building amps all the time. But I notice many of them are building tube amps or questionable Pass designs. My assumption was they do it for the aesthetics and not the performance, but do you think they really buy into faulty topologies as sounding better?

 

[McFly]

I personally think there is something to be said for the harmonic distortion. I can’t back it up objectively, but if someone builds a tube amp and is happy with the sound, all power to them. I will probably even give one a go after I’m done building my Wolverine from diyaudio. But my speakers need power, for now.

 

[JSmith]

I'd rather add any harmonic distortion myself or even via a DAC with such presets;

SU-9 Sound Color: Anybody know the curves?

Has anybody reverse engineered what curves are applied by each of the sound color settings?

www.audiosciencereview.com

JSmith

 

[kemmler3D]

some that move to the objective side take it too far and chase SINAD and ultra low THD numbers,

Agree, I think I see two bad habits in the objectivist camp, one is to chase lower SINAD regardless of how plausible audibility is, the other is to immediately cast extreme doubt on every claim of audibility that doesn't clearly show up in a (smoothed) FR plot or THD measurement. I think the assertions of e.g. Toole or Olive about what tends to be inaudible are sometimes overextended and create serious doubt that certain things can be audible, which ironically conflicts with any desire for SINAD above 90 or so.

 

[DMill]

This is interesting, I wonder why? On DIYAudio there are heaps of EEs building amps all the time. But I notice many of them are building tube amps or questionable Pass designs. My assumption was they do it for the aesthetics and not the performance, but do you think they really buy into faulty topologies as sounding better?

Same reason people don’t work on their Tesla at home maybe? Nothing really sexy about swapping computer chips. id rather trust a man who works with his hands (quoting an old Genesis song here). Something very interesting about building something simple and see the current coursing through the tubes. The fact it’s not perfect is kind of cool. Though I certainly have no problem with someone who wants DIY a Hypex amp or something similar either.

 

[Killingbeans]

This is a very bitter pill to swallow, any of us would have a hard time with it, if the tables were turned.

Definitely. I'm grateful that I have a technical education that helped me "wash down" the pill a few years back.

Before that point in my life, I spent countless hours "researching" all kinds of audio fairy tales as if they were known facts. I should really have known better, but at least it gave me some first-hand experience with self-delusion. It's a quite valuable perspective to have access to when trying to navigate the minefields of superstitions.

 

[kemmler3D]

Same reason people don’t work on their Tesla at home maybe? Nothing really sexy about swapping computer chips. id rather trust a man who works with his hands (quoting an old Genesis song here). Something very interesting about building something simple and see the current coursing through the tubes. The fact it’s not perfect is kind of cool. Though I certainly have no problem with someone who wants DIY a Hypex amp or something similar either.

Agree with that, I don't imagine most of them are convinced that "Class A sounds better" sans-evidence, I just guess they're more fun to build. But it would be pretty weird if they all built things based on superstitions... I did see a thread where someone was working on a linux distro that would have zero jitter, or something like that, without much justification on how it could be audible...

Definitely. I'm grateful that I have a technical education that helped me "wash down" the pill a few years back.

Before that point in my life, I spent countless hours "researching" all kinds of audio fairy tales as if they were known facts. I should really have known better, but at least it gave me some first-hand experience with self-delusion. It's a quite valuable perspective to have access to when trying to navigate the minefields of superstitions.

100% agree. This is easy to take for granted, since the curse of knowledge makes it hard to imagine it being otherwise. But if you take a step back, it's impressive how much money you can save just by knowing how to read a frequency response chart and tell BS from fact when it comes to digital audio. If not for that, we might be out there shopping for $1500 audiophile network switches at this very moment...

 

[raif71]

 

[LouB]

I personally think there is something to be said for the harmonic distortion. I can’t back it up objectively, but if someone builds a tube amp and is happy with the sound, all power to them. I will probably even give one a go after I’m done building my Wolverine from diyaudio. But my speakers need power, for now.

That is interesting, I'm not an EE by any means & do not ever want a tube amp for recorded music play back.
But as a musician I always use tube amps. I even had a custom bulit 40 watt tube amp built to 1950's spec Fender Bassman. Whats interesting to me is why I like that sound & feel I can only get it from an over driven tube amp ? I'm sure in this digital world there is way to get that tone from a SS amp or some digital processing amp but I never heard it. I never thought in terms of harmonic distortion being the draw of an amp. top.

 

[Killingbeans]

But as a musician I always use tube amps. I even had a custom bulit 40 watt tube amp built to 1950's spec Fender Bassman. Whats interesting to me is why I like that sound & feel I can only get it from an over driven tube amp ?

You can get it from any kind of amp. But you can't get rid of the idea of a tube amp, so in that sense it's all cool:

Just because it's all in your head, it doesn't make it feel any less good

 

[Dunring]

NASA doesn't burn in their space ships before launching, neither does the military do burn in time on the fighter jets or nuclear submarines because solid state electronics don't work that way. Even medical grade headphones don't get burned in before getting sent to a doctor or hospital. The guy who imagines it is the crazy one, not you.

 

[kemmler3D]

That is interesting, I'm not an EE by any means & do not ever want a tube amp for recorded music play back.
But as a musician I always use tube amps. I even had a custom bulit 40 watt tube amp built to 1950's spec Fender Bassman. Whats interesting to me is why I like that sound & feel I can only get it from an over driven tube amp ? I'm sure in this digital world there is way to get that tone from a SS amp or some digital processing amp but I never heard it. I never thought in terms of harmonic distortion being the draw of an amp. top.

Tube distortion sounds good to a lot of people, to the point that it is almost ubiquitous in recording. It's a matter of opinion as to whether it's appropriate to try to "sweeten" a recording after the fact, or whether you should just try for exact fidelity. Either way, when it comes to tubes and playback, you have 5 kinds of people:

1. People who use them for their sometimes objectively good performance at very low wattage
2. People who intentionally use them for the extra distortion because they like how it sounds
3. People who unknowingly use them for the extra distortion because they like how it sounds
4. Delusional people who should know better, and use them because they sound more "alive" or "musical" while refusing to acknowledge distortion
5. People who use them because they look cool

 

[DVDdoug]

Another thing that bothers me about burn-in is, if the manufacturer recommends burn-in, why doesn't the manufacturer do it?. If the specs/measurements are going to change after the customer uses it, how can the manufacturer guarantee the specs?

I work in electronics (industrial, not audio) and we test everything, burn it in for 48-hours at elevated temperature, then test again. (It used to be one week but the "policy" changed.) But it's NOT to improve performance. it's to weed-out the early failures. It's very rare that we have a failure in burn-in (and we rarely have field failures and most field failures are on the inputs/outputs where the customer probably over-voltaged-something or shorted something, etc.). We don't keep statistics, but burn-in failures are certainly less than 1% and probably less than 0.1%.

I've worked at other companies with similar burn-in procedures. I've always thought it would be better if we added vibration to the burn-in, but in my career I've only seen vibration testing done rarely and only on samples during development or during final product approval. Never as part of routine production.

But as a musician I always use tube amps.

Guitar? A guitar amp isn't supposed to be high fidelity. It has certain sound characteristics and they all sound different so guitar players usually have their favorite amp(s) as well as their favorite guitar(s). Also when the amp is over-driven, tubes tend to soft-clip whereas solid state amps tend to hard-clip and the soft-clipping (or "saturation") is often desirable.. The output transformer (required with tube amps) also adds some distortion and "character".

But you wouldn't want the whole band to be distorted like that through the PA system.

NASA doesn't burn in their space ships before launching, neither does the military do burn in time on the fighter jets or nuclear submarines because solid state electronics don't work that way.

I'd BET the circuit boards and "devices" are burned-in and probably low temperature stressed-tested and vibration tested. Occasionally, NASA or the military will buy one of our products and they are burned-in like everything we sell. But, our stuff isn't sent into space or anything like that.

 

[julian_hughes]

Why do golden ear audiophiles think that solid state electronics require a break-in period?

Yes, it's total nonsense. I'm 55 and have been buying and using consumer Hi-Fi products since I was a teenager. That's before they invented the CD. I have not experienced even one solid state item sounding different from day one unless it had a fault or developed a fault. As for mechanical items such as loud speakers, yes, sometimes, but mostly not. Headphones, earbuds, IEMs etc. once in a blue moon. I mean really maybe twice in 40 years. But solid state? No.