I searched the forum for break in time. It seems people don't think ther is one. Well if there isn't this is comming back. In Home theatre it was very impressive. Definetly outperformed my Integra DTR 5.3 by a wide margin. But for music it's just not very good. It sounds grainy and not very musical. Some things like clarinet and sax sound good. But other horns are irritating. Rock is also grainy sounding. It's just not very pleasurable to listen to. My integra sounds so much more musical. I think the bass could be more adjustable also. I have it turned all the way up and I still think I need more. The reason being the mids are too prominent foy my taste. I have very revealing Axiom speakers. Also I got shorted on my cables and I called my sales rep and haven't heard back on the issue. I'm using some G-snakes for cables from the pre to the amp for now. So one of my Turn Tables is down.

When I got my original 950 (April '02) and my red dot revision (August '02), I didn't notice any break in time. With the blue dot, which is what all 950's are now, I thought there was some break-in -- in the range of a week or so. Don't count it out immediately, hopefully it will come around for you.

There is no such thing as "break-in" with modern solid state electronics. It is an audiophile myth.

How do you know? I have a Dynavector P-75 phono stage that took a long time o break in. Or so it seems. It used to be hard to listen to as I would get fatigued after awhile. So your saying I just became def in the frequency that was bothering me?

I've been designing and using audio equipment in my career for over 30 years and have never heard or measured any difference at all in the sound or performance of properly performing solid state (or IC op-amp based) electronics gear over time. Vacuum tube equipment does change it's sound over time for various reasons, but that mechanism is clearly understood.

I might ask, how rigorous a before/after comparison did you perform? Did you keep an "unused" example of your preamp for A/B comparison to the used one? If you did, was the comparison strictly double blind with the levels matched? Additionally, did you consider that your phono cartridge or the records themselves could have changed (worn) over time, and thus their sound would have changed? Both of these being mechanical in nature, such a change is possible.

It is far more likely that the "break-in" is simply your ears getting used to the sonic signature of your preamp as time passes.

If you are hearing a genuine change of the sound of a solid state component over time, that means that something in the circuit is changing, and that certainly is not good! A good design strives to remain stable over time, and unstable circuits are just not the norm.

I also might ask, how come every instance I hear about where somebody said their component had a "break-in", the change was always for the better? That doesn't make sense, wouldn't you think?

Well my phono cart did have a long break in so that could have been it. My dealer told me that solid state has a longer break in than tubes. But he is a flake so I can't take his word as gospel. So when preople say thier solid state gear broke in then it must mean thier hearing was damaged making them able to tolorate the offending frequency. What are you useing to test. Can the instrument be set at a location where the user sits and pick up everything as well as the human ear?

My ears are ringing from listening last night. didn't even turn it up that high. I'm going to try setting the speakers to small as the gentleman from Outlaw suggested. We'll see if that helps. I got a call this morning and they are sending my cables.

"Getting used to" is not the same as "damaged".

Ok. I experimented with the crossover and speaker settings and there is a huge improvement in the bass. It's strange though as my front speakers are Axiom M80's which are supposed to have alot of bass. But the bass is increased dramaticaly by setting them to small sending alot more signal to the sub. I also have full sized rears which I had set to large. All my speakers are now set to small at 60 hz. It's still a little cold sounding but not nearly as bad as before. I think one of the reasons why this was a problem is changing settings isn't instantamious. Theres like a two second delay whan making changes. You always have to remember to make a change and wait to hear what happens. If you don't your way off with what you were looking for.

Not strange at all. "Full sized" speakers rarely, if ever, reproduce bass as well as a decent subwoofer. There you go: instant break in.

And a big reason for that is the optimal location for the speaker to reproduce the rest of the frequency range is very rarely the same as for optimal bass reproduction. Even if the mains have powered subs, a separate sub of equal quality will reproduce the bass as good or better because you can find a more optimal location for it. You're one lucky dog if the optimal place for both is the same place.