The Compass Thread (New) - Page 3

Alright thanks guys! That really answered my question except for that last line in jlaakso's post:

Oh nevermind, I misread it the first time. That does make sense :-)


edit: another question- how do you hook up, say, an mp3 player to this thing? The HP out of my D2 doesn't have an L and an R. Do I have to split it?

Got a p6t deluxe a few months backed ran fine for a while and then died on me. RMA on that was failure b/c I did not send it with the pin protector. Bunch of crap because it was not like any of the pins were bent even after they sent it back to me. I then bought another one and it was DOA and now after going months without my big computer (that already cost over $5000) I am done with that board. Tonight I am ordering a p6t7 ws supercomputer, hopefully it will not be DOA. Then I am going to rma my new pt6 and use it as a backup. But I have had my share of problems with HDDs too had a RAID 0 fail on my once so now I keep everything backed up on RAID 5. Also I even lost a RAID 1 to a corrupt driver (what I get for a cheep raid card, luckily the one I use in my big computers is high end). I am hoping to get a win home server up and running so that I can auto backup all my important docs on a totally independent system.

I am just glad that this hobby does not have such a high failure rate lol. Probably helps that water and overclocking is not involved

Also thanks for the info on the burn in, by the way how many hours is one hour of pink noise worth? Is it like 1.1 or even 1.5 hours? I am just interested because people say it burns in faster but if you do not know how much faster at least even a decent estimate than it seams sort of pointless because you still let it sit for the same time. Ideally I would like to rush the burn in as much as possible so that I can finally swap in and out fully burned opas and test all the settings so I can see what sounds best for what

You'll get the secure feeling that your equipment is fully burned in with full spectrum!!! Would hate the situation where only upper mids were fully burned in and treble and lower mids were only half way through

Yep, you'll have to go with a male 3.5mm (or whatever your hp out is) to RCA male and hook it up to the line in to use the amp. or if the d2 does digital, you can hook up to the dac, and boy wouldn't that be nice

It isn't that it isn't good, it's that the sound signature fluctuates a bit over the first few hundred hours. It does sound good out of the box, just not as good as it will after a couple of weeks of music playing.

I know it had already been answered, but I had to post in the new thread to get a "marker" down the side of the thread, making it easier for me to spot in future

~Phewl.

Keep in mind too that they are made to order. It is not as if they just build thousands of them and have them sitting around burning in all day long. What I can say for sure is that anyone who doubts the effects of burn in only needs to buy a compass and be convinced

ugh, goodbye 400 dollars, I will miss you

Actually You won't miss them after you get the compass

My compass has been on playing music since May 11th so it has approx. 740 hours on it (Earth). I haven't noticed significant changes during burn-in (just my ears not to discount what others have noticed), however, I would say that it has improved over that time period.

Now I should pop the Moon in and give it a try, and burn it in.

As others have mentioned the Compass synergies very well with HD650s. I recently purchased the STAX 2050 System, and I'm feeding the STAX amp with the DAC out from the compass. The STAX sound amazing with the compass DAC. Lots of detail, some of which I never noticed before with some songs. I was concerned there might be a lack of bass with the STAX - being somewhat of a bass head - but I'm really satisfied with the bass of the STAX. The bass actually goes down low & deep, but lacks the mid-bass hump that some dynamics have.

I've compared the Compass amp to my DarkVoice 337 (Compass DAC as source in both cases) and sometimes I've preferred the DV and sometimes the Compass.

How long exactly for the burn in?

436 hours, 42 minutes and 3.5 seconds.

Okay, just kidding. I don't think anyone really knows precisely. It's a process that levels off, so improvements become more and more subtle after a certain point. I think 350-400 hours is considered the mininum, personally I noticed the most significant changes in the first 250 hours. But there's a good chance that subtle changes will keep occurring all through the first 1000 hours or so. (Yes, I know it sounds nuts, but there you are. )

Wait until your saying this on a monthly basis then you know you've been fully hooked by the bug. You can then vent that frustration on the members of head fi which are nothing more than a sympathetic mob of spend happy enablers (). All joking aside.....

You may not succumb to upgraditis as you strike me as pragmatic and sensible, something which I can claim to have mastered only one aspect (pragmatic) and am still working on the second (sensible)

Peete.

PS: I think you'll be pleasantly surprised by the purchase. Giant killer it is not but a solid entry level workhorse ? Yes. It drives the K701's with some authority which is no easy feat at this price point.

hehe I try to think I'm a pretty reasonable person, although even if I wasn't I don't have the cash to be constantly upgrading, I got into hi-fi last summer and this will be my first desktop amp. Also I haven't bit the bullet and offically bought it yet, still trying to see if I can get the promo price but one way or another I'll be buying this amp soon. I am not expecting perfection I'm just hoping it will pull a bit of that veil off that you get with k701s that aren't amped properly.

I really think the pace at which things are coming to market have severely hurt such former stalwarts like Asus and even Intel. I had major problems with Intel's matrix RAID controller built into the SB of X38 based boards (on up). I just use the standard IDE controller now and haven't noticed much of a drop off in actual speed except on larger file transfers.

I did buy a outboard Acomdata eSATA 1TB drive (with a Hitachi HDD) and have done back ups of everything ...

I have no idea if pink noise equals 50% more time than music. I don't think it makes any difference in all honesty. If I had to guess I'd still say no matter what you use to burn in the gear you need to put in the time. I could be wrong about that. I did use various methods last year but found they made little difference but I didn't stick with them long enough to really say one way or the other.

I do have 14 HDAM modules all of which have been burned in over the last 3-14 months and they all displayed the exact same pattern which is the damndest thing I've ever come across. I don't question the process anymore since 14 times is enough to make a believer out of me.....

Peete.

I found out that compass is noticably warmer when playing pink noise than playing music. Does it make a difference, I don't know. anyhow, I like the amp. Definitely an upgrade after MuFi V-DAC + GS Novo.