[inexactscience]

Jesus Christ, is your reading comprehension that bad so as to make those disrespectful alegations? iFI was replying to a post (which they quoted) made by lwells stating the Hip Dac was starting to open up, your other post (133) makes Machiavelli look like Mickey Mouse, maybe you should put that imagination to a more fruitful use.

Or maybe I thought the Hip-DAC sounded great out of the box so the comment didn't make sense.

 

[inexactscience]

I call troll!

Thank goodness this forum has an ignore facility (you're the second one this month).

I'm sorry that come off as a troll, that wasn't my intent. Obviously I'm missing something here. Feel free to reply with what I missed (or PM if that floats your boat). I hope that the experiences which contribute to the desire to ignore people are few and far between.

 

[lwells]

Or maybe I thought the Hip-DAC sounded great out of the box so the comment didn't make sense.

Mine definitely didn't. It's improved over the last 40-ish hours. This isn't the first time I've had this experience. However, I have bought some equipment that I thought was mind-blowingly good right out of the box.

I do not believe this is entirely ear-brain related. But I can only speculate.

 

[Narayan23]

Or maybe I thought the Hip-DAC sounded great out of the box so the comment didn't make sense.

You should have stated that in your other post to further the discussion instead of doubting iFI´s integrity.

 

[lwells]

You should have stated that in your other post to further the discussion instead of doubting iFI´s integrity.

Does it really matter though?

I mean, this hobby is largely subjective. Perhaps what I was hearing out of the box, inexactscience would say sounds great to him.

I don't want to put words in anybody's mouth, but it sounds like he wanted to know why the sound (or the perception of it) changes from out of the box.

 

[inexactscience]

Mine definitely didn't. It's improved over the last 40-ish hours. This isn't the first time I've had this experience. However, I have bought some equipment that I thought was mind-blowingly good right out of the box.

I do not believe this is entirely ear-brain related. But I can only speculate.

I'm sorry your Hip-DAC didn't sound great out of the box, mine certainly did. I'm glad it's improved!

It's difficult to know when that ear-brain normalization (wrong word, maybe?) kicks in and what we expect to hear changes.

You should have stated that in your other post to further the discussion instead of doubting iFI´s integrity.

Very possibly. I most certainly enjoyed the Hip-DAC right away, and I had no intent to question iFi's integrity. I had thought that was a bit more of a playful comment, but I can see that I did not get that idea across at all! My apologies for the error.

I mean, this hobby is largely subjective. Perhaps what I was hearing out of the box, inexactscience would say sounds great to him.

This is very true! It also could be that our tastes differ, that we have different experiences and expectations, or all of the above!

 

[joshnor713]

It is, yes, but needs to run for some time to reach sonic performance peak just as every other similar device.

Could you explain the rationale behind this?

 

[iFi audio]

What does this mean? Or are you dumping on the competition?

Nope, not at all. I either say good things about other audio brands, or I don't say anything at all. But the reality is that audio products need time to reach peak of their performance.

The first thing I have to ask is this: what "audio stuff" are we talking about? Does this include the Hip-DAC?

Audio products of various sort, function and price, hip-dac including.

"rarely sounds good", in what way or ways is this meant? Is it meant as a function of the equipment or the ear-brain connection or something else? Are they applying this to the Hip-DAC as well?

To make it short, many products will sound audibly better after hours of working time, including hip-dac. In this context 'rarely sounds good' referred to the same product's performance after say 50 or 100 hours of use.

Or maybe I thought the Hip-DAC sounded great out of the box so the comment didn't make sense.

If that's your experience, that's great!

If so, why aren't manufacturers putting that time in before shipping to customers knowing that the product isn't ready?

Many manufacturers in fact do, but this practice is seen mostly in very costly products. Also, products out of the box are ready; they work, make sound etc. But they usually need some working time to arrive at their peak performance, which isn't really nothing new in this hobby.

I'm sorry that come off as a troll, that wasn't my intent. Obviously I'm missing something here. Feel free to reply with what I missed (or PM if that floats your boat). I hope that the experiences which contribute to the desire to ignore people are few and far between.

It's all good. As long as we're able to communicate in civilized manner, it's all OK. If what I wrote addresses your questions, cool. If there's still something you'd like to have clarified, please feel free to let me know and I'll help.

Could you explain the rationale behind this?

Certain components used in audio products, for example capacitors or transducers, sound better once they have working hours on them.

Very possibly. I most certainly enjoyed the Hip-DAC right away, and I had no intent to question iFi's integrity. I had thought that was a bit more of a playful comment, but I can see that I did not get that idea across at all! My apologies for the error.

As I wrote above, if in your case hip-dac sonded good right away, that's good and a perfectly fine reaction. Some folks look forward to sound getting better in time, others don't think about it and enjoy their purchases as they are.

To entirely know what burn-in does, two the same products would need to be compared; one brand new and the other after i.e. 100 hours of usage. I did several such tests with our devices and each time the one used for some time sounded better.

I look forward to learn whether your hip-dac gets any better after some time. If you feel like it, please share your experience after several days or weeks!

iFi audio's integrity is as it's used to be. I took your comments as legit questions asked to simply know more, that's all. Again, if there's something unclear, I'm here

 

[Bleach-Free]

Are there any measurements to back this up in regards to an amp that's solid state? Like, is there a measured difference in THD% or SNR or something else similar? Only asking as I've never heard of solid states needing burn-in and I'm genuinely curious.

 

[lwells]

Are there any measurements to back this up in regards to an amp that's solid state? Like, is there a measured difference in THD% or SNR or something else similar? Only asking as I've never heard of solid states needing burn-in and I'm genuinely curious.

No measurements, but I found this interesting. I stole this from:
https://www.quora.com/Is-it-true-th...-to-properly-break-in-and-find-its-true-sound

In some cases, yes. Some components in power amplifiers can age in the first few weeks of use.
In a nutshell, amplifiers have warm-up and break-in effects. But they are fleeting and often subtle (unless the manufacturer cuts corners excessively and uses poorly stable parts). So unless you're trying to make a purchasing decision based on long-term performance, you should ignore these effects and appreciate your new piece of gear out of the box.
It is costly for manufacturers to burn in equipment, usually the effects are not objectively measurable with a simple cheap QA test, and even if they could measure it they would be disincentivized to publicize it, else the customers would come to expect pre-broken-in gear. I believe that since it's a passing issue, it's ignored by manufacturers.
Sometimes manufacturers will pre-break-in components, but in the high volume consumer product space this is unlikely to be done beyond normal QA. Further, consumer products often don't have the sensitivity for people to notice these changes, and this gives rise to much confusion about whether break-in actually happens.
I design electron microscopes for a living and have training in EE, solid state physics, and materials engineering. Electron microscopes are some of the most sensitive instruments on the planet, incorporating power supplies with DC and AC circuits that sometimes have noise specifications down to the parts per billion. In comparison most audio devices have signal to noise ratios of around on part per million or less. I also founded an audio business and built and sold hundreds of audio amplifiers and digital converters.
Here are a few examples from my experience where I saw (or heard) these effects firsthand, and possible explanations. Most I couldn't measure or weren't worth measuring. They're ranked from the largest effects to smallest.
1) Teflon signal capacitor. We used these to impart a certain sparkle and clarity to the upper frequencies of one of the devices we built and sold. It was subtle, but according to blind customer tests in the signal bypass application the high frequencies were definitely improved. Customers really liked it.
But out of the box they sounded AWFUL. They were harsh and unpleasant. Mysteriously, after 500 hr of use they would settle in and by 600 hr they were outstanding - smooth and precise and clear in the treble and upper midrange region they were meant to enhance.
To this day I still do not know why this is. I could never measure the effect on my instruments and couldn’t even begin to devise a test to measure the effect. I surmise there must be some sort of stabilization process to the capacitor film that was very slow and it modulated the phase response while not altering the amplitude of the signal. No customer wanted to wait 2–4 weeks for the device to be listenable, so to eliminate this onerous break-in I would put fresh batches of these capacitors in a power socket and run them with 120vac 60Hz for two weeks, which seemed to do the trick. These finicky parts sounded great but I would consider this a manufacturing defect; to use the product it needed a post-conditioning to ready it in a shippable product.
2) Polypropylene signal or bypass capacitor. These are used in signal paths and also power supply bypassing applications. We found normal off-the shelf units to have run-in times of between 50 and 80 hours. One signal path part was the dominant contributor in our product. The sound smoothed out after being in the operating circuit with continuous playback for about 80 hr. It was much less subtle than the teflon caps above, and I couldn’t measure this either, but I could take a “burned-in” capacitor from an older product and put it into a newly made product and the sound would be like a fully broken-in unit.
3) Electrolytic capacitor. These are used typically in applications providing raw instantaneous current in power supply circuits and for smoothing out waveforms by virtue of their inherent large capacitance value. These are typically polarized and have a clear evolution over their lifetime, including a short period where DC voltage conditions the dielectric material, a period of long stable service, then a late stage where the electrolytic fluid may volatilize and dry out. This is well-documented and one can measure small changes in equivalent series resistance (ESR) and capacitance during this period.
4) Semiconductor IC thermalization. This effect was very subtle, but I noticed that analog IC’s seemed to have very slight irreversible changes in sound character, on the order of 5-10 hours. I chalked this up to thermalization (incl post-fab evolution of diffusion processes) and potentially conventional IC drift when first put into service. This was so short and the effect so subtle that I ignored it.
5) General system thermalization. At first turn-on the system will warm up and the temperature change will cause components to drift. In most electronics this takes about 15 min. In some it's as long as an hour. Resistors change value as they warm up and capacitors have temperature coefficients which alter their value. The time constants change as a result, altering frequency response.
In most high volume consumer systems this is undetectable. In electron microscope systems we see this a lot too.
Hope this answer is informative. Enjoy the tunes!

 

[iFi audio]

Old Will got it right.

 

[Bleach-Free]

The more I learn, the more I realize I don't know crap about anything audio related!

 

[iFi audio]

The more I learn, the more I realize I don't know *** about anything audio related!

It's a process and some things need to be experienced for yourself to get them. But hey, as long as you're curious...

 

[lwells]

The more I learn, the more I realize I don't know *** about anything audio related!

Your ears and brain know everything they need to. Just them and find out what 'you' like

Cheers.

 

[raymogi]

nvm. I assumed drivers are installed as soon as I plugged in the hip dac but it turns out I have to install it manually.