[JDFlood]

OK. What happens in the 'breaking in' period?

I think I was editing when you responded. As it breaks in the sound becomes more natural, the treble softens, the soundstage opens, bass becomes more defined. Typically at first listen one will say, “wow, that sounds crisp and distinct”... that crispness will soften.

 

[Bytor123]

I think I was editing when you responded. As it breaks in the sound becomes more natural, the treble softens, the soundstage opens, bass becomes more defined. Typically at first listen one will say, “wow, that sounds crisp and distinct”... that crispness will soften.

Could that be one getting used to the sound, rather than the DAC actually changing?

 

[sajunky]

Could that be one getting used to the sound, rather than the DAC actually changing?

The same happens when you start playing but not listen. Come back later, there is improvement.

 

[JDFlood]

No. I have broken in dozens of units over the last fifty years. I recently broke in five components as I just completed a complete system upgrade. I also helped a friend upgrade his DAC. Anyone that is experienced in high end audio is very aware of this. Basically we typically forget about it... buy something and are a bit disappointed at first, then remember as the system sound improves. With experience you notice more and more nuances to reproduced sound, you learn the language to ddescribe it, and communicate with others... that is if this is something that interests you. Most of us here are.

 

[JDFlood]

One characteristic that I noticed with Audio Research Reference 5 preamps was that even If the unit was warmed up for an hour the sound would improve very noticeably after abou ten minutes of playing music through it. I heard this from my system over and over again. I thought i was going crazy. I went to a high end forum and there was actually a thread on the subject... the other owners had noticed it also. I had never heard that in any other component (neither had any of the other owners), although all were very familiar with turning tubed stuff on for a while before each listening session.

 

[rangerid]

I always burn in new gear for 150-200 hours. I am not sure how real it is and I've read just as much for as against, but the way I see it, whether it's equipment or brain burn in, stuff always sounds better after a week or two so I just leave it running, doesn't hurt and just takes one more variable out of the equation.

 

[Bytor123]

I always burn in new gear for 150-200 hours. I am not sure how real it is and I've read just as much for as against, but the way I see it, whether it's equipment or brain burn in, stuff always sounds better after a week or two so I just leave it running, doesn't hurt and just takes one more variable out of the equation.

Does stuff ever sound worse after 'burn in'?

 

[rangerid]

Does stuff ever sound worse after 'burn in'?

I don't think I've ever had that happen. However, for headphones, amps, and whatnot that I don't like immediately within like a day, it tends to stay like that I never end up liking it. Stuff I do like, just gets better over the next few weeks, like I said, I don't know if it's actual mechanical break in of the equipment or my brain adjusting, all I know is it does sound better over time.

 

[Ciggavelli]

I’ve had mixed opinions about burn-in. I initially thought it was nonsense, as I really didn’t notice a difference with most equipment over time. But, it appears to have helped with cables, I think

Personally, I think burn in is related more to your brain adjusting than actual physical changes.

But, I read something from the innerfidelity guy, who could successfully tell the difference between burned-in headphones and those that haven’t been burned-in with a blind A/B test (the site no longer exists, unfortunately). So, maybe it is a real thing. I guess it can’t hurt to burn-in equipment, so nothing to really lose by doing it

 

[BassicScience]

Mechanical devices (speakers, headphones, phono cartridges, etc.) break in. The mechanism of change is that the compliance of the suspension increases with use. The rate of change of the change decreases over time, so most of the difference will occur during initial use, i.e., the break in period.

Electronic devices burn in. The prevailing theory is that capacitor dielectrics are only fully formed by the flow of current through said devices. How this is likely to affect the sound probably depends on the component and the types of capacitors used therein. Audio components such as Audio Research amps and preamps that use a lot of large capacitors in the power supply are probably most affected by this phenomenon.

In my experience, improvements from break in are more significant than those from burn in. I also tend to adhere to the theory that brain burn in is a legitimate phenomenon and likely often contributes more to perceived changes in sound quality than component burn in. YMMV.

 

[sajunky]

To add to the above, you may not notice any burn in effect if your system is not transparent enough. It is why owners of high-end systems talk more about burn period in than those who buy off shelf supermarket products. It must be some level of transparency when our brain can work at full capacity. It may be not continuous imrovements, but a specific trigger level when sound suddenly opens up.

Some type of distortions affect transparency more than other. Digital sources are very much affected, jitter spread components around the entire spectrum, it is not perceived as a noise (as is 100% corelated to the signal), but reduce transparency. It comes up with music and disappears when music stop.

Finally some R2R DAC's perform self-calibration on powering-on or during a digital silence. If ground loops are present in your system, it will affect calibration process, such device will never come to the optimum condition. I had such experience with Audio GD R2R-11, a first time it did not sound well during number of hours. I found a problem and applied a simple trick, a small effect was heard immediately, in the next couple minutes sound opened up giving exciting sound. Now it require 30 minutes to achieve working temperature and full performance.

 

[Orlok]

Whew~ Just read this whole thread. Lots of interesting and informative comments.

I can say I've certainly noticed improvements in a long list of DACs I've owned and upgraded over the years. Around 10 years ago, I started out with "mainstream" DACs from the likes of FiiO and JDS Labs, etc. like everyone else and slowly and incrementally upgraded every few years until making the big leap to the Chord Hugo and Mojo back in 2016.

With every upgrade, I heard a significant improvement but the jump to the Hugo was huge as it was with the Mojo as well. I still own them for different usages even after making another big leap to the TT2 along with the HMS. Again, the improvements were very substantial although not quite as mind-blowing as going from the "mainstream" stuff to the original Hugo around 6 years ago. That was also around the time I went from midrange ($500~700) Sennheiser and AKG cans to the HD800S and the JH Audio Layla CIEM.

My foray into summit-fi started only a few years ago but I'm getting into it in a big way after deciding that I don't want to really put my time into collecting guitars and related equipment or even playing anymore. Just got tired of playing the same ole licks over and over again and I just don't have the time, energy and the enthusiasm to learn new things to play or get better at the instrument. So I sold all that stuff to get started with this audiophile addiction.

Having been a cork-sniffing guitar tone connoisseur for decades and having worked at major guitar companies and even owning a boutique guitar and amp shop for some years, I can say my ears are tuned to hear micro details but, at the same time, I'm also of the opinion that at a certain point, the law of diminishing returns really kicks in and the value quotient really takes a dive as you get into the stratospheric price levels. Also, because our ears are all so different and there are so many subjective and intangible, i.e. unmeasurable, factors involved when analyzing sound, one's own intuition really is the best guide to decide what works and what doesn't.

I'm sure that the DAVE or Bartok/Rossini or this MSB DAC I learned about for the first time today (I guess the counterpart of something like Wilson Audio speakers?) sound "better" than the TT2 but I also know that these are things I really don't have an interest in pursuing and won't have the means to get for many years to come, if ever. I'd love to hear them someday at trade shows or a store when things return to normal and something may indeed trigger an impulse to start another upgrade path but the thought of paying double or more over what I have for what may be 2 to 5, maybe even up to 10% improvement to my ears should shut down that urge quickly.

I have the SR1a and the LCD-4 with the 1266 TC coming in very soon and I already feel like that it's more resolution, detail and realism than I will probably ever need. Sometimes, I feel like the system I have now sounds even better than "real", if that can term can even be properly defined. In fact, I'm now looking to go in the other direction with something more "lo-fi" and not as precise and analytical as what I have now with the ZMF VC and a tube amp to enjoy classic rock, blues and roots-oriented music in a more "authentic" manner.

Having been a rock guitar player for decades, I've come to appreciate terms like grit, phat, dirt, raunch, soul, feel, vibe, "musical", etc. that are decidedly intangible. I'd like to be able to "hear" and feel these things as I have heard from vibrating woods, analog processors, and tube gear when playing the guitar or making recordings at home or in the studio. It will be interesting to see if I can experience these things in the audiophile world as well but I'm sure that's why there is a very sizable contingent who swear by vinyl, analog and tube and describe digital as "cold" and "soulless". I'm not for or in either camp but I can appreciate where each side is coming from.

In regards to break-in and burn-in, yes, they are real but the amount one notices the effects or the improvements will vary depending on the piece of gear. It's obviously very real in the world of musical instruments like the guitar and other wooden instruments like the violin, piano, etc. Guitar companies go as far as to "age" the woods with a process called torrefaction - baking the woods at a certain high temperature in giant oxygen-free ovens. To a degree, this will make new guitars sound like 50~70 year old vintage instruments. Essentially, they are sucking out the inherent moisture in the woods and they "mellow out" and sound more "complex", as guitar players love to use the term, after the process.

The same goes for amps, cables, speakers, speaker cabinets, even wires in pickups or pedals, etc. Some guitar players get pretty crazy with this kind of stuff, changing the hardware material from steel to brass in the guitar bridge, only using the cheap 99-cents carbon batteries instead of Alkaline batteries in the pedals, using 15-foot cables to connect pedals that are only inches apart because they "sound better" that way, removing the screws at the bottom plates of pedals and wrapping them with rubber bands, etc.; it just goes on and on. They'll passionately argue on guitar gear forums about certain caps or transformers in the amps, the magnets in the pickups, the materials used on the cones of the speakers, solid wood vs. laminates in speaker cabinets, blah-blah-blah. You think it's bad here; you ain't seen nothing until you see what they talk about. Haha.

 

[Ciggavelli]

Whew~ Just read this whole thread. Lots of interesting and informative comments.

I can say I've certainly noticed improvements in a long list of DACs I've owned and upgraded over the years. Around 10 years ago, I started out with "mainstream" DACs from the likes of FiiO and JDS Labs, etc. like everyone else and slowly and incrementally upgraded every few years until making the big leap to the Chord Hugo and Mojo back in 2016.

With every upgrade, I heard a significant improvement but the jump to the Hugo was huge as it was with the Mojo as well. I still own them for different usages even after making another big leap to the TT2 along with the HMS. Again, the improvements were very substantial although not quite as mind-blowing as going from the "mainstream" stuff to the original Hugo around 6 years ago. That was also around the time I went from midrange ($500~700) Sennheiser and AKG cans to the HD800S and the JH Audio Layla CIEM.

My foray into summit-fi started only a few years ago but I'm getting into it in a big way after deciding that I don't want to really put my time into collecting guitars and related equipment or even playing anymore. Just got tired of playing the same ole licks over and over again and I just don't have the time, energy and the enthusiasm to learn new things to play or get better at the instrument. So I sold all that stuff to get started with this audiophile addiction.

Having been a cork-sniffing guitar tone connoisseur for decades and having worked at major guitar companies and even owning a boutique guitar and amp shop for some years, I can say my ears are tuned to hear micro details but, at the same time, I'm also of the opinion that at a certain point, the law of diminishing returns really kicks in and the value quotient really takes a dive as you get into the stratospheric price levels. Also, because our ears are all so different and there are so many subjective and intangible, i.e. unmeasurable, factors involved when analyzing sound, one's own intuition really is the best guide to decide what works and what doesn't.

I'm sure that the DAVE or Bartok/Rossini or this MSB DAC I learned about for the first time today (I guess the counterpart of something like Wilson Audio speakers?) sound "better" than the TT2 but I also know that these are things I really don't have an interest in pursuing and won't have the means to get for many years to come, if ever. I'd love to hear them someday at trade shows or a store when things return to normal and something may indeed trigger an impulse to start another upgrade path but the thought of paying double or more over what I have for what may be 2 to 5, maybe even up to 10% improvement to my ears should shut down that urge quickly.

I have the SR1a and the LCD-4 with the 1266 TC coming in very soon and I already feel like that it's more resolution, detail and realism than I will probably ever need. Sometimes, I feel like the system I have now sounds even better than "real", if that can term can even be properly defined. In fact, I'm now looking to go in the other direction with something more "lo-fi" and not as precise and analytical as what I have now with the ZMF VC and a tube amp to enjoy classic rock, blues and roots-oriented music in a more "authentic" manner.

Having been a rock guitar player for decades, I've come to appreciate terms like grit, phat, dirt, raunch, soul, feel, vibe, "musical", etc. that are decidedly intangible. I'd like to be able to "hear" and feel these things as I have heard from vibrating woods, analog processors, and tube gear when playing the guitar or making recordings at home or in the studio. It will be interesting to see if I can experience these things in the audiophile world as well but I'm sure that's why there is a very sizable contingent who swear by vinyl, analog and tube and describe digital as "cold" and "soulless". I'm not for in either camp but I can appreciate where they are coming from.

In regards to break-in and burn-in, yes, they are real but the amount one notices the effects or the improvements will vary depending on the piece of gear. It's obviously very real in the world of musical instruments like the guitar and other wooden instruments like the violin, piano, etc. Guitar companies go as far as to "age" the woods with a process called torrefaction - baking the woods at a certain high temperature in giant oxygen-free ovens. To a degree, this will make new guitars sound like 50~70 year old vintage instruments. Essentially, they are sucking out the inherent moisture in the woods and they "mellow out" and sound more "complex", as guitar players love to use the term, after the process.

The same goes for amps, cables, speakers, speaker cabinets, even wires in pickups or pedals, etc. Some guitar players get pretty crazy with this kind of stuff, changing the hardware material from steel to brass in the guitar bridge, only using the cheap 99-cents carbon batteries instead of Alkaline batteries in the pedals, using 15-foot cables to connect pedals that are only inches apart because they "sound better" that way, removing the screws at the bottom plates of pedals and wrapping them with rubber bands, etc.; it just goes on and on. They'll passionately argue on guitar gear forums about certain caps or transformers in the amps, the magnets in the pickups, the materials used on the cones of the speakers, solid wood vs. laminates in speaker cabinets, blah-blah-blah. You think it's bad here; you ain't seen nothing until you see what they talk about. Haha.

Well said

I’ve said this a lot, but being an audiophile is an addiction. Like drugs, the first high is the best. After you get used to that sound, you fiend for getting that “improvement” high once again, and you purchase an even better DAC.

It’s like opiates. You first start with pills, you get addicted, you need more, so you add some benzos. You get used to that, so you smoke some heroin. Then of course you get used to that new high, so you start slamming dope in your veins.

——-—————
(As an aside, I’m really interested in addiction and substance abuse, both personally and academically. So, that’s why I compared being an audiophile with substance abuse)
——-—————

So, in the audio world you get that Mojo and are blown away. You then want that next high, so you get a Hugo2. Then you want the TT2, then DAVE, etc.

Like drugs, some people can try addictive substances and not get addicted. Those people are fine with a Mojo. They are content and don’t want anything better. For audiophiles, we can’t do that. We want another, better high. So, we get the best components we can afford. Then when that becomes standard, we want more, so we get better cables, better power conditioning, etc.

I have a PhD in the social sciences. I work as a UX researcher, but if I was still in the academic world, I would do some sort of research on audiophiles. I think it would be really interesting

 

[Katzky]

I haven't seen any evidence that a DAC quality matters in any audio system. Digital analog conversion is a solved problem. From my understanding, the main thing a DAC, and more specifically the "bit depth" of a DAC affects, is the "noise floor," which is distortion introduced into the output signal from the difference between the original signal and the quantized signal. The noise floor of DACs is not something to consider when buying one, because it's well below the threshold of human hearing, even for "low end" DACs. I also have seen no evidence that a separate DAC is "better" than any laptop or phone DAC. I also haven't seen any evidence that DAC clock "jitter" is a problem in any modern DAC, regardless of price. I wonder if audio / electrical engineers are _more_ biased into believing DACs add magical sound properties, because they understand all of the mechanics of how and where things can go wrong.

If a DAC changes the sound in any way, like increasing the sound stage, or making it "warmer," it's a bad DAC, because it shouldn't do any of those things. It's just converting a signal from digital to analog.

I just bought a dCS Bartok upgrading from a Berkeley Alpha & Naim V-1. The components in my new dac box definitely output a better sounding analog signal to my headphone.

 

[Katzky]

I don't have any experience in desktop DACs since I've always been an IEM/portable set up type of person. I actually haven't been in the audiophile world since late 2013'ish and just returned in November this year when I bought the Stellias which I love and remain my favourite headphones. I was driving them from my iPhone 6 and iPod nano and they still blew my mind since I was upgrading them from some CIEM I bought in 2010.Then I found a massive improvement in sound when I upgraded my source to Sony WM1Z. At that point I was still reluctant to fully commit to a desktop setup.

I eventually decided to expand beyond the portable world and added an full sized tube amp (Manley Absolute) and now I am considering adding a full sized DAC to replace my WM1Z. However, I am really unsure to HOW MUCH improvement upgrading a DAC will yield considering I am in the believer that headphones > amps > dacs in importance.

To give an idea of how I hear improvements, since buying the Stellia, I've researched/tried open back counterparts including Utopia, LCD4, Empyrean, HD820, and Susvara. All of them except the Susvara had a major deal breaker somewhere in sound that I couldn't overlook. Susvara is the only 1 that did nothing wrong to my ears and I bought those to complement my Stellia. In comparison, the Susvaras are clearly a level above Stellia in every comparable category like sound stage, imaging, separation, detail retrieval, dynamics, etc... How much improvement I perceived in technical performance from Stellia to Susvara is what led me to asking the question in this thread.

The improvements were noticeable but it definitely wasn't night and day difference. For example, I heard small details in songs on Susvara that I never heard on Stellia, like maybe a bell in the background somewhere, echos, or small bass beats in the distance, nothing major, just little extras here and there. Images had a sharper outlines around them and so forth. It's hard to put a numerical value to these improvement but if I had to I'd say it's 10-15% improvement in technicalities.

So, if I perceive a 10-15% performance improvement from Stellia to Susvara, how much improvement will I perceive if I upgrade from WM1Z as my DAC to something like TT2+MScaler or DAVE?

I am aware of the diminishing returns in each dollar spent. However, is the performance gap between the DAC in the WM1Z and something like TT2 greater than that of the Stellia to Susvara, leading to more significant improvements overall?

Edit:
To expand a bit on what I am looking for, I enjoy WM1Z's rich, organic, laid back sound signature. I do NOT like forward, aggressive, analytical & bright sound signatures.

My "perfect" or "ideal" sound signature is warm, natural, slight bass/treble emphasis, wide & deep soundstage for EDM/Trance/Techno/Retro, hip hop/rap, r&b, and pop (I don't listen to any other genres). Extracting every last detail & technical precision isn't as important as overall enjoyability of the music

Not heard Dave but have a Hugo. My HD800‘s into Hugo was pretty good until the battery died. Now I have a Bartok and it’s like 1,000% better than anything else I’ve ever heard. I wasn’t even in the market for a new dac but the improvement was too substantial to ignore.