New Schiit! Ragnarok and Yggdrasil

[Jones Bob]

I know the entire signal path will be optimized by Mike. Years ago, he was the first I remember reading about being concerned about SPDIF jitter.

 

[jfoxvol]

Jason,
 
That looks like a portable balanced amp.  Do my blurry eyes deceive me?

 

[Chris J]

My understanding was that this feature is targeted as a warranty/comfort provision against DOA models - "we have run it for 100 hours and it is working great" - rather than any statement by Bryston to the effect that there is a change in sound quality at x hours.

Some people seem to be interchangeably using "burn in" and "warm up" - I have always considered these separate but related phenomena.

Bryston does this to weed out product that would normally fail in the first few hours of use by a consumer.
Purpose is to reduce warranty costs.
We used to do this with our product when I used to work for a power supply manufacturer, we provided equipment for the Telecom market.
It is typical for most electronic failures to occur:
1. In the first few hours
2. At end of the products life (obviously!)

 

[Jason Stoddard]

Bryston does this to weed out product that would normally fail in the first few hours of use by a consumer.
Purpose is to reduce warranty costs.
We used to do this with our product when I used to work for a power supply manufacturer, we provided equipment for the Telecom market.
It is typical for most electronic failures to occur:
1. In the first few hours
2. At end of the products life (obviously!)

Pretty much any high-end manufacturer does some kind of burn-in to eliminate cases of early product mortality--as we do for 24 hours on  everything except Ragnarok, which gets 4+ days.

 

[gregjnjarvis]

Yes, that's exactly what I was saying. I took a short tour of their factory a few years ago and they certainly didn't mention anything about burning in for better sound.

 

[sandab]

It varies.  Auralic recommends burning in the Taurus mk2 a minimum of 100 hours and that it will reach peak performance after 500 hours.

 

[Ableza]

As an engineer, a designer, and someone who has worked for several electronics manufacturers and in testing labs, I will tell you that burn-in is done to prevent shipping early life failures and sometimes to ensure components can withstand their rated temperature extremes.  It is completed before the gear ships to the end user.  I refer you to MIL-STD-833C.  In my experience, companies who recommend an end-user "burn-in" period that will somehow "improve" a piece of gear's performance do so mainly because they know their customers expect it.  They are pandering to audiophile beliefs, not proscribing a course of sound engineering practice.  Operating your gear for 100 or 600 hours only makes it that much closer to end of life failure.  Any perceived "improvements" are just that: perceived.
 
Open box, plug in, enjoy.  This is the best "burn in" process one can possibly do.

 

[Rem0o]

  As an engineer, a designer, and someone who has worked for several electronics manufacturers and in testing labs, I will tell you that burn-in is done to prevent shipping early life failures and sometimes to ensure components can withstand their rated temperature extremes.  It is completed before the gear ships to the end user.  I refer you to MIL-STD-833C.  In my experience, companies who recommend an end-user "burn-in" period that will somehow "improve" a piece of gear's performance do so mainly because they know their customers expect it.  They are pandering to audiophile beliefs, not proscribing a course of sound engineering practice.  Operating your gear for 100 or 600 hours only makes it that much closer to end of life failure.  Any perceived "improvements" are just that: perceived.
 
Open box, plug in, enjoy.  This is the best "burn in" process one can possibly do.

Amen

 

[reddog]

As an engineer, a designer, and someone who has worked for several electronics manufacturers and in testing labs, I will tell you that burn-in is done to prevent shipping early life failures and sometimes to ensure components can withstand their rated temperature extremes.  It is completed before the gear ships to the end user.  I refer you to MIL-STD-833C.  In my experience, companies who recommend an end-user "burn-in" period that will somehow "improve" a piece of gear's performance do so mainly because they know their customers expect it.  They are pandering to audiophile beliefs, not proscribing a course of sound engineering practice.  Operating your gear for 100 or 600 hours only makes it that much closer to end of life failure.  Any perceived "improvements" are just that: perceived.

Open box, plug in, enjoy.  This is the best "burn in" process one can possibly do.

Thanks for the advice, I put a lot of weight behind your words because you are an engineer. Hope you have great weekend jamming out to great music.

 

[aive]

Any update on the hum/buzz in the left channel Purrin?

Or anyone else who experienced issues during beta got any updates? People seem to have gone quiet on the negatives...

Keen to get a Rag at some point, just want to make sure they're ironing out these things.

 

[estreeter]

  As an engineer, a designer, and someone who has worked for several electronics manufacturers and in testing labs, I will tell you that burn-in is done to prevent shipping early life failures and sometimes to ensure components can withstand their rated temperature extremes.  It is completed before the gear ships to the end user.  I refer you to MIL-STD-833C.  In my experience, companies who recommend an end-user "burn-in" period that will somehow "improve" a piece of gear's performance do so mainly because they know their customers expect it.  They are pandering to audiophile beliefs, not proscribing a course of sound engineering practice.  Operating your gear for 100 or 600 hours only makes it that much closer to end of life failure.  Any perceived "improvements" are just that: perceived.
 
Open box, plug in, enjoy.  This is the best "burn in" process one can possibly do.

 
An unwinnable debate, like many in this subjective hobby, but I wonder how Bryston can offer a 20-year warranty on most of the products if spending the first 100 hours running in a new component is going to bring it 'that much closer to end of life failure'. There are people on Audiokarma with receivers and amps from the 70s and 80s which have had nothing more than the caps replaced - in some cases they haven't even done that. if the minimum one can hope for with Yggdrasil is 20-30 years of reliable use, is it too much to ask that new owners give it a week or two before commenting on the sonics ?
 
FWIW, I actually listen to my gear during that initial week or so but some don't - their choice - I just dont sprint to a keyboard to give my impressions straight out of the box. I completely agree that anything resembling 1000 hours is absurd but I'm not a dealer faced with buyer's remorse and the other psychological aspects of purchases made by people afflicted by audiophilia nervosa - I'm guessing that it makes a lot of sense to tell someone who has just handed over 10K+ that their new toy will take time to show it's full potential. Reading some of the comments here on HF when a flurry of new gear is released, it's clear that many capitalise on 30-day return periods - IMO that only pushes up the sticker for the rest of us. 
 
As for the engineer card, we are talking about a group who routinely disagree about a great many things - that's healthy in the right setting but this isnt the AES and it's not Hydrogen Audio. Unless you're Bruno Putzeys or Nelson Pass, chances are that you're walking in the footsteps of giants rather than making those footsteps yourself. Like many here, I spent most of my working life in front of a computer - at no stage did I feel that made me an authority on software engineering but we had our little geek-out earlier in this thread so I'll leave it there. I dont have a problem with electrical engineers - I've worked closely with dozens over the years - but between this forum and CA there seems to be a lot more of you in this highly subjective hobby than there were prior to the resurgence in personal audio. 

 

[madwolfa]

 
FWIW, I actually listen to my gear during that initial week or so but some don't - their choice - I just dont sprint to a keyboard to give my impressions straight out of the box.

 
Burning in your ears and brain here. In that I readily believe.

 

[Chris J]

An unwinnable debate, like many in this subjective hobby, but I wonder how Bryston can offer a 20-year warranty on most of the products if spending the first 100 hours running in a new component is going to bring it 'that much closer to end of life failure'. There are people on Audiokarma with receivers and amps from the 70s and 80s which have had nothing more than the caps replaced - in some cases they haven't even done that. if the minimum one can hope for with Yggdrasil is 20-30 years of reliable use, is it too much to ask that new owners give it a week or two before commenting on the sonics ?

........

As for the engineer card, we are talking about a group who routinely disagree about a great many things - that's healthy in the right setting but this isnt the AES and it's not Hydrogen Audio. Unless you're Bruno Putzeys or Nelson Pass, chances are that you're walking in the footsteps of giants rather than making those footsteps yourself. Like many here, I spent most of my working life in front of a computer - at no stage did I feel that made me an authority on software engineering but we had our little geek-out earlier in this thread so I'll leave it there. I dont have a problem with electrical engineers - I've worked closely with dozens over the years - but between this forum and CA there seems to be a lot more of you in this highly subjective hobby than there were prior to the resurgence in personal audio. 

Arguably, the Bryston quality control system works (i.e. the 100 hour burn-in) as Bryston is still in business. The company is closer to 40 years in the audio business. Hence, Their warranty costs have not put them out of business.
Would the manufacturers of the vintage receivers still be in business if they had to incur the cost of supporting a 20 year warranty?

 

[cizx]

An unwinnable debate, like many in this subjective hobby, but I wonder how Bryston can offer a 20-year warranty on most of the products if spending the first 100 hours running in a new component is going to bring it 'that much closer to end of life failure'. There are people on Audiokarma with receivers and amps from the 70s and 80s which have had nothing more than the caps replaced - in some cases they haven't even done that. if the minimum one can hope for with Yggdrasil is 20-30 years of reliable use, is it too much to ask that new owners give it a week or two before commenting on the sonics ?

The first 100 hours don't bring it significantly closer to end of life. Most solid state components, if they are going to fail, do so in the first hours of use. It's the same with RAM, CPUs, etc. All of that stuff is tested, i.e. burned in, like that.

Whether or not sound changes as you test a DSP is secondary. I've worked for a couple of large semiconductor companies, and this kind of testing is part of the process. Not just for complex systems, but for individual components. By the time you hear your new DAC, it's had power running through it for a while. Every man wants to feel like he's the first in line, but no one really wants to deal with something inexperienced. Trust me.

 

[listen4joy]

i am curious when mighty Yggdrasil will wake and get out from his dark cave...
(-: