[IorekByrnison]

...I am a ******* grand master of the art of patience. 
 
I was going to go for a Valhalla or Lyr + Uberfrost stack, and a pair of higher-end closed-back cans to upgrade my cubicle setup in a month or two when I expect I will likely be brought on full time at my current job, as a sort of celebration - and just live with my M+M/HD439 until then.
 
Tonight, I got the great idea to buy the T70 on Amazon prime so I'd have them this week because... something? About an hour later I realized, hey, wait - the T70 is high impedance as it gets, especially if you want bass out of it. My Magni might not be the best way to discover those cans, and now that I bought them... the Valhalla sure would though, and it'll be fine with my Modi! I wonder if Amazon has it on prime...
 
Next thing I know, my T70 order has a Valhalla order sitting right next to it, both with one day shipping due to show up at the office on Thursday.
 
So uh, that happened. I should probably not be looking at head-fi at 2AM, it makes things like this happen. Good lord the Valhalla is sexy though...
 
I'm now a more-than-m+m member of the Schiitlord Society, earlier than expected. Just need to get one of those snazzy silver Woo Audio headphone stands and my desk setup will be complete. I figure, I listen to music 8+ hours a day every day, stationary, at the office, and nowhere approaching that level of sit-down-and-listen at home... so my good schiit might as well be in my cubicle, rather than at home. 
 
 
Oops.

 

[bigjohn1]

Quote:

 
There is no burn-in for solid state devices. They either work, or they don't. Manufacturers will generally "smoke test" devices once before they leave the factory, just to make sure they work. Solid state devices that are faulty generally break pretty quickly, so turning them on and running them for a short while generally reveals those devices that had some fault in their manufacture. Those devices are generally repaired and retested before being sold as new.
 
A funny case I remember from many years ago when I worked for a major Japanese audio manufacturer... Some guy brought in a top of the line car stereo amp that he claimed would fail under certain conditions. We ended up torture testing that amp for a couple weeks before we finally gave up trying, and gave the guy a new one, because we could not confirm his claim. We ran it 24/7 under maximum load, and it was almost hot enough to cook food the entire time. We put it on top of a glass plate and isolated it with no air movement to make it get hotter. To my knowledge it never failed for us. I think the guy who tested it bought it from the company and kept it for himself lol.
 
Burn-in is a term properly applied to the manufacture of tubes. Speaking as a person who personally spent 14.5 years of his life making vacuum tubes, I know a little about them. I posted something about this in the sound science forum a while back. PM me if you are curious.
 
There seems to be much debate about reasons for the change in sound quality when first listening to amps, headphones, in fact most any piece of your audio setup. I remain really quite amazed at why the perception changes, but the more I listen and read, the more I tend to agree with those who believe this is a phenomenon in our minds. I have personally experienced it with my own Magni+Modi stack, especially after swapping different amp, dac, and headphone combinations. I remain amazed at how my perception of SQ changes under different circumstances. How can I call a perception of change "burn in", when the perceived change occurred months after buying and using the devices? Clearly, the devices aren't changing - so something else is.
 
Anyway, from what I have seen, Schiit gear is built like a tank. It is ready to rock and roll out of the box. I honestly do believe I'll pass my gear on to my kids in my will, it will certainly last that long (as long as I don't spill a beer on it).

 
Thanks!  I figured that would be the case, but I wanted to check with others that had more experience with the pieces.  I agree with the differences between sold-state and tubes, regarding burn-in requirements and quantifiable differences.  (and in how our perception changes over time - maybe call it "ear burn-in"?

)
 
Thanks for the info, and I am looking forward to a long time of listening and enjoying my M+Ms.

 

[BLACKENEDPLAGUE]

Ok awesome! It was just a request rather than a receipt so that's good, I did NOT have money for an amp right now

 

[IorekByrnison]

Solid state burn-in is real, you just have to believe hard enough. You see, when you've run the chips for at least 40 hours, you begin to attract the possession of fidelity-sprites into the chassis - this is also why you should have a solid gold cording fabric-wrapped USB cable with rare metals double magnetic shielding and diamond reinforced plugs. Those aspects allow you to attract and retain more of the sprites than a normal cable would. It really is a faith thing though - if you think this sounds ridiculous, they'll be offput by that and refuse to settle into your gear, so you won't notice any benefits. If you don't believe it's because you don't believe... and if you do, let me know - I have a really nice USB cable for you, pre-populated with fidelity sprites. 

 

[azteca x]

Quote:

Originally Posted by bigjohn1 /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
our perception changes over time - maybe call it "ear burn-in"? )

Yep.

 

[Defiant00]

Well, all I can say is when I got the M&M I listened for maybe 15 minutes, left it playing and went and watched some TV, then came back and listened a couple hours later. Right out of the box I thought they sounded harsh, a couple hours later I thought they sounded good.
 
My theory is that Schiit might not burn in the M&M like they do their other amps and DACs, but it's only a guess. Either way, outside of the first couple hours I never noticed any difference.

 

[IorekByrnison]

They ship burned-in amps? What does that mean for my Valhalla, then? - the tubes fully burned in, partially burned in, fresh but something else in the amp burned in, etc.
I've heard that tubes and tube amps have a definite burn-in period, so if they've already done it for me, that's pretty awesome. 

 

[Defiant00]

I believe they've previously stated that they let them run for either 24 or 48 hours straight before shipping them out for burn in purposes and to catch early faults.

 

[IorekByrnison]

I think I recall about 40 hours being the sweet spot for most-to-all of the burn-in benefits taking effect... if that's the case, that is awesome to hear. My T70s are still gonna need a weekend long beating going by what I've heard, though. 

 

[TheChosen0ne]

Is the lyr way better than Asgard 2?  And is there any reason to keep both?

 

[joebobbilly]

Quote:

I couldn't live with the Gungnir/MJ stack for the HD800. Impressive on initial listen but ultimately the combo lacked finesse and was too aggressive and grating on the ears. Replacing the Gungnir with the NAD M51 addressed all those issues.

Drat. That is unfortunate... I definitely don't think I can fork out $2K for a DAC on top of the HD800. Guess I should just call it quits @ the HD650?

 

[ab initio]

Quote:

Drat. That is unfortunate... I definitely don't think I can fork out $2K for a DAC on top of the HD800. Guess I should just call it quits @ the HD650?

I would be careful if I were you. Olor1n shared his personal experience, it doesn't mean that your tastes will match. If you look forward to getting HD-800, then you would be doing yourself a great disservice to pass just because of somebody else's subjective tastes.
 
It is unwise to take single pieces of anecdotal testimony and expect them to hold as universal truths. You'll quickly find that if you tally every single opinion on Head-Fi, that you will find that there exists no universally accepted "best" configuration.
 
Cheers!
 
EDIT/afterthought: I guess it would be helpful if you could share with us exactly what it is about your current configuration that you find lacking. That will help the community help direct you toward a solution. If you are just curious about HD800s, then it would be advisable to try them at a dealer or at a meet.

 

[ForsakenArcher]

Quote:

Is the lyr way better than Asgard 2?  And is there any reason to keep both?

In your case, i think you dont really need to keep both amps. May be sell Asgard 2 and upgrade to Lyr? Havent heard DT880, but I prefer HD 600 with Lyr to Asgard. For me I keep Lyr for harder to drive cans, and Asgard to sensitive denons.

 

[ab initio]

In your case, i think you dont really need to keep both amps. May be sell Asgard 2 and upgrade to Lyr? Havent heard DT880, but I prefer HD 600 with Lyr to Asgard. For me I keep Lyr for harder to drive cans, and Asgard to sensitive denons.

This is a good point.

One point to add is that Asgard is solid state while lyr is a hybrid with tubes. They certainly may have a different characteristic so perhaps you would want to hold on to the asgard for its solid state transparency and have a lyr for the tubey warm overtones.

Cheers

 

[TheChosen0ne]

Quote:

In your case, i think you dont really need to keep both amps. May be sell Asgard 2 and upgrade to Lyr? Havent heard DT880, but I prefer HD 600 with Lyr to Asgard. For me I keep Lyr for harder to drive cans, and Asgard to sensitive denons.

Thinking about getting he-500.  Also would you guys recommend the he-400 or he-500 if I can afford to buy either one?  And how much better are they than my current headphones?