XXHighEnd

Hi,
I have the NOS1 now for 9 days and so far the sound has changed quite a bit. At first it sounded a little dull but had the deepest basses I ever heard - full-bodied sound. Bowed double basses made my sternum vibrate (even in Orchestral music). This was really an exceptional bass experience. I somehow feared, that this will go away, but it did not (not until yesterday), the bass stayed and after 4 days everything started sound a bit edgy, accompanied by a more spacious sound with better imaging and staging. Very exciting sound, but also fatiguing.
From day 4 on the sound got thinner and more details keep emerging since this day. The deepness of the bass is still there, but wood and body of instruments is gone. When listening to the same recordings (the bowed double bass) I only hear the strings but not the body (I am exaggerating).
The last two days it was not much fun to listen.
I let the NOS1 on all the time and it is playing music all day long (turn down the volume of my pre).
So from Peter I know, that burn in may take 30 days+.
What are your experiences with burn in?
How do you "speed up" the burn in (I did use the Isotek Burnin Track once a day) or is better to just wait?
Is it wise to let the NOS1 on all the time?
I am running XXHighend for serious listening with Macbook air in Dual Boot mode (my PC is not up and running) and the rest of the day I am using Audirvana at 384 with my mac mini. So most of the time the NOS1 is running at 384. Does this influence burn in?
Maybe we could use this thread to share experiences about burn in. It could help new NOS1 users to know, what they will have to expect (or maybe Peter, you start a thread?)
Best Claudius

Claudius:

This is what Peter told me about breaking in the NOS1 USB:

It is sufficient to bring up the Control Panel, which initiates streaming over USB (without sound). You can minimize it to the taskbar (crossing it away will stop streaming).

That means that while the streaming is up and running (as you can see in the bottom part of the Control Panel window) the dac is breaking in. How long would it take?, I don´t know, maybe Peter can tell about it more exactly but if you run it as much as you can around one month or something between 500 and 1000 hours is what I think should be ok.

Juan

Juan,
thanks
Good to know! Most of the time I have a mac mini to running with audirvana (just changed the initial post to make this clearer). For two reasons. First I still do not have a PC running (am still looking for the right one) and second with the mini my wife can use the iPad remote and listen to music.
I just checked with at the NOS1. There is a green light in the NOS1. Maybe it is enough for this light to be on? I guess, that if this light is lit while running the mini, it will also burn in.
Claudius

Hi Claudius,

When you bring up the Control Panel the green light works intermittently on and off. If you minimize it still works  but if you turn the Control Panel window off (crossing it away) although the green light remains permanently on the streaming will stop.

To breaking in the dac you need to maintain the streaming on.

Juan

Hi Juan,
The light has to blink? If I remember right, the light blinks with XXHighend only if music is playing?
I guess I haven't noticed the blinking light because I only see the light on my way to sit down on my listening seat.
Thanks
Claudius

Hi Claudius,
The light blinks when the Control Panel is on, it doesn´t matter if XXHighEnd is on or off.

Juan

The control panel should do for the USB part, but an entirely new NOS USB also needs its da/analog/power sections broken in. I guess it must need some signal to get "charged".

Since for some reason I don't succeed in playing ridicously long playlists, so I opted for AB-ing one track. In order to prevent me from braindamage I switched the amp off.

Claude, I concur with your findings wrt breaking in the NOS1. Everytime I take a listen it sounds different again.

regards, Coen

Yes Coen, you´re right I was thinking mostly about an upgraded NOS1. For an entirely new NOS1 USB you must break in all the other sections, so what you are doing seems correct.

Juan

May it still be necessary : indeed the "streaming" thing is for upgrades to USB only, and a new DAC needs everything to break in.

Peter

Hey Claudius,

Just to be sure you got the message :
It is a kind of not allowed to use the NOS1 with a preamp. Of course in the end you sure can, but don't "complain" about the sound. Also, never try to judge or improve like this.

So, now you now, if you not already did !
Regards,
Peter

Peter,
OK, I know now, that I broke the "rules". ;-)
As always it might take some time for me to fully understand the meaning of what you said. (I mean to say this with utmost respect!)
So far, the NOS does not sound better without a Preamp. Or do you say, that it is beneficial for break in not to use a preamp? Or maybe is the NOS doing something to "grow in/on to the system"? (I hope you understand what I mean by this. I had this experience with my "power conditioner").
Thanks to everybody for the replies.
Coen,
how far are you in to break in of the NOS1?
Claudius

But you was  "braking the law" with a very nice preamp!  :drinks:

Can you tell more specific how the preamp influences the sound or what the difference in sound signature is?
I ask beacuse I have an octave pre amp too and feel it doesn't gets much in the way, except additional noise (compared to a passive preamp). But this will be solveable with a low gain amplifier.

The latter ? not really.

But what you must learn from the *fact* that without preamp it doesn't sound better, is that something is wrong in your system. And, I too had the urge to ask the same as Flecko just did : how does the sound differ ?

Now watch out, because this is (about) something you possibly are not used to yet. I mean, in here, with the XXHighEnd stuff, we are used to perceiving differences over versions or settings all the same. Not minor or "maybe", but very clearly and distinguishable. That not everybody judges certain changes as better always is another thing, but it is about the explicit judgement (I'd even dare to call it "absolute"). All in other words :

To me it seems totally impossible that the only thing you say (or hear) is "it doesn't sound better". It is allowed of course, but this is not how you should operate yourself. It does not sound better for some reason. Can be anything.
But the point is :

It is not allowed to sound better with preamp, because there is nothing a preamp can improve upon, unless you need the preamp for crazy gain (which again is not allowed, but that's another story).

And this again : when without preamp SQ is better, your SQ is the worse to begin with. Just telling you ! haha

I know you are very keen on getting things right, but you must go back to basics first; I think I told you a few times. But now believe in it ! ditch the expensive cables, and ALL of the other tweaks you applied. They *are* tweaks for the wrong, but you didn't know that because they improved (filtered out the bad stuff).

Btw, I am certainly not forcing you to play without preamp, but I do like to force you into the proper judgement of everything, so you *have* to set all up without (regarding the NOS1 I mean), and from there you are allowed to do as you please.

I can't emphasize enough what even the smallest resistor in the signal path does to the NOS1, which already is so clear with measurement alone.

Anyway, if you can describe as precisely as you can what the differences are you perceive, possibly I (or others) are able to tell you what's wrong in your system elsewhere.

Regards,
Peter

What do I hear with my preamp, that I do not hear with the NOS connected directly?
Actually I do hear more details (I don't really care about that, I want it to sound natural). More air around the instruments. I hear the recording ambiance better. The stage is bigger in all dimensions. Without it is much flatter not as much 3d. The color of instruments is more natural (at least to my ears), this seems to be about timbre, resonance, sensing instruments.
I just made a quick A/B and the difference is striking to me. E.G. I hear how a hit hi hat decays from the walls of the recording studio which I do not hear without it.
The only downside so far is, that everything is more extended (highs and lows) and so I am still hearing the harsh highs (it seems to get better). So just maybe the pre introduces some distortion, but the details I am perceiving do not really seem to be distortion. Or this thing is about gain? I have no idea.
I hope this does elaborate enough on my saying, I find the sound with pre "better".
Peter,
of course you are (technically speaking) correct and I sure wish I could get rid of my preamp, but I have to judge by what I hear. So on with breaking the rule (Yeah!)
But I do hear your saying to kind of "starting from scratch" - and I will go that route, but not tonight ;-)
Coen,
I had the 300 in direct comparison to the 500se at home. Although Hofmann said, that the two should be very close, I gladly paid the difference. For just about the same difference in sound I described in this post. Afterwards I found out, that the 300 was not completely broken in. So maybe... (I do not want to think about THAT).
The difference is NOT night and day (just to put the "striking into perspective"), but very easily audible for me. But I am quite cool about it, I have experienced burn in more then once and I know it can make a whole lot of a difference and the sound of the NOS1 is very very good.
I won't get to listen much in this week, but hopefully on the weekend.
Claudius

Not as far as you.  The NOS has been on ever since wednesday November 30, it has been connected to the computer about 100 hours of which 75 hours of playing music.

I experienced some quite dramatic changes in SQ. Actually what you describe I recognise from the past days.

I think patience is key with such a very sensitive component. I made a few tube amps (concepts) with black gate capacitors and these really need 300+ hours break in (>12 days) to sound anywhere decent.

You probably wanted to adress Flecko in your last post... :smile:

regards, Coen

Hey guys,

I think I never experienced a complete break in period myself, mainly for the reason that when one part was underway for xx days, I already exchanged the other. So, everything breaks in alright overhere when waiting long anough, but I never experienced the consistent situation. However ...

What seems to occur to me from posts like yours is some "consistency" in after 3-4 days the sound getting worse. The (extra) fun seems to fade away. I mean, if Coen referred to that as well (implicitly), it just seems a pattern. Gerard posted similar and I think I have some emails hanging around with again similar expressions.
Seems to last one day ...

So, after the 5th day all stops. It's just recognizeable that not much change happens anymore. But now wait till day ~20, when day per day drastic changes happen again;
If I had to tell it, this is just about having all On, and nothing like needing to play for 20 days in a row. Well, that's what I think, also a bit knowing what actually "burn in" is. So, 20 days all On, and play a couple of hours daily, as usual.

After ~ day 30 it stops again. You can well say that it's all finished by then and burn-in is complete. Still this ain't true, because I'm fairly sure that even after 2-3 months you will come back to earlier played music and think "my God, what has happened lately" - while you actually did nothing.

This last part is about clarity, purity and beauty. Something like that. The finesse. This goes slowly and unnoticed and will only occur to you explicitly when you are able to directly compare (which you can't).

On another note, when a new NOS1 is switched on righ from the box, it sounds nice just the same. With "nice" I mean : nothing much wrong with it when I'd try that myself with a newly finished one (could be "yours"), nit in lack of anything really. But, this is without A-B. When I next go back to my own NOS1 (well burned in by now) the difference is crazy. What then mostly occurs this this :

- Total freshment. Like being under a waterfall suddenly;
- Super more interest.
- How is it possible that all that extra freshness isn't accompanied with distortion.
- Glad that new customers can be satisfied with "right out of the box" just the same.

I recall that this super-fresh thing is what starts to occur day by day after day 20 or so. That really each day you think "huh !?". It looks like something was wrong with your ears the day before. Heavy collisions in there.


What of course is difficult for people is what XXHighEnd settings should accompany a new NOS1-USB. For example, the 2.5ms Clock Resolution as applied by boleary with his still original NOS1, *does* imply more freshness, but to me this sounds like freshness from distortion. So, too square sound, therefore too many harmonics (overtones) coming from that, and these just play in, say 12KHz while the base tone may be 2KHz only. So, that's nicely fresh, but not correct.

A too high Split File Size (SFS) seems to incur for similar, but includes nerveousness as well. My limit seems to be 430, but 220 could be better.

Another one is the sample rate itself. So, 32/705.6 for Redbook output from the playback software seems "interesting", but when not all is right yet (like burning in not complete) you just as well might try 32/352.8. Here too, some extra "wrongness" is now removed as it seems, and if anyone is describing such a thing it is Claudius (without him knowing). Think like : resolution is too high for the base quality, and all what happens is that temporary inherent roughness is emphasized. Better make that less - which is what a lower sample rate will do.

For the more "hamonics insiders" (and there's at least one crazy guy amonst us regarding this), the harmonics behaviour for 705.6 (768) is totally different *beyond* the audio band. There's math going on here I didn't know myself a little while back, but it is now clear to me how the step from 352.8 to 705.6 audibly can be (seemingly ?) larger than the one from 176.4 to 352.8. That is, I think the audible step from 352.8 to 705.6 is huge (well, others said the same). So, this is not about "just more", but about how things get more coherent for harmonics behaviour.
Yes, I will remain in secret about this. :secret:

All 'n all what seemed to be my first own notice about the NOS1-USB still remains : when not all is right, you will receive the wrongness emphasized. This is so strong that ... well, that such a thing never (in my life) occurred to me anywhere before. Also not the original NOS1.

In the mean time there is more going on, and I think the impact of that may be devistating to the burn-in period; I will tell about this later, after I have been able to reason out a couple of things.

More later,
Peter

I agree with this, as this is also my personal experience. However, I guess it will also depend on your system, output, cable and input impedances in the whole chain. 
What this normally means IMHO is, that when you own a good pre-amp it acts as a better driver/receiver for the cable and main amp load. Therefore, you get the above described benefits + (most important for me) more 'lifeness'  = dynamics. 
But again, it might depend somewhat on the main amp and cables you use how large this effect is.

Peter,

Thanks for your vision on this process.

For shure just being "on" counts for a major part of the burn in. Though i have an impression that actually loading the parts by playing music adds to this effect.
This is no voodoo imho: especially parts like capacitors are only conducting when an ac signal is fed (this holds also true for decoupling caps).

I burned my black gates "off line" in a special burner applying an low voltage ac rectifier with one diode (a little dc + significant ac ripple).

The nos starts of with a pleasant refined rounded and non impressive sound (until you focus on the low end). I missed the dynamics and high end that appears after a day or something. And it kept on turning until monday. I have quite the same experiece with running in the black gates "in situ". Only at the last hours the open up and give all their good. We will have to be patient.


Regards, Coen

Hi,
thanks for all the responses. Although I feel pretty confident, it still helps to see (glad I don't have to hear it ;-)) that others are experiencing the same burn in “pain".
I will report on my further break in findings.
Peter,
good write up, this will help future customers.
Claudius

I would agree with this charactisation of the influence of the pre amp completely. The burning in process for tubes is known to be very long. I switched tubes and now are using high quality NOS tubes with tube dampers. The 300 mkII only needs two tubes and so it was easy to use tubes from very good quality, still no telefunken but good enough. At first it sounded a little more dynamic but also dry and boring. After some weeks it smoothed out and I found the invested money as very well spent. A good audiophile step above the original tubes without dampers. Anyway, I don't know how much better the 500se is, I never listened to it. I think it looks beautifull and I am sure it is excellent.

14 DAYs,
stage is getting bigger, bass is deep but not really natural. Very transparent, transients seem to be more natural then two or three days ago. Something is not right, this is how it sounds, but also something is very right. Today I really do not know what to think.
What I really like, the sound today is not fatiguing. Too bad I just had to stop listening to music, so my kids can look some Childs Detective Story on TV.
God, this is long burn in.
Claudius

For me this would be a typicle example of something indeed being wrong. Of course this can be Audirvana+ and its filter settings (which I dialed in for you, so blame me), but it can also be those feet we delivered (you just told in the other topic you are using them). Try others. Officially better ones. It REALLY makes a difference; you will see ...

Peter

Something very Good is happening. With and without other feet. I wanted to Write Down some impressions on the progress of burn in while listening to music. It was not possible.
Harshness is gone. Sounds very delicate.
So this is day 16.
i will experiment with some feet next week.
Claudius

Still lagging behind Claude, I also obeserved the dip is sq around day 10. Thin, no bass, no soul, something to get sad about.

But this morning i observed an improvement in timing and definition, so we are in the lift up again! Very promising indeed.

Regards, Coen

Hold on Coen,
I have nö time for listening today. Just got home and have some more work to do. Listened to Roger Waters late last night and it was simply amazing in the True sense of this Word! The Sound was all over the place and never even close to the speakers, some Sounds coming down from Way over my head others behind me .....
If Peter is right (he usually is!) and there is much more to come we are really in for a treat!
Claude

Day 20. I will be leaving my customers place in a minute and can't wait to get home. This morning I had some music in the background.
it was very smooth sounding.
I will report on the progress.
Claudius

Very nice reporting like this Claudius. Thanks a lot.
Peter

PS: Wasn't it you asking for a topic about this ? well, here it is. Haha.

Not so many people openly kept track of what happened. But here are a few about the first days :

Re: Phasure NOS1 DAC listening Experience (http://www.phasure.com/index.php?topic=1491.msg15176#msg15176)

I listened for an hour this evening and the sound was almost too full and energetic. It somehow lost air and depth. But hey it was very involving with deeeeeep bass.
I felt if something was wrong and thought that I needed to dress the cables differently. So I shut down the NOS1 did, what I thought that I had to do ...
3 Hours later I turned the NOS1 on again and the sound changed completely. Details Details Details but the fullness was gone. ???? This change is absolutely dramatic. Too bad I can't listen any further right now, but it is like it was a couple of days ago, something is utmost right and something is wrong. But totally different then a couple of days ago. This damn thing is morphing on me all the time. ;-)
Chokes aside, I have had the NOS on all the time. And if not on the at least on the grid. To dress the cables new I unplugged the power cord. Might be it? Does the NOS need warmup time?
I changed back the cables the way they were and the sound stayed the same, so I don't think it is the cables.

SO FAR I CAN SAY BURN IN IS LONG, YOU EXPERIENCE PERFORMANCE BUMPS AND IT IS SOMETIMES PAINFUL - BUT ALLWAYS THRILLING.

To put this experience into perspective: I experienced burn in with the QB-9 and it really did help a lot and everything sounded good from the beginning. Here changes are so dramatic that it sometimes is hard for me to believe. The NOS1 is transparent to everything that is changing and I mean everything. Move something an inch and you hear it.
I have to go to bed (lot of work to do) but I am so excited, that I think I will dream about the NOS1 (my wife once asked if I dream about my high end stereo and I said no, well this changed ;-))
Claudius

Apart from my answer in the other topic a few minutes back (Warm up time of NOS1 (http://www.phasure.com/index.php?topic=1902.0)), think of this one you will never have heard about I think :

The DC Offset control is an enforced thing. So, no real circuitry in there for it, and still it works. Took months and months to get right for every situation (like at first here it worked, but in the US it did not). Now :

Along the "research" of it, we found that it can be enough to touch a device like the NOS1 to disturb it permanently. Create a ground loop as how it is called. This "ground loop" goes somewhat beyond the ground loops which are common, but are ground loops just the same. Create it permanently means that by touching you will create a current through air (yes) which won't break anymore after detaching (put your finger away again). However, the one person could incur for it, and the other could not. The difference ? isolation with the floor. By what ? you.

The DC Offset control is now so good that you won't see it happening by that (anymore), but still the force might be there (I have no idea how to test for it, unless with some deep space machinery maybe). So, when you wore no rubber soles, do that next time. This isolates. But when you did, do it the other way around. The latter situation may imply that this ground loop (if there at all of course) is good for your consistent situation. It may guide away current which goes through unwanted stuff otherwise.

This seems all "far out", but still is the practical truth. Ok, unpractical. Again, whether this really can happen with the momentary DC Offset control I don't know.

Regards,
Peter

Today is day 20. Never was good in math. ;-)
The Sound is full warm and the details are integrating. Deep bass is there and it sounds more natural then in the beginning. More 3D. Almost like "seeing" the size of e.g. a double Bass.
So whether it is day 20 or the procedure Peter described ( i tried it with and without rubber souls), i dont know.
Please no more performance bumps.
Claude