Break in of NOS1

[PeterSt]

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.

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

[Bigear]

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. Claudius

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.

[CoenP]

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

[Claude]

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

[Flecko]

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. Claudius

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.

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.

[Claude]

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

[PeterSt]

Something is not right, this is how it sounds, but also something is very right

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

[Claude]

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

[CoenP]

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

[Claude]

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

[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

[PeterSt]

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.

[PeterSt]

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

[Claude]

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

[PeterSt]

Apart from my answer in the other topic a few minutes back (Warm up time of NOS1), 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