Burn-in Angst

[Ryelands]

31 minutes ago, pkane2001 said:

. . . the most often used method to control for expectation bias is to conduct a controlled double blind experiment.

 

As you don't say what you mean by "expectation bias" or what constitues "a controlled double blind experiment", I really can't comment. I say that because, in 50-odd years of watching the audio reproduction scene, I've yet to see more than a handful of even half-way competent experiments (though plenty in related fields). Most claiming to be so are risibly inept.

 

Quote

Is this not what is being promoted on these fora by those who believe that expectation bias is a significant factor in audiophile world?

 

No, I fear they're using barely understood terms to dismiss observations untested on a priori grounds. One rarely sees DBT advocates report any of their own experiments even though they imply they're experts. I don't blame them for not trying because it's very hard indeed to do properly, beyond the skill set of most of us and way beyond our budgets. All I'm asking is that people stop using the terms as abusive epithets.

[adamdea]

Expectation bias is as I understand it more  about experimental design and analysis than perceptual effects as such. I think it’s a misleading expression but is sometimes used in these circles somewhat indiscriminately to stand for all the various reasons why people may misattribute the causes of their hearing experiences. 

[pkane2001]

17 minutes ago, Ryelands said:

 All I'm asking is that people stop using the terms as abusive epithets.

 

This I can agree with wholeheartedly.

 

[GUTB]

You guys DO realize what would be involved in a legitimate, clinical-grade double-blind testing of audio equipment? Is it precisely because you do understand how difficult it is that you constantly throw it up as a barrier?

[pkane2001]

9 minutes ago, GUTB said:

You guys DO realize what would be involved in a legitimate, clinical-grade double-blind testing of audio equipment? Is it precisely because you do understand how difficult it is that you constantly throw it up as a barrier?

 

Why would anyone want to conduct a clinical-grade DBT? I never do. A simple blind test is enough for me when I pick among components. My results may not be sufficient for anyone else, but good enough for me. Probably just a bit more scientific than your approach of picking by price tag.

[Spacehound]

5 hours ago, GUTB said:

 

Misinformation. 200 hours is the general burn-in requirement for things like copper and silver cabling, tubes, etc. Electronics can take up to 400 hours depending on parts (exotic caps). Rhodium, carbon fiber, class D, speakers, etc take around 800 hours. MM carts need only a few hours while MC carts need 50 hours.

 

The high end femto clock in the SOTM gear does need time to burn-in. Clocks are linked to harsh/bright sounding problems. USB cables by themselves shouldn’t ruin sound unless they are causing a lot of jitter and forcing the DAC to generate self noise cleaning it up. The symptoms the OP describes sound more like his power delivery isn’t burned in — before burning in power cables ca be pretty bad.

Stuff and nonsense. Where on Earth do you do you get all this very 'exact' garbage?

 

Power cable? What  happens if the  utility company puts a  length of new cable in a couple of miles up the road?

[Spacehound]

5 hours ago, crenca said:

To the OP:

 

Put the in spec USB you removed cable back in, and remove all the out of-beyond-magical spec boxes/cables you replaced it with and thus returning to near flawless delivery of bits  

Absolutely.

[mansr]

What is the burn-in time of a nuclear power plant? With plans to build new ones in the UK, I'm worried that my sound quality will suffer for years.

[GUTB]

1 hour ago, Spacehound said:

Stuff and nonsense. Where on Earth do you do you get all this very 'exact' garbage?

 

Power cable? What  happens if the  utility company puts a  length of new cable in a couple of miles up the road?

 

They are AC lines. The last 5 feet are also the first 5 feet.

[ralphfcooke]

Not strictly true, noise on the line does dissipate over distance, so, though you might be affected by someone close to you using a power drill (on the same phase), you are unlikely to notice the same effect if someone the other end of the street(even if they're fed from the same pole transformer; assuming you're in the US).

[Spacehound]

2 hours ago, GUTB said:

 

They are AC lines. The last 5 feet are also the first 5 feet.

Our last five feet is an AC line too. From your post you don't appear to know that.

 

G'by -  no reply is needed  as it isn't a question..

[BigAlMc]

9 hours ago, mansr said:

What is the burn-in time of a nuclear power plant? With plans to build new ones in the UK, I'm worried that my sound quality will suffer for years.

 

Haha - bravo @mansr-that's brilliant!

 

Definition of expectation bias - the Ops expectations that the thread will discuss his issue as opposed to going off topic and descending into the usual arguments! 

 

To the Op. I also have the Zenith SE and the Aqvox SE and it sounds terrific. That said I'm also intrigued by the reported improvement the TX-USBultra is said to bring to the SE. I'm therefore very intrigued by this thread. 

 

For what little it's worth your description of going from 'flawless'  to 'anything but', does not sound like burn-in. Burn-in is normally the sound quality taking a while to settle down. If you are hearing a degradation then it's more likely something is wrong with one of the new components. 

 

Have you tried one of the USB cables on their own direct from. SE to DAC? I'd try that and if it still sounds poorer then borrow a different USB cable. It's trial and error to figure out what item is degrading your 'flawless' signal. 

 

I know you probably want to hear this new path (USB & SoTM) improve things but unless you can actually hear an improvement it needs to go back to the store. That said, based on the user reports it 'should' improve things hence my advice to try troubleshooting rather than assuming another 80 hours will somehow turn things around. 

 

Cheers, 

Alan 

 

PS in my case I don't 'want' the TX-USBultra to improve things as I prefer ethernet into my DAC but I figure at some point I need to listen to it in my system and see if I hear an improvement or not. I have a spare LPS-1 on hand so can probably get away with using that. 

[Blackmorec]

50 minutes ago, BigAlMc said:

To the Op. I also have the Zenith SE and the Aqvox SE and it sounds terrific. That said I'm also intrigued by the reported improvement the TX-USBultra is said to bring to the SE. I'm therefore very intrigued by this thread. 

 

For what little it's worth your description of going from 'flawless'  to 'anything but', does not sound like burn-in. Burn-in is normally the sound quality taking a while to settle down. If you are hearing a degradation then it's more likely something is wrong with one of the new components. 

 

Have you tried one of the USB cables on their own direct from. SE to DAC? I'd try that and if it still sounds poorer then borrow a different USB cable. It's trial and error to figure out what item is degrading your 'flawless' signal. 

 

I know you probably want to hear this new path (USB & SoTM) improve things but unless you can actually hear an improvement it needs to go back to the store. That said, based on the user reports it 'should' improve things hence my advice to try troubleshooting rather than assuming another 80 hours will somehow turn things around. 

 

Cheers, 

Alan 

 

PS in my case I don't 'want' the TX-USBultra to improve things as I prefer ethernet into my DAC but I figure at some point I need to listen to it in my system and see if I hear an improvement or not. I have a spare LPS-1 on hand so can probably get away with using that. 

Thanks for the feedback Alan. As I’ve said in previous posts, ears I very much trust have reported significant gains in SQ with the tx-USBUltra + s-PS500 or LPS-1 between Zenith SE and DAC.

 

I’ll do as you suggest. I have 2 Vovox Textura cables so can bypass the SOtM with a direct link. I can also replace the new PC with the original cord. 

 

I do have lots of experience of new components thoroughly unbalancing the sound, then in the space of a few hours reverting to its previous beauty with the desired enhancements. I hope that’s the case here but I am getting more than a little impatient, like a kid being given a new toy then having it whisked away. 

[BigAlMc]

I'll be curious to hear how you get on and whether you manage to harness the reported SQ boost from the TX-USBultra. 

 

My DAC is the PS Audio Directstream and it supports the full MQA unfold via Roon and the Bridge II. The Bridge II also displays the cover art which is nice. My preference would therefore be to stick with this. 

 

BUT.

 

The Innuos SE internal LMS player is implemented very nicely to play from memory and sounds nicer (cleaner / darker) than Roon playback. This USB only player is a major dilemma for me as its trading the convenience and UX of Roon for a bump in SQ. 

 

Therefore if the TX-USBultra improves that SQ even further and increases the gap between ethernet and USB then my dilemma grows even greater! 

 

Question for you. Do you use Roon at all and if so can you tell Roon to play to your Devialet via the TX-USBultra? 

[Blackmorec]

Hi there,

The Innuos Zenith SE fully supports Roon Core, so using the tx-USBUltra with Roon is extremely straightforward....requiring no additional processing other than a Roon capable DAC. As far as Roon is concerned, the tx-USBUltra is just part of an ‘active’ USB cable.  Currently I use Qobuz for streaming which is not supported by Roon so I’m using iPeng as my UI.  I selected Qobuz for its hi-res capabilities but so far, the results with standard red book (before I added the SOtM) were so stunningly good I haven’t bothered with downloading any hi-res files. 

I’m pretty sure that the tx-UDSBUltra will considerably enhance the SQ of my system so I just need to finish the burn-in process or troubleshoot the link after which I’ll post the final results.  

[mav52]

13 hours ago, mansr said:

What is the burn-in time of a nuclear power plant? With plans to build new ones in the UK, I'm worried that my sound quality will suffer for years.

And here I was wondering about the burn in time of my solar panels ?

[mansr]

4 minutes ago, mav52 said:

And here I was wondering about the burn in time of my solar panels ?

What is the burn-in time of a sun?

[Ryelands]

15 minutes ago, mansr said:

What is the burn-in time of a sun?

 

IME, roughly the same as the half-life of a tired joke.

[mav52]

2 hours ago, mansr said:

What is the burn-in time of a sun?

About 4.6 billion years

[mansr]

3 minutes ago, mav52 said:

About 4.6 billion years

That explains why we're only just now getting good sound.

[mav52]

3 minutes ago, mansr said:

That explains why we're only just now getting good sound.

 I know my solar panels are liking it

[Blackmorec]

8 hours ago, BigAlMc said:

For what little it's worth your description of going from 'flawless'  to 'anything but', does not sound like burn-in. Burn-in is normally the sound quality taking a while to settle down. If you are hearing a degradation then it's more likely something is wrong with one of the new components.

Well I tried what you suggested, first taking out the Hi Diamond Power Cord from the Zenith and replacing it with the OEM PC.  It took all of 10 seconds to register the improvement. More natural tones and timbre, loss of the bass lumpiness and treble emphasis, better instrument focus and soundstage definition, more involving, natural sound...a good 50% of what's been missing returned in the swap of a cable. So very clearly the PC is still running in, so I would guess that the other components are doing exactly the same...so I'm going to leave it playing internet radio and I'm going to watch Winter Sports from PyeogChang.   

[BigAlMc]

Good stuff. So at least you now have an idea what's going on. 

 

Will be interested to hear how you get on over time given we have similar setups in terms of Zenith SE and Aqvox SE. 

 

I have an update of my own. Pulled the trigger on a TX-USBultra to find out for myself 

[marce]

Question, why do only audio electronics require burn in and no others, even sensitive measuring equipment?

Further how does a PC burn in, is the bit pattern imperfect before it burns in...

[Blackmorec]

Yeah, by doing just one cable I could clearly hear that the changes when I swapped back to the new cable matched how I know factory fresh PCs can sound. A thread I was reading about Hi Diamond says 250 -200 to sound good and 500 hours  to sound their best.