[2fastdriving]

Originally Posted by prepress

Maybe not an "aha" moment, but more of an "oh" moment.

Sunday I was playing music (relatively rare these days) while I was doing my cooking for the week, so I wasn't in front of the system the whole time; periodically I came into the living room to give a brief listen. I bought a pair of Super ICs recently, which connect my preamp and power amps; my SACD player has Plus IC on it. Both are Gen 5.

In the early stages of playing a CD, the sound was a bit bright/hard sounding, and I figured maybe the equipment isn't warmed up, I wouldn't think it's the Super's fault, though it is relatively new. About 40 minutes or so later (same CD) I made a trip into the living room and WHAAT!? The sound had smoothed out, it was detailed, and eminently listenable. Another CD, a Jobim compilation, was gorgeous, with some details here and there I hadn't either heard or noticed before. It was at a point where I was listening to the CD and not the sound, if that makes sense.

Transparent does make good stuff, and I'm a believer that cables can make a difference. Something similar happened when I first got the Plus ICs, all of a sudden one day things just snapped into place. Maybe it's just the Super's time to settle in?

I'm also, I think, going to try letting the gear warm up a bit before paying serious attention to what I'm hearing. But I was really pleased with what I was hearing Sunday.

I do think that equipment warm up is a factor, too. Especially if you have tubes. I think that some digital clocks take time to stabilize, too. That's why some people leave their CD player/DAC on all the time.