Premier 350 and CT-5: It's time to get systematic

[Puma Cat]

and behave like a proper scientist.

The "optimization" (read: capacitor burn-in time) of my CT-5 has been a long process, much of which I've documented here. When I first got it in Feb 2011, with a reported 300 hours on it, the CT-5 upon arrival at Puma Cat's cave sounded flat, hard, threadbare, and at times, downright unpleasant. While C-J's guidance is that the Teflon caps require 300 hours burn in, I (and Turntable et. al.) are of the opinion that closer to 1000 hours is really required to fully burn in the Teflon caps. The CT-5 took a big jump forward one night in July 2011, and another big jump forward to "deliciousness", as Alberto would put it, around the October/November time frame. I don't know how many hours were on it exactly at that point in time, but guess it was in the ballpark of the 650-700 hour mark. Paired with my LP70S, the CT-5 really developed into very, very fine and nice-sounding preamp, not as warm as my Pr17LS pre, but overall, really nice.

The recent addition of my Pr350 power amp has only complicated matters. I really don't know how many hours are on my Pr350, but I'm hearing some of the exact same sonic attributes I heard with the CT-5 when it was first acquired with ~300 hours on it. The distinction being that with the CT-5 I had these issues throughout the frequency spectrum, with the Pr350 the issues are limited to the treble/high upper frequencies. On very high quality material, the highs and upper frequencies sound natural, accurate, and just right, but on other material that is not the créme de-la-créme sound quality or mastering-wise, the upper frequencies can be a bit too hot, thin, and not "delicate and refined" as Martin Colloms' might put it. Also, pairing the CT-5 with the Pr350 in it's present state is just a bit too much. I think Joe very accurately described his experiences using his GAT with the Pr350 on his CR-1s, which are even more resolving and transparent than my Dynaudio Contour S3.4s. This all would be a lot easier and clearer to deal with if the Pr350 were not so spectacularly good in all other categories: it has a gorgeous midrange, excellent imaging, outstanding bass output, definition, and articulation, just ridiculous amounts of overall power and transient current delivery, superb macro- and microdynamics and just an insane, I mean insane, capability for dynamics and slam. This amp can, and does, go to 11.

Bottom-line: I need to know if what I'm hearing is due to lack of burn-in or is intrinsic to the sound of these components. So, I"m going to eliminate the burn-in variable.

So, I decided to get systematic and create what I call the "burn unit".

I've setup my Oppo on continuous play driving the CT-5 driving the Pr350. I've set up a countdown clock on my iPad, so it will accurately track overall accumulated time of the burn-in starting today. I'll go with the null hypothesis both components have zero hours on them, and feed many different CDs on continous all-content repeat for a measured 500 hours (about 25 days at 20 hours per day). The system will be on from approx. 11 PM through to roughly 7PM the next day when I get home from work. I will then shut it off for four hours during the evening, and listen to the LP70S and Pr17 during that time or watch some television. Once I reach the documented 500 hour number, I will hook the CT-5 and Pr350 back into the system and spend a week or two on a broad range of source components and content to make an assessment; this assessment will drive my decision about what to do long-term.

I started today and racked up 10 hours on the Burn Unit while at work today, and then shut the system down until I retire for the evening.

Right now, this evening, I'm back listening to my "legacy system", my Premier 17LS and LP70S, and I gotta say, while the LP70 cannot match the Pr350 for the overall magnitude of power, slam, dynamics, force, bass detail and power, badda-bee, badda-bah, overall the Pr17/LP70S sounds absolutely wonderful: natural, with the just the right amount of detail, superb holographic imaging, and most importantly, like music.

Stay tuned....will check back in in three weeks or so.

[Littlebunny]

Good grief, man. My ET3 SE is yet to arrive, and I'm not too looking forward to the burn-in thing.

[Puma Cat]

Originally Posted by Littlebunny

Good grief, man. My ET3 SE is yet to arrive, and I'm not too looking forward to the burn-in thing.

Prepare for the journey.....

[two dot]

seems like a lot of work....

[joeinid]

Stephen,

I am happy to read I was not the only one experiencing a problem with the high frequencies. But, I am also saddened to read you are experiencing the same thing. When everything is right. Wow! It's an incredible amp. When less than stellar recordings are played, it can be somewhat unpleasant.

[joeinid]

Originally Posted by two dot

seems like a lot of work....

With a big potential payoff. 7 come 11, baby needs new shoes.

[Puma Cat]

Originally Posted by joeinid

Stephen,

I am happy to read I was not the only one experiencing a problem with the high frequencies. But, I am also saddened to read you are experiencing the same thing. When everything is right. Wow! It's an incredible amp. When less than stellar recordings are played, it can be somewhat unpleasant.

I may have misunderstood part of the burn in, but are you using speakers? The 350 needs speakers attached.

Using my spare pair of Era D4s....I have a spare pair of speaker cables (Anti-Cables); they are 6 ohm, but that should be fine.

[Puma Cat]

Just hooked up the Era D4s; everyhing sounds fine and I am good to go. Nice thing is they are quiet with the CT-5, won't keep me awake at night with some soft guitar music playing. I think tomorrow night I will move the whole setup into the spare bedroom, and I can put the speakers in the closet.

[Rayooo]

I've enjoyed many setups over the years with errors of omission and even in many cases errors of commission....but nothing spoils a system more than UN-natural sounding "SSSSS" from a singers voice. For me, it's the holy grail.

[Puma Cat]

Singers voices have not been an issue at all...it's been the highest notes of violins in classical pieces, or electric guitars in rock songs.

Again, I don't want to jump the gun here; it may very well be due to insufficient burn-in, that's the point of this experiment. My CT-5 improved dramatically over the course of last year, and another friend who has a Pr350 he bought new at the end of 2011 said his hit 500 hours the other day and the amp just literally opened up, all the "edginess" gone, more textural impact, and improved soundstaging. I and other friends have noted these "quantum jumps" in improvement when burning in Teflon-capped C-J components...it's not a steep gradual improvement over time per se....its play, play, play (for months on end) with small improvements, and then Bang! A big improvement.