Reference 6 break-in

[Mikado463]

Originally Posted by michael paul

UPDATE: Guys, this is insane. yesterday i turned my system on.
it is completely different animal!!
at the 30 hour mark it sounds like i was hoping it would!!
my belief in high end audio is fully restored!
i was never a believer in break in or burn in, but i guess it is true!
holy cow! i spent the day on the couch listening to as much as i can.
the volume imbalance also corrected itself. go figure.
i have seen posts where it might be inconsistent. but it just fantastic!
this is not a head game . or like i got acclimated or anything. trust me. the first few hours i could not be in the same room with the sound. it was like a sony receiver from best buy. this is surely a Christmas Miracle!!!
oh by the way, i am officially an ARC fan!!!
mike

ps: i found out that i actually have a 30 day return policy!!. IT AINT GOIN BACK!!!

I'm glad you're back on your meds .............


Ok, just bustin' your stones, glad all has jelled !

[jpgr4blu]

........And it will continue to get better.

[michael paul]

WHEW!!..Thanks guys! I am off the ledge now!

Just gonna sit back relax and enjoy the music!

[michael paul]

..by the way i am up to about 80 hours and all i do i do is shake my head. really sounds good..
lots of surprises ,especially listening to familiar recordings.

[PlanarSpeakerFan]

Congrats Michael, it will continue to improve all the way to 600 hours. There may be some more dips between now and then.

Ken

[michael paul]

Thanks Ken.....holy smokes.. i like your setup!....i just listened to your vandee's model 7 mk2's in nj...i just missed the in-person r.vandersteen at the same place

[michael paul]

Ken
i can't remember the electronics used with those vandee's but the sound was fabulous!!

[mulveling]

Channel imbalance like you described is extreme, and would not be affected by burn-in. It's more likely you had an incomplete connection somewhere -- tube or cable, etc -- that corrected itself in time. Might be a good idea to meticulously re-seat all socketed connections anyways.

I got my Ref 6 used with ~ 500 hours on the tube counter. No idea how much of that was actual play time. I'm now well over 600 on the counter; most of my hours have been play time. I like it a lot better than when I first got it -- in fact I love it now! Some of that can be attributed to my own break-in, as my prior preamp served me very well for 8 years, and I became quite accustomed to its sound (had a touch of boost down low without sounding tubby; gave a really nice "grunt" for hard rock and metal). Some of it can probably be attributed to various tweaks I put around the Ref 6 -- cryo EH tubes, Herbie's tube dampers, GE 6550, power cable and interconnects, etc. And *maybe* some of it can be attributed to finishing up its burn-in.

The volume chip and digital display are fabulous, especially compared to my old preamp's motorized stepped attenuator that had very poor responsiveness and extremely coarse steps! Also I love that the Ref 6 is dead quiet, and my system is a real torture test for showing off any preamp noise.

The balance control is extremely nice for correcting or mitigating imbalances that are actually quite commonly caused by phono cartridges (even expensive ones sometimes allow up to 1.0 or even 1.5 dB of imbalance!), room acoustics, and sometimes even tubes. But the Ref 6 itself should have dead perfect balance itself with setting on "CENTER", as in much better that 0.2dB matching between channels. Mine is perfectly centered.

[michael paul]

mulveling..
thanks for your comments. the balance issue is totally gone. i cant explain it. that was about 50 hours ago.

it is an awesome preamp . i appreciate everything that it brings to the table. i also absolutely love it.

the volume chip and digital display are truly fabulous just as you said.


wife " are you just going to sit there all day long and listen to music?"

me "uuummm,yup."

[triode12]

I had a channel inbalance issue early on on my Ref 5SE as well. It went away after that.