[aurelius]

From the TNT audio review of The Horn Shoppe horns:

The Fostex drivers require substantial break-in time. When the Fe108s were first installed, they sounded wonderful - for about an hour. Then they began to sound decidedly odd. Over the next 50 hours, they changed from flat, dull, and lifeless, to harsh and screaming, and everything in between. After about 50 hours, they began to settle down and smooth out.

[AKSA]

Y'know, this issue is hot, and causes much angst. People are astonished by how good the N+ sounds, but a LOT of patience is called for. I do not understand the mechanism - it's very slow - but here's a WONDERFUL solution from AKSAphile Alan Oldale, living in Wellington, New Zealand:

HOW TO BREAK IN A NIRVANA PLUS AKSA

I gave my 55N+ a soak test with a dummy load for 8 days continuous. (Previously intermittent operation.) That did it, now is clear and concise so I can recommend this way of running in. Black Gate caps sure are strange devices. Almost as though there are internal diodes which need to be broken down by passing AC through them. Dummy loads are much quieter than loudenboomers, so if constructors can use them life would be more enjoyable than putting up with continuous sound. I used an FM tuner as a signal source - no wear and tear on CD player! Ain't life grand?

I thank Alan for his great advice. Tip: If you use a dummy load, make sure it's rated around 20W. This would mean two parallel 15R 10W resistors, or four series/parallel 8.2R 5W resistors, or four parallel 33R 5W, or three parallel 22R 7W resistors, etc.........

If you can't get resistors, use your speakers by all means, but tip them down onto the floor so the driver fires into the carpet. That really slows 'em down....... But take care that the driver cone does not contact the carpet; sometimes a carpet ring around the driver is a good idea.

Alan's idea of using an FM tuner is brilliant!

Thanks again Alan, this will make the transition pain free!

Cheers,

Hugh

[stvnharr]

Gosh, at last I must be blessed for something!!!!  I've installed BG's in everything, including one complete A55N+, and never heard any nasty's, never had to use resistors for speakers, never had to turn the speakers face down into the floor, never had to - well - never had to do anything but just listen to the music.
I truly must be blessed!!!
It's about time too!!!!!

[AKSA]

Steven,

With cultured grace and wonderment, I must inspect both your gear and your gilt ears when you arrive back downunder......

One of us is right, and I hope it's you!!    

As for the blessings, be careful what you wish for;  I daily receive emails from a Mrs Grace Blessing from Nairobi, offering extraordinary wealth even as she dies a slow, painful death, if only I would reveal my banking details!

Cheers,

Hugh

[stvnharr]

Hugh,
You've already heard most of my BG's.  Some were not at the "critical" 400 hour mark at that time, but some were.  All are certainly well beyond that now.  I guess you'll have to come for another listen when I return.

[netaron]

So Hugh,
How does one like yourself know if a tweak really works? For instance, when you came up with the N+, after completion, did you have to wait a week or so before your final evaluation?  Are you able to tell right away if something you did made the unit sound better? From most posts I have read about tweaking, it says nothing of break-in, they say what an astronomical difference it made right away.
Huh?


Thanks

Haron

[ginger]

Haron,
I'll put my 2c worth in here. I did a lot of the Beta testing for the 55N+ upgrades.

Some of the mods were easy in that they were "night and day" and it was immediately apparent that it was better. Many others as you suggest required extended listening and allowing for break-in time. The cycle on these was often 2 or 3 weeks minimum. I don't recall exactly but the 55N to 55N+ exersize consumed about 9 months - the same amount of time it takes cows and countesses to produce a new offspring (although we know that some blushing young brides can manage it in less).

A lot of testing was done with the inputs shorted to give a mono source and the mod in one channel only. The critical listening was then done by swapping the same single speaker and speaker cable between the modified and un-modified channels and were fitted to the second channel and confirmed for stereo use by more listening.

You may be surprised (or perhaps not) to learn that perhaps less than half of what we tried ended up in the final 55N+ with lots of mods falling into the following categories:
1/ Its no better
2/ Its only very marginally better if that and not worth the added expense
3/ Its only very marginally better if that and not worth the added complexity
4/ Its better but we were unable to resolve "collateral damage" issues like turn On and turn OFF "thumps".

For example: When we started playing around with Blackgate Caps I actually built a version with ALL Super E connected Blackgate Ns. I reported back to Hugh that I'd gone way over the top and while it sounded good it had lost all its "valve-like" warmth and did'nt sound like and AKSA anymore BUT rather sounded just like any other good but ultimately boring SS Amp.
I recall him responding with ROTFLMAO.

We also tried various circuit topology changes and ultimately abandoned them in favour of the original circuit.

Cheers,
Ginger

[AKSA]

Haron,

There you have it........  Ginger, bless his South Australian heart, has revealed all!    

Most of his work came only slightly after mine;  he added some new ideas, and confirmed my thoughts on the original work, though on the issue of current source topologies (which we both researched exhaustively) Ginger's input was huge.  

There were others too;  notably Darl Singh in NZ, Romeo Tiu in Italy, and Mark Whitaker (particularly with the GK1) in Darwin, so this is no sole effort.  With these guys, it was possible to undertake a huge job in months, without them, it would have taken years.  My thanks go out to all of them.

And yes, sometimes we had to sit on our arms reversed and just bloody wait, and it hurt just as much as you can imagine.    But when people came in after the first N+ upgrades were released, we realized that this waiting game was a phenomenon they experienced as well!

Cheers,

Hugh

[netaron]

Sorry Gents,
I was not trying to sound like a smart "A..", just wanted to get to the basics. I have to admit, the best sound I have heard was when I  hooked up a very expensive cd player (which was on loan) to the 55N+, it didn't sound great right away. It sounded much like my other cd player, but the one thing this loaner had was a direct digital volume control to bypass the preamp. It sounded great connected directly to the amp, but I was told to wait a week before final evaluation and never turn the cd player off. So I did, it was a sound that I have not heard since, I listened to the unit for another week, and if it wasn't so darn expensive, I would buy it right now. Anyway, this just proves your points, and by the way Hugh, your baby the 55N+ sounds better than any tube or solid state I have had in my system, it has a perfect balance form top to bottom.
Thanks

Haron

[Sintz]

I constructed the AKSA100 over 2 years ago. Since then, I've gone through three sets of speakers, 2 CDPs, countless ICs, and two preamps. I was listening last evening and am pretty sure that I heard the AKSA 'snap in' during a 3-CD listening session yesterday.

I have to agree with the previous posts in that the first couple of hours are magical, but then gets a little disoriented (still better than many other amps I've heard). Not buying into the burn-in theory, I went as far as to rebuild the passive 3-way crossovers on my origonal speakers thinking the amp was revealing the defeciencies in the xover. That only added angst while I dealt with new xover breakin. At the time, I wasn't convinced that burn-in was anything more than a pheonomen. So, within 2-3 months, I added a new preamp to the mix and pushed it further into despair. I slapped on a new set of speaker cables (upgraded from monster XP to Kimber cable 8TCs).

Within the past couple of hours (20-30 for the preamp, 10-20 for the cables, and 150-180 for the AKSA), things have really congealed. The first thing I noticed were less harshness on the siblants, then the midrange 'liquified' from the "waxier" texture before.

It could be that I've just gone and lost my damn mind, but I've been listening for the better part of the day today (Thanksgiving day weekend) and am ready for more. I've also noticed I've been playing a lower levels recently too. Maybe I'm not trying to compensate for lack of synergy as much as I may have been while the pre, cables, and AKSA were settling in.

Either way, I've learned my lesson and I'm being patient before adding anything more w/o burning in first. For example, I just got a 5-foot Magic Cable PC yesterday and am running it in using my desktop computer for 2-3 days. I should have tried it yesterday to set a baseline for comparison, but then I would have thought the metamorphasis I experienced today was the PC, not the pre-existing components!  

*sigh*

I guess I'll really have to be conscious to ensure enough time between introducing new components to the system before evaluating the change. Good lesson to learn, but I'd rather I'd just listened to what others had to say.

To sum up, new AKSA owners, be patient. It'll settle in after a little bit. If you're already pleased, then you're in for a real surprise.