Klaus: Please comment if you desire...

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TheChairGuy

Re: Klaus: Please comment if you desire...
« Reply #40 on: 25 Sep 2006, 05:19 pm »
Ditto Randy - exactly my thoughts.  They were so good out of the box that I didn't need to pay attention to any break-in occurring on the Khartago Mono Extremes.

Maybe they did indeed improve (or still are for all I know), but I would have been happy enough with straight out of the box  :)

That's an entirely new situation with any SS amp I've ever owned (most of them have been chopped liver, tho, here  :wink:)

Klaus, but then there are guys like me who think your amps sound superb right out of the box, and they weren't replacing chopped liver either.  If they got better with time, it was gradual enough that I didn't notice.  They (mono extremes) knocked me out the first time I hooked them up and they still do.

Randy

mgalusha

Re: Klaus: Please comment if you desire...
« Reply #41 on: 25 Sep 2006, 09:51 pm »
4.  Don't try to pick up changes from a "lesser"  to a " better"  component,  but the other way around.  If you try to get any impressions somewhat right, (notwithstanding the 10 seconds or emotions),  and you just have to try to get "differences" defined,  then it is much easier for our ears and brains to notice what is missing rather than what is added.

Amen to that. I've observed this many times. You don't notice some things until they are gone. Where did the body of that piano go?

Haoleb

Re: Klaus: Please comment if you desire...
« Reply #42 on: 25 Sep 2006, 11:44 pm »
Quote
LISTEN WITH YOUR GUT FEELING and with your HAIR ON YOUR NECK.  Who gives a crap about a foot in depth here or a note there.  It's all about "this is right"


This is what I like about Klaus. His bottom line is a customer enjoying the music experience. Which is what the hobby is about.  :thumb:

Spirit

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Re: Klaus: Please comment if you desire...
« Reply #43 on: 26 Sep 2006, 12:00 am »
Klaus:
Your posting verges on brilliance.
I truly look forward to meeting you at RMAF.
I also look forward to the day when the courier delivers
my new Monos!!
I am truly sorry if I caused any turbulence on the site.
I truly was just trying to differentiate between 2 schools on
the break in topic.
Little did I know that it would cause Bunky to go Bunkers!!
(just kidding Bunky, no hard feelings).

MarkgM

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Break-in; pretty dry stuff
« Reply #44 on: 26 Sep 2006, 10:39 am »
Wel, y'all have had quite a heart-warming tug and forth.  Very touching.  Do y'all feel better?  Are you ready for a group hug?

Well, I can tell you this, as I've said it before.  Break-in is something recognized moreso readily by the basic electronic parts manufacturers than by audiophile equipment manufacturers.  Break-in of the basic parts, such as capacitors, resistors and CMOS circuits are well enough documented.  In manufacturing, there is now a process of chemical analysis and materials and manufacturing Q&A, such as did not exist some 35 years ago at all.

What the chemists do, such as the fellow I shared an office with, is to take a basic part and expose it to the equivalent of 4 years of life in 4 hours time.  This is a process of materials testing, such that the ultimate product of manufacturing can be determined, in terms of what the product will become after 4 years of use.  Break-in is part and parcel of an industrial revolution.

This revolution occurs in tiny, tiny increments.  The advancements that people don't talk about are the tiny advancements in the basic parts, in terms of the quality and accuracy of what is being manufactured.  By performing a chemical analysis of the materials involved, and what happens to them over time, it is possible to then manufacture parts that will become optimal in their performance after a period of break-in.  That's how good we've gotten with these things.

Another aspect of break-in is actually the slow, steady advancement of the accuracy, or tolerance, of the basic electronic components. One might not realize it at first, but when the basic parts meet tighter tolerances, break-in becomes more acute - directly!  These two phenomena are interwoven.  Audio components built in today's day and age have the potential to be worse sounding out of the box, but also, to be engineered to sound better, as designed, over a period of time, and with the increases in parts accuracy, for the listener to actually notice the difference between one thing and another.  Increases in accuracy facilitate consumer discernment of break-in. 

Way back when, when I was still listening to a black-front Sansui receiver (circa 1968), I was listening to a modern marvel.  Those guys would open a pack of 100 resistors, and throw away 90 of them.  They would use measurement devices to acquire tolerances of things like resistors far beyond the accuracy of the parts rolling off the resistor assembly lines from which they consumed.  You will be hard-pressed to find a Sansui that experiences break-in for a number of reasons.  For one, the parts have already been broken in before they have even left the factory.  For another, the overall accuracy of a piece of equipment that old isn't going to compare to the engineering feats of the present day.  We're simply working with snail-like improvements that have crept up on us, and produced emergent effects such as "break-in" as consumers.

In my humble experience, the majority of break-in with Odyssey amplifiers occurs before the unit leaves the plant.  I've found myself exposed to far harsher examples of amplifier break-in than this.  I think it's funny, sometimes, to listen to all the to-do about break-in with Odyssey amps, because of the break-in I've dealt with that is simply worse on some order of scale. Sure, break-in is real, and it's a part of life for those of us who have to deal with it point blank.  There are brands and components that will break-in very severely, and there are others for which very little effect of break-in will occur.  In other words, for which the sound will seem much the same. 

Sometimes, break-in is more prevalent, and other times, it will not be so much to speak of.  Frank and Klaus are right, but I don't bank on either one of these people.  They're radicals.  Klaus's pronouncements of break-in are for me beyond how bad break-in really gets, and Frank's assessments sound more like self-fullfilling prophecies based upon a lack of background.  Frank knows what he knows, and if he doesn't know it, he makes it true for himself much like so many audiophiles do.  It doesn;t have to be real to be proven by an audiophile, it only has to be believed to be true, and the subjective act will fill in the blanks.  Engineers do this all the time.

Imo, break-in is very real.  I can see it on paper, so I can certainly respect it's occurence in life.  Toasters break in, cars break in, golf clubs and so forth.  You will not find anything that rolls off a manufacturing line that does not "break in".  It simply doesn't exist.  What we're facing in modern times is a condition where the ultimate product of break-in is the realization of a greater accuracy of manufacturing's end results, and its greater facilitation of our ability to discern its effects.  There is no such a thing as that which does not "break in", and so I would ask you to present me with such a thing as that which does not. 

Just my two cents -
Mark

eric the red

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Re: Klaus: Please comment if you desire...
« Reply #45 on: 26 Sep 2006, 04:01 pm »
So a respected designer and manufacturer of audio gear says this:
"There is no listener memory.  What you heard can stay maybe 10 seconds with you.  Other than the ususal factors of SPL matching,  sitting positions,  etc.,  it is impossible to say with absolute certainty as to what differences you really heard after 10 seconds."
Take Klaus' logic and apply it to all the PC, fuse, wire etc etc 'shoot outs' that seem to happen when audio geeks (I include myself in that group :green:) get together. Interesting indeed.

TheChairGuy

Re: Klaus: Please comment if you desire...
« Reply #46 on: 26 Sep 2006, 04:47 pm »
Several well said, great points in there Mark/MarkgM...thanks  :thumb:

TjMV3

Re: Klaus: Please comment if you desire...
« Reply #47 on: 26 Sep 2006, 05:35 pm »
One thing I have always felt and agreed with Klaus on is "   LISTEN WITH YOUR GUT FEELING and with your HAIR ON YOUR NECK.  Who gives a crap about a foot in depth here or a note there.  It's all about "this is right"

Emotion......passion......melody......t uneful.......  That's what I look for in a system.  Without it,  no matter how expensive the equipment and how fancy the faceplate/finish;  a system is useless to me!!!

It's all about the music tugging at my heart and giving me those emotional chills.






MarkgM

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Re: Klaus: Please comment if you desire...
« Reply #48 on: 26 Sep 2006, 05:49 pm »
Chair Guy,
Thanks for saying so.  I was kind of binging last night, and don't mean to be too offensive, but it's not so much a desire to be an assh*le as it is to wax irreverently, and perhaps add perspective.

No doubt it's quite fascinating to consider that greater accuracy brings the break-in that really does occur more into view!  And these things are sophisticated, and so the break-in that occurs, in terms of how impacting it is upon their output is going to be quite dynamic.  Sometimes more, and sometimes less.  I don't think break-in has to proportionately change the sound, but also that it can.

The oldest cases of break-in I've heard of were radio builders - 50-60 years ago.  Breaking in parts while constructing really nice tuners.  Perhaps tuners lend themselves to that.

The worst cases of break-in that I am actually familiar with are some Japanese products.  Sometimes, due to thermal conditions, break-in is something you can smell as well as hear.  :o

And I don't mean to bust Klaus' balls, but simply to say that in my experience, break-in can get alot worse than with an Odyssey amp.  I was fearing my Stratos before I received it, I think moreso than would be called for.  Here, I wanted to put things into perspective.  Everybody's got their own idiosyncrasies.  :wink:
Klaus, what do you think of the sound before the 48-hour, 90% power into the 1-ohm load part?  Is it ready for prime time before you do that, or does it sound better afterwards?  I am confident when I say that you care a great deal for what you are doing, and for people's ultimate satisfaction, and it seems like this matter places emphasis on that sincerity.  I also would guess Frank to have alot of sincerity in what he's saying - he's trying to be as true as he can be on the matter.  I think everybody's got their own idiosyncrasies and backgrounds, but you've already posted very nicely on the matter. 

Mark

Dunedain

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Re: Klaus: Please comment if you desire...
« Reply #49 on: 10 Oct 2006, 10:51 pm »
I think one of the reasons that Klaus says that the break-in effect is so great on his amplifiers (and by the way, I've seen the same said by a professional reviewer about an Odyssey amp that he listened to for months) is that he works on these amps constantly.  And as a result he has super well-trained ears with this equipment, and so any differences in sound between a new amp and the exact same type of amp that he has been running hard for months seems even more severe.

Wizard454

Re: Klaus: Please comment if you desire...
« Reply #50 on: 12 Oct 2006, 02:10 am »
Well I don't usual chime in on things like this ....but....
I will say I was not a believer in break-in for most of my audio life. That is until I started to move away from commercial low-fi & mid-fi stuff to a higher grade of product. I don't claim to have anywhere near what might be considered "gold ears" I'm in my yearly 50's now and my ear drums have been through h**l over the years. That said, I will attest to the fact and will stand firm that break-in does in fact exist. I have clearly heard the changes in a pair of mini-monitors, a set of full range floor standers, a sub woofer and YES a set of extreme mono's (with numerous upgrades from standard). I have heard the sound stage expand, bass deepen, highs become less grainy and no...it's not just me, my wife has commented a number of times as well, the usual comment is "what did you buy and how much did you spend" when in fact I made "no" changes to the equipment at all. Playing time and leaving SS equipment on that is what it takes.
I don't know why some gear requires a break-in period to sound it's best and I don't really care why but in some cases for some equipment it does. 
Klaus knows his equipment and from what I have experienced with his equipment I have to agree with his statements and philosophy in regard to break-in.
Now ... I'm going back to sit and listen to more music, after all it's all about the music ... Right.

Haoleb

Re: Klaus: Please comment if you desire...
« Reply #51 on: 18 Oct 2006, 02:08 am »
Good evening Klaus:
The following statement is absolutely contrary to the instructions that you offer in you "warm up and Break In" section on your website:

"I really wonder if you guys "burn in" your toaster, coffee pot, dishwasher, garbage disposal, TV set, and computer before using them.  Geeze.


I actually do like burning in ovens and toasters because when you get them brand new they tend to have this sort of burnt plastic smell to them the first couple times. Gotta burn off all the residue from manufacturing! And yes I would probably want to run at least one dry run with the coffee maker before putting the real stuff in.   :D