Burning/breaking in new equipment?


I am a complete beginner to stereo equipment, never having even owned so much as a record or CD, but I have been reading about it and found what I thought were good deals, so I pulled the trigger this weekend.

The following are on their way:

Benchmark DAC3 (DAC and preamp)
Bryston 4B3 (power amplifier)
KEF R900 (speakers)
XLR cables (from Benchmark)

I have read that new equipment needs to be broken in for about 100 hours. Does that mean I have to play music through them for 100 hours at the same volume I would use when listening or can I play it at a much lower volume?

Note: I am a little worried that the above system might be too bright, sharp or clinical (as I have read about the previous generations of Bryston amps) but I am trying to go for clean, pure, true, honest, accurate, transparent — whatever that means, but I am thinking I want it to sound like what the artists, producers, directors, audio engineers, etc intended when they created, mixed and mastered each track, with nothing artificial added by the equipment. I also went with companies with more solid engineering and less marketing.

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bobk3

Showing 1 response by blindjim


Congrats on the new gear!!

Is it all brand new, not just new to you?

I don’t care much for hyperbole and conjecture aimed at run in routines or breakin periods and consequent trials.

The first thing I’m doing when new stuff arrives is to hook it all up and turn it all on, and listen to what it sounds like right out of the box. I’ll listen, if possible for a few hours playing whatever. UNLESS … it sounds off too much to deal with.

I mean geeezz, the speakers at least need setting up. That takes a few minutes. Lol it can take days and one should not spike them until they are well run in and positioned properly.

You’ll know the speakers run in when it quits changing audibly, becomes more consistent, and begins to become better nearly every time you sit down for a session. Then it will finally stop improving. That is when it is run in.

Setting up speakers is well covered if one but Googles for it.

How long it takes depends on how long you allow it to run and at what levels. There’s all kinds of weird speculation on this and that surrounding breaking in gear.

Essentially, it simply comes down to turning it on and letting it run.

I’ll plus one @Inna indicating varying run times and volume levels in the first few days and or weeks playing various genres. Later on, yeah, then you can floor it.

My lone caveat is simple…. Heat. If heat can be well maintained, keeping stuff on only risks inadvertent power failures, spikes or brown outs. To circumvent those little possible disasters I merely limit the time the system is fully energized never keeping anything on all the time.

I’m a huge proponent of ‘everything matters” in a rig, from the room to isolation footers under the devices. Wires too.

And yes… some music is recorded better than others, so CD quality is questionable now and then. Only your own EXP & ears, matters there.

Personally, for fun, I’m a note taker for various reasons. They support or deny later changes better than my memory. Going forward its all on your preffs and being as objective and honest as you can with your judgements.

Congrats and enjoy…. Yay.