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 waterzlife

Re: burning in a speaker....
An audio friend came over with a new aquisition that he wanted to try in my system ...a used digital processor.  He plugged it into my system...flipped on the amp and...
WHUMP-POOF!
In an instant, the square wave amplified by my 250w/ch amp pushed the woofers cones several inches further than they were designed for - and started smoking mightily.  

Instant burn-in...no long waiting.