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How Soon Do You Realize You Don't Like a Piece of Gear?

I've been running all Allnic H3000 for a bit and love it. I decided to try a solid state transimpedance phono, The Grail by Van Den Hul and am coming out unconvinced of the change. The VDH has only been powered on for 24 hours and not fully broken in yet, which is estimated to be around 50-100 "listening hours". 

I don't hate the VDH, but am curious if it's going to grow on me or not. It has the detail, silence and linearity in spades, but my Allnic has the gravity, lushness, depth and ethereal timber I've grown to absolutely love. How soon until I should cut my losses and move back the Allnic and what are your thoughts on break-in time and waiting it out? 

j-wall

Showing 1 response by ghdprentice

ghdprentice
7,543 posts
 

You must give it time to break in. But in all honesty, unless you were looking to have a more analytical sound the move from tubes to solid state was probably not a good move. Also, in terms of sound quality (without regard to the sound family) I always increase the cost by 2x or it is likely to be lateral. 
 

I would recommend finding a used Audio Research Reference 3 phonostage. I think this would be a significant upgrade on all respects.

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