There is no useful answer to the question; circumstances vary greatly. There is gear that I found instantly appealing, but, over a longer period of time my annoyance over faults grew to the point that I disliked it. It does help to take enough time to assess something for its negative attributes. If you don’t like something at the outset, it is harder to expect familiarity to improve things to the point where one would love it later. But, it doesn’t hurt to again give it time. Also, the sound of any component can be optimized in a system by making adjustments. For example, one can change speaker placement to compensate for a negative change wrought by the new component; again, these experiments take time.
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?