I hope break in is true

Never purchsed from MD...but

http://www.musicdirect.com/products/detail.asp?sku=ACARCD

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Picked up one of the ayre discs today...this should be interesting. I'll report back what I find.

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Well....I received the disc the day after I ordered it from music direct. I popped it in and ran it for a week through the electronics & about a third to half the time through the speakers also. The level is set via the first & fourth tracks (sweep tone & brown noise). The one track that is out of phase is a bit of a mind bender as you walk around the room. The 'warble' (constructive & destructive interference) I hear in the long sweep tone makes the work I need to do on the room acoustics 'audible' in an organized sort of way. I had the room treatments planned out already, but it'll be interesting to use this disc both before & after the treatments to hear the difference.

My setup was in various stages of 'break-in' with the ICs being just a week old, the CDP a year old, though it surely didn't have over 75 hours on it, tubes are NOS Raytheon 5751 grays. The speakers are 25 years old...I'm guessing they must have gotten broken in by now, though they have been refoamed in the last year. The basic system is a Jolida 100A CDP, TAD150 sig pre, McCormack DNA-1 deluxe, VH Audio silver IC's (DIY), braided Cat 5 biwire cables (VH Audio DIY design) into Snell Type Ai's.

While I'm pretty skeptical about many of the tweaks that get glowing reviews(though I thought the same about cables & IC's and I'm over that...they do matter) I have to admit the system does sound more relaxed/open, even though I thought it sounded very good before the disk. Probably the biggest difference is the sharp attack of BIll Evans or George Winston on the keys sounds more natural. Cymbals sound cleaner & seem to hang in the air longer too. Undoubtedly this impact carries over into other music/instruments. The sound change is hard to describe, but I think it's a definite improvement. The changes are enough that I'd buy the disc & do it all over again if I had to...I guess that's the ultimate test with something like this.

Sean,

Thanks for your thoughts. With regard to your cabling comments, what would you suggest to break them in? I've heard mention of "cable cookers" though haven't looked beyond that to understand what they are.

Regarding the center imaging...my image didn't move around that much. The speakers are moderately towed in and about 12-16 (inside corners) inches off the back wall per the Snell setup instructions. The setup isn't optimized yet as I think I need to tame to room down before an optimium can be heard/identified. The equipment is in the balcony of a vaulted ceiling over the living room. Plenty of slap echo with a moderate amount of rinnngggg. The long sweep tone did get louder or quieter quite a bit as the sweep tone increased in frequency(sort of a warble). I assume this is the room nodes showing themselves as a function of frequency....indicating the work needed on treatment.

I'll spin the disc up for another week and see where things go. Any thoughts on what this disk may do to tubes? I have a couple sets of different tubes for the pre & CDP that I'd like to try. Maybe I better install them after the next period on the disc.

thanks,