Phono pre "Break-In" process? Necessary?


Just ordered a new phono preamp from Jolida  (J9II). Is there a break in process I should be aware of? Or do I simply play normal and realistically believe that it will open up as time goes on. Also, how much can one expect this pre will improve over time?


markeetaux

Showing 1 response by thom_at_galibier_design

TLDR (too long, didn't read) ...

I don't know if it was mentioned yet but one of the biggest "break-in offenders" is capacitors.  Some Teflon caps are notorious for taking multiple hundreds of hours and they go through weird stages along the way.  They sometimes get worse before they get better.  I won't get into the why's here (I'm guessing there were contentious statements both for and against, and I don't have time to discuss).

Most capacitors are not like this however and 50 hours 'll do ya fine.  It doesn't hurt to get the manufacturer's take on this.

Jim Hagerman used to sell an inverse RIAA circuit.  I don't know if he still does.  It allowed you to run a CD signal into your phono stage (dropping the gain by ~44dB and inverting the RIAA eq) so you can hear music amplified through it.  50 hours occurs a lot faster when listening to CDs vs. changing 150 record sides ;-)

Of course, if it sounds fine out of the box, it will only get better (one would hope), so you needn't jump through hoops unless you want to.

Cheers,
Thom @ Galibier Design