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Poor man's IC cooker?

I'm in the process of testing a number of new ICs for my preamp to amp link, and was debating what to do about burning them in. I want to get a quick turnaround on the burn in so I can spend more of the 30 day trial period offered by the manufacturers listening and comparing.

Since my peamp has dual outs I figured I could use one set as a burn point, letting me listen to the other output while cables are cooking on the first. So what I did was go to Ratshack and buy their 4 jack RCA phono board (274-322). I soldered 100KOhm 1/2W dummy loads to each of the outer jacks. I plug the cables from the preamp to the loads and have a nice stable load for burn in. I decided to use my FM tuner as a source. I have a Yamaha T-2, which allows me to tune so that I get a combination of FM white noise and some signal from a selected station. I set the preamp to half volume and let it go. My only concern is whether that's a good signal mix for burn in.

I figure 3-4 days of this and each pair of ICs will be burned in pretty well. And I can do it 24 hours a day without keeping myself awake. Does this sound like a decent plan?

I will, of course, run the cables with actual music for at least a couple of hours when they get inserted for listening.
tonyptony

Showing 7 responses by tonyptony

tonyptony OP
628 posts
 
I'm glad to hear that this seems like a good way to go. Jeff, unfortunately the only sources I have are my turntable and CD player, neither of which I want to run for a couple of hundred hours straight.

I picked 100KOhms because that approximates the input impedance of my amp. I've been wondering if I would actually be able to do a better job if I cut that in half. That would still be high enough to provide a decent high impedance source for my preamp, and as it is pretty much a resistive load I shouldn't have any trouble with any sort of weird reactance. Or I could just turn the volume up on my preamp, I guess.
tonyptony OP
628 posts
 
Hmm, that's a great thought, Jeff. We do have a Goodwill store a short drive away.
tonyptony OP
628 posts
 
I just had a thought. I'm sure this has been discussed, but WRT dropping the load resistance... what is the more important component to burning in an IC - voltage or current? If I drop the load value I also drop the voltage across the two conductors in the cable. Granted I do increase the delivered current, but which one is more important?
tonyptony OP
628 posts
 
Isn't a value that low a little risky, Bob? Is there a concern that a preamp may not be able to drive into a load that small without potential problems?
tonyptony OP
628 posts
 
Okay, I see that. But that would suggest current is more important than voltage for IC burn in. Do we know this to be the case? I mean, it is a tradeoff to some degree. Isn't a higher voltage better for dielectric break in purposes?
tonyptony OP
628 posts
 
Thanks 76! I'm just a little lost here; can you pass along the link to his site?
tonyptony OP
628 posts
 
Thanks for the link, Matty. The Hagerman looks pretty nice. A number of positive posts about it from Audio Asylum users, too.
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