Quickie break-in

[aragorn723]

Hi,

I have been running the Quickie for about a year now, and am wondering what the break-in time is for the components.  There are some sounds there that weren't before, and overall it sounds more open, and vocals sound better..  I didn't run a burn-in, so there's no way to say how many hours on the caps, but something really opened up in the last week or so.

Dave

[Grainger49]

Tubes "run in" after about 50-100 hours of use.  You don't have to play music through the tubes. 

Polypropylene, PET and Polystyrene burn in after about 50-75 hours of use.  KK Teflon, and V-Cap Teflon need 200-400 hours of run in.  You need to play music through the caps.

Resistors, inductors, transformers, wire & RCA jacks will be there by the time you run in your film caps.

That is my personal experience with break in of components.

[Paul Joppa]

A convenient benchmark is the most (non-teflon) parts will be mostly broken in by the time the first set of batteries dies.

:^)

[aragorn723]

hmm maybe it was the vishay dale resistors on the input switch then.  Just put those in a month or so ago.  Its amazing how audible small changes are..  Just finished wrapping the tubes with some aluminum tape (for fixing duct work on exhaust fans) and then copper couplings on top.  That cut the microphonics down a lot (and some background noise too).  Does changing the coupling caps really make that big of a difference?  Is it noticeable enough to justify the effort of unsoldering the stock caps and dropping in something different?  Been thinking about trying the K75-10s, but mostly just to experiment, it sounds pretty good as is.

Dave

[mcandmar]

Caps will indeed make an audible difference, i'm currently experimenting with a pair of K75-10's myself with mixed results. They are mid range focused with the high end and low end recessed, but for some strange reason i cant bring myself to pull them out to try something else.  For all they cost by all means give them a try and share your impressions

[aragorn723]

The k75's are supposed to be pretty nice..  a lot of people seem to like them bypassed with teflon caps.  That would probably be the next experiment.  What kind of music have you tried them with?

Dave