Ideally you’d want to have your amps on also actually. You want the signal going all the way through every piece of solder, wire, capacitor, etc. The DAC has small amps/power for the output signal that you want going through it’s paces during break in, and out through the last bit of circuits and wires and such. It’s not just the actual DAC chip that is the only thing getting broken in. I mean you have an entire huge analog section that is like half the DAC after the DAC chip that needs to be broken in and have a signal going out through it to some amps. While it will mostly break in still with the amps off I feel I got better results with them on. Without the amps on I don't think the signal has any place to travel and be used and is not actually traveling a signal through if there are no amps on to use that signal. I’d alternate between leaving them on and having them off since I didn’t like having my amps on constantly.
But yeah this thing really does need 100 hours or so at least to break in. Mine was dramatically better after about 100 hours. Supposedly it takes up to 400 hours to be 100% done some have said. Seems minimal so far after 100 though. But I think I read that others have said it can go in spurts even after the 100 hours.
It’s definitely an incredible DAC. Mine benefited by using the USB regen. The regen still makes a big difference even on the yggy.
