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Break in blues

I just don't have the patience anymore to wait for components to settle in.That's the only caveat with having tubed components - ya can't leave em on 24/7 to speed up the process:( I have the little cartoon devil and angel on my shoulders.The devil is ocd "You've obviously made a mistake!After 3 days and 12 ENTIRE HOURS this thing sounds horrible!!Bright,congested,arrgh!!" The angel tries to sooth me"Turn it down,go do something else,don't listen at all until it's clocked in at 50 hours. "To be fair then the right thing to do is after an initial listen to some favorite tracks to give it another 50 hours then make a decision.Sigh....
So the devil suggested I swap cables and by golly he was right this time.Everything is playing together much better now.The old Gabriel Gold cable that sounded so sweet with the Rogue preamp was totally incompatible with the new Microzotl2.The new/old cable is a Siltech Paris.
The angel is a bit miffed but now at least I can get a feel for if it's a keeper or not before the deadline to return it arrives.What I like to do is play it at low volume for 4-5 hours each day then listen at the end of that period to see how it's coming along.It's been a few years since I've bought anything new and I don't remember ever being this anxious before.I don't remember auditioning a component that seemed to sound totally different day by day.Out of the box the Microzotl was excellent,next day bass heavy,next day the GLARE!Today with the new cable excellent.So if tomorrow is also excellent the angel and I will have learned something new.Cables do sound different from each other but I've never come across a situation where one was majorly incompatible.

128x128jtcf
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jtcf OP
303 posts
 
@djones51 it's hard to sit back and enjoy when you're hearing a different sonic presentation each day and trying to decide if it stays or goes back.This is the first time I've experienced such radical changes , which I now attribute to a weird reaction the MZ2 was experiencing with that cable.It sounded great out of the box and then the next two days it decidedly did not.The(my) rule of thumb is to make only one change at a time until the new thing settles in,playing the system for a few hours a day in the background and sitting down to listen critically for a short period daily.After 25-50 hours of running signal through it then I spend an evening listening to old favorites and make a decision.
Obviously something was not right so I broke my rule and tried something,found the problem,learned something new.The MZ2 is definitely a keeper and now it's time to relax and enjoy.
djones51
617 posts
 
I can understand that jtcf sometimes little changes are for the better sometimes not. I broke every rule I suppose I tossed a whole system together in about a month. New speakers, DAC, integrated amp , streamer, cables only thing I still use is my old Onkyo CDP as a transport. Couldn’t be happier and I still have about 60 days to decide on the speakers which I made a tweak to suggested by the manufacturer. 
elizabeth
6,726 posts
 
The new Pangea AC14XL power cords sound good right from the start. But day two they started sounding a bit etched in the treble.By day five the treble is really good. When I added another (breaking in on the amplifier since that uses the most AC power) with the more broken in XL around in the stereo, the annoying treble was so bad I took it off. (This is a Princess and the Pea moment)                
In general the Pangea XL once broken in are way better than the AC14SE Signature in detail and treble.. ANd have a great synergy with the Furutech Duplex. Others may not find the Pangea AC14XL to be as wonderful without them connected to Furutech GTX !!!.
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