500 hours to achieve the point of usability? I have to listen to a forward and fatiguing musical presentation for 6 months (20 hours a week) before I can enjoy my music again? I don't think so! Who is going to put up with this?
And then how do we really know the product "changed" after all this time? Or, did we simply adapt to its sonic signature and accept this over time? The only way to know for sure is to then drop in a new pair and do a comparison? And, does the removal of the older pair disturb the gremlins such that we need to go through another burn-in period?
It is one thing to get some refinements in the sound as a product settles down, but I expect something half-way decent from the start. Why should audio gear be any different than any other product in this regard?
On the issue of speaker efficiency, I run an older pair of SoundLab A1s. They do not have the latest cores but they do have the latest electronics. I suspect they are in the mid 80s of efficiency. Even if the AA speaker cables were not optimal with these speakers, it does not explain why there was such a prominent midrange hump whether driven by CAT JL-3 or Wolcott amps at low and high volume levels. Only the Coincident TRS speaker cables exhibited anything like this in past but not at all to the level of the AA speaker cables. No other speaker cables, Kubala-Sosna Emotion, Purist Opis, Coincident Xtreme, NBS Statement, Silver Audio Symphony48, PS Audio Statement, etc., exhibited such a forwardness and fatigue.
The final statements by Btstrg sums it up for me.
John
And then how do we really know the product "changed" after all this time? Or, did we simply adapt to its sonic signature and accept this over time? The only way to know for sure is to then drop in a new pair and do a comparison? And, does the removal of the older pair disturb the gremlins such that we need to go through another burn-in period?
It is one thing to get some refinements in the sound as a product settles down, but I expect something half-way decent from the start. Why should audio gear be any different than any other product in this regard?
On the issue of speaker efficiency, I run an older pair of SoundLab A1s. They do not have the latest cores but they do have the latest electronics. I suspect they are in the mid 80s of efficiency. Even if the AA speaker cables were not optimal with these speakers, it does not explain why there was such a prominent midrange hump whether driven by CAT JL-3 or Wolcott amps at low and high volume levels. Only the Coincident TRS speaker cables exhibited anything like this in past but not at all to the level of the AA speaker cables. No other speaker cables, Kubala-Sosna Emotion, Purist Opis, Coincident Xtreme, NBS Statement, Silver Audio Symphony48, PS Audio Statement, etc., exhibited such a forwardness and fatigue.
The final statements by Btstrg sums it up for me.
John

