DarTZeel Preamp

I keep coming to this thread hoping to read some valuable information on this preamp but when it's all done, I think I will just remain content with the Aesthetix and CAT gear. I guess I'm just a little too sensitive to take on all that comes with being a D'Zeel owner.

As a prospective buyer, I would expect to hear a product's full potential in a broken-in model at a dealer or a friend's home. And then as an owner, it would not be an issue for me to wait 300-400 hours for the product to reach its full potential as I heard it before. With 20 hours a week of listening, this comes to 3-4 months. But as a reviewer, I would have no tolerance for this at all. Think of the logisitics if a reviewer had to do this for the amount of products constantly under review. It's simply not realistic to expect a reviewer to do this.

The same analogy holds for test driving Hondas; I want to do this with a car that has a little mileage on it so I can truly experience the car's full capability rather than have the dealer tell me I have to keep it under 50 mph until it has 2000 miles on it. And then as an owner, waiting to get to 2000 miles is fine as I already know what is to come.

First impression is key. If the manufacturer expects me, as either the reviewer or owner, to purchase that product or report in a most positive manner, it needs to provide me the opportunity right away to experience that product's full potential....otherwise I am very likely to go elsewhere. And this is the whole idea of "test drive" cars.

If there was ever a lesson learned here, this amplifier should never have gone out until it already had the specified burn-in time. There would have been no doubt that any reported findings were due to other issues and not that the amp was fresh out of the box.

John

Jafox, I HATE to see you wallow in a state of contentedness so I will take the Aesthetix and CAT stuff off yer hands!! Oh how you must be suffering with no axes to grind or up-graditis fever!! But hey! I am an altruistic guy so I will take yer stuff and suffer for you!! No one should have to be right to be "content" in this crazy hobby ;-)

Actually, I am in the same horrendous condition - content! But it sure feels good!

What concerns me about this thread more than anything else is not the name calling between parties (which IMO is nothing other than childlike) but rather the comments made about Jeff Fritz and his not breaking in this unit before his review.

Fmfrnd (who is also a reviewer for Soundstage)has discussed with Jeff his use of the unit for 5 weeks in the course of his review. Surely that must be adequate break-in. Notwithstanding this however I continue to read comments from JTinn, Mike Lavigne and Hooper that this unit must be adequately broken in before its full potential is reached. Now having said this from the very DarTZeel manual as revealed by fmfrnd it comments that out of the box with cold start this unit is 90% of its potential and after 5 minutes of warm up has reached pretty much as good as it gets. Further the manual states that these units have 4 weeks of factory burn in before shipping.

So what are we supposed to believe? Why are you people claiming that further and more extensive burn-in is required?

When I hooked up My Lamm ML 2.1's straight out of the box the sound then IMO is as good then as it is now. Vladimir Lamm states that all units get 80 hours of burn in at the factory and each unit performs to its full potential after 50 minutes of warm up. I have found this to be true.

My question then to you three is what gives?--how can you have your cake and eat it too. Why would the manual give false information to burn-in?

I would submit to you and to all who read this thread that listening over 4 weeks of burn does absolutely nothing further for the betterment of the unit (if the manual is correct). Rather what is changing is that of psychacoustics. Ones frame of reference changes and that "flavor" that we have all discussed changes. I have asked many times with new gear that I buy (taught to me by mentor)--"do I hear something different or do I hear something better?"

To constantly read how layers of the onion are peeled off and ones frame of reference changes may be OK but I must say that I am a skeptic based on fmfrnds recent posts.

Now that doesn't mean that I am denying you 3 the pleasure that you claim this unit gives to your listening experience but I am wondering if this could be a case of the Emperor's new clothes? Sorry to harp on it JTinn and Mike but the revelation of the manual for me was quite disturbing

imisutar@sutarcom.ir: I understand why you feel the way you do, but there is a lot more to the story then FMPND leads everyone to believe. I responded yesterday and for some reason the response never made it to this thread.

If you read my earlier post, you will see that although I still feel the way I do, I do regret wording it the way I did. Please re-read this thread.

Fmpnd: Now regarding the darTZeel owner's manual and the 4 week break-in, the intention was to do just that. Once we were extremely back-ordered, it became obvious that the 4 week factory break-in could not be done and customers would not wait an extra month to recieve their amplifiers. I made everyone who purchased an amp aware of the it up front. No one had a problem with it.

As far as the pricing, I do not know where the 12k comes in, but darTZeel was looking for distribution and held the price as low as they could for as long as possible. Since you work in a bank, I am sure you are better informed than you lead on as to how much the dollar actually took a dive. I am sure if you do a little more detective work, you will find that the newer price corresponds directly with the decreased value of the dollar along with the added cost for the addition of the balanced connections and the DC compensation circuit.

You sure seem to be wasting a lot of your time researching all these things just to point out how evil I am. Don't you have anything better to do? If you continue to target me with these lies and exaggerations, I will certainly let the Audiogon community know the truth about you and your dealings with your so-called friends. If integrity is in question here, it works both ways.

I got a kick out of the previous post. You seemed so proud of yourself as if you had discovered the location of the Arc of the Covenant.

The products that Jtinn represents always seem to provoke some sort of contreversy, and usually some vitriol. I remember when no one could dare suggest that tenor amps were not the best ever created. Not that I have any money, but I would certainly think twice about buying a product from someone who refers to someone with a differin opinion as "slimy" or who disparage a publication becauese they expressed their honest opinion. And what was that dreadful opinion? Before buying this product you should be sure to listen to some other products in the same price range. Actually, I wish more reviewers would be such "hard hitting" jounalists.