Breaking in the Teflon Caps upgrade.

[tonye]

My PV9 (*) is back at the factory. I'm getting it upgraded with the Teflon Caps.

How long will it take for the caps to break in?

Can I break it in by just turning it on with the amps turned off?

Should I drive some white noise through it?

What can I expect sound wise?

I sent the preamp to CJ because it had developed an issue with a very slow turn on, but the deal is that doing the cap upgrade will also fix the problem so it was a win-win from my point of view.

BTW- I've owned this preamp since '89. Had it "fixed" once in LA... took three months to get one part.. ever since, I've shipped it twice to CJ... once for a diode, another for a general clean up. I strongly recommend having the factory do all repairs and upgrades, faster, less hassles, done right.

Tony

(*) NOT a PV9A

[admin]

Hi Tony.

First, welcome to CJO. Nice to have you with us.

As for your questions:

How long will it take for the caps to break in?

Opinions will vary but many say up to 200 hours.

Can I break it in by just turning it on with the amps turned off?

As this is a preamp, I see no reason why you would have to have your amps on. However, you may want to provide a source signal.

Should I drive some white noise through it?

I don't think it really matters whether it is white noise, music, talk radio, or any signal with reasonable amplitude.

What can I expect sound wise?

The millage will vary but people report the sound becoming more clear, better spatial separation, greater musicality, etc. Overall better sound.


Other's may have different experiences or opinions.

[jeffreybehr]

FIVE-hundred, not two-hundred, hours. As Admin writes, just play music into it. This process does NOT need the poweramp(s) to be turned on, as a preamp's load in the poweramp is passive--that is, just a resistor and sometimes a DC-blocking, high-pass capacitor.

I hear more transparency overall with the best caps including Teflon-films--that is, more good music and less bad grunge*--as Admin wrote more specifically.

* Do understand that parts in music-reproduction systems can do only two things to the music, and both are bad--they remove some of the music and they add various forms of distortion. The higher-quality parts do these things to lesser degrees.

[tonye]

500 hours! Dang, that's a long time. I'll think I'll park it in my office with something running into it and let her rip for a month or so.

Assuming I have the patience.

Right now I replaced the PV9 with a DIY First Watt B1. The sound is quite different. The B1 has much tighter bass but it sounds clinical in comparison. It also lacks the drive to drive the amps. DIY Clones of Pass Aleph 5s. Also, I'm driving a Grado phono preamp -Grado Master 2 on a Linn LP12.. and the sound is also different through that preamp. It's quieter for sure but I like the way the PV9 makes the music sound.

For speakers I rotate a pair of Acoustic Energy AE1s or a pair of Maggie 1.7s. The AE1s are superb at showing off the sound of whatever is ahead. I can easily hear the difference, and in some ways they prefer the tonal flatness of the B1. The Maggies, OTOH, are nowhere a monitor speaker. They add their "Maggieness" to everything. Their bass mates perfectly with the Alephs AND the PV9. Midrange and treble... in the house -within their dynamic limitations that is (*). The AE1s -with Entec woofers- play Rock'n'Roll and everything else LOUD and CLEAR... you hear the mix clearly. BUT, play bluegrass over the Maggies and you're floored. Even Frank Zappa, Live At The Roxy... he's right there. The bigger Maggies with the bass qualities of the PV9 are made for each other ( OK, I guess an ARC SP-14 will too...).

What I get now, Maggies with PV9, is fast bass slam, deep soundstage, smooth and extended treble, excellent separation of instruments in the mix and a smoothness of bad recordings. I guess what I want from the upgrade is better separation of instruments (microdynamics?) and possibly a more realistic soundstage.

Hint: play David Grissman / Jerry Garcia's Arabia. If that recording is not in your room, then you should junk your stereo, give up on audio and get a Bose.

(*) 100 watts is nothing for a Maggie. They need 100 watts to wake up... I really need to look at 200 watts soon. But when you look for good amps, meaning no solid state bipolar AB stuff, the price and heft scales up quickly.

[jeffreybehr]

500 hours! Dang, that's a long time. I'll think I'll park it in my office with something running into it and let her rip for a month or so. Assuming I have the patience.
...

Tonye, just leave it turned on and playing music, driving the turned-off poweramps(s). That doesn't require any patience--the break-in occurs 24/7 while you're doing something else.

I've been breaking-in quads of 6DJ8-type tubes in my PS Audio BHK300 poweramps. I had a total of 14 sets* of tubes (including the originals), and at 100 hours per set, THAT took a long time! Just turn it on and let it play music.

* My wonderful wife occasionally calls me Mr. Excess for good reason.

[bear]

I second jeffreybehr. But in my experience at least 600 hours is the minimum break in time. You'll get a slow improvement thereafter up until about 1000 hours. And don't get frustrated. I don't know the reason but the sound quality goes from good to worse to better and back to bad again during break in. But in the end the sound levels out to an extraordinary sound. Have patience!

[admin]

Apparently, others recommend longer break-in periods than what I have used. That's fine. You really can't go wrong by being patient and having a longer break-in period. If you are going to go for 600+ hours you may want to buy a really cheap set of tubes as that is starting to eat into tube life to a significant degree. Of course, you want to break-in tubes as well but I think those take less time.

[tonye]

Well, I have broken in many tube sets ( power, low level...) in the past. I've also broken in cables. Finding a place in the house to do the cap break in is not a problem since I got several systems up and running plus the Audio Museum Closet.

The current set of tubes in the preamp have less than 100 hours in them, so I'm keeping them.

It's just that I'm really excited about upgrading the preamp this way.

[Gregory Earl]

Tonye, let us know how the break-in goes. I'm interested in hearing how much of an improvement the caps make. I'll need to do this down the road. Heck, I may be overdue. I like what I'm hearing from my PV-11 right now.

[roberto]

Hola Tonye...why don´t you enjoy the process of the breaking time? We all, the users of Teflon Caps, had that fun. At the beginning, the sound is not that bad, you still can listen to the music. Of course, it will be get much, much better. It is like a cocoon transformation into a beautiful butterfly. I do not know how many hours I have on my beloved ET-7, but still is doing a transformation for good. Congratulations for your decision to do the change. This change will be granted with tons of pure quality sound!
Happy listening!

[Bill Stevenson]

At the risk of making enemies, I must strenuously disagree with the consensus vis a vis break in of electronics. I know that taking a position in opposition to conventional wisdom is not likely to win friends. Please take my comments as intended to stir lively discussion and not in any way as personal attack. So here goes. For the record I believe that break in of electronic components is at best of minor importance and the effect is often imperceptible. Here are my reasons:
1. High quality components such as used by cj are excellent right out of the box, there is just not much margin for improvement for in-spec components,
2. Time is not on the side of the listener, our hearing memory is extremely short - in fact a matter if seconds for all practical purposes,
3. Experience of having worked in high end retail has afforded me the opportunity to compare freshly opened components against identical broken in ones, and almost never has there been any significant difference in sound or measured performance in properly functioning ones.

With all of that said, cartridges and speakers do benefit from break in more that electronics and there is no doubt that all components benefit a bit. But to claim to hear benefits after x-hundred hours defies credibility. That sort of belief falls into the realm of self fulfilling delusion.

[admin]

Bill,

I hear where you are coming from. I'm not sure if I completely agree but I am always up for lively discussion.

I do believe I have heard significant sound change in some components. Namely tubes and speakers. I have to freely admit that I have not heard a significant change in breaking in interconnect, power, or speakers cables. I am really "iffy" about hearing changes in solid state components. Most of my music listening system was bought preowned so I didn't have the opportunity to hear the components being broken in initially. I have a separate system for my home theater setup and I have not really heard break in for those components. But those are not as high end (Onkyo receiver, Oppo Digital player, and Polk Audio speakers).

[roberto]

Bill, never enemies, friends is what I will call it. I do believe that sound is a matter of liking. It is like food. You might like meat, or you can be a vegetarian. But how to cook your meal, is the clue. Some of us hate garlic. Others love it! Some like the food with different kinds seasoning. A dash here, and another dash there, could make a big difference in taste.

If you do a comparison with 1 minute on device A and another minute with device B, or one hour on device A and one hour on device B? This kind of test will not work. First of all, you have to listen a lot of time, where your long term memory is. Our immediate memory is not too good. So, we have to use our long term memory, and this, takes time. While you listen with enough time, you will find the differences that we are talking about. This might be not that important to you, and this is OK. I am not imposing that you must believe what I say. The transparency, the timbre, the harmonic texture, the air between the instruments, the stage, everything had changed for good with time. When I took out of the box, my ET-7 was not giving to me love...it was a good sound, but I can assure you that now it is giving to me a lot of love...

You have the right to agree or disagree with my points of view. I am only commenting what I am listening in my system. I am not taking your post as direct to me. I am saying this, because I do hear a lot of difference once the unit had being used for a while. Again, if I like it yellow, and you red, that´s OK. Why should I get mad to you? Learning from you, I might start to like the red...

1) Right out of the box, the sound is not quite good. Not good enough for my ears. The stage is cramped...and with regular use, this stage starts to get wider and the truly sense of 3D starts to be developed.
2) That memory is called short term memory, and it is a shame that we have it so bad. In a trained ears last only about 20 seconds or so.
3) Good for you Bill. Having on your hands so many different brands on your ears, make your ears to understand how each brand sound. Listening to a different brands, make your ears to judge better what you like or what you do not.

Also, there is no big deal if I can not hear things that you can. (you are not saying this, its me who is saying it). What it is the most important thing, is that I am enjoying all these wonderful musician(s) from all over the world, and I listen to them, here in my own place. Using quality components make better the quality of the overall sound.

A big hug to all you from Costa Rica,
Roberto.

[Bill Stevenson]

Roberto,

With respect, my argument is this: If I stole into your house without your knowledge and switched your ET7 for a brand new one, right out of the box, you would be very unlikely to detect the difference. The sound difference you perceived is what you expected to hear and you have convinced yourself that break in made a difference that you could detect after a lot of listening. This is a doubtful premise and it is one that has not been substantiated by any verifiable and repeatable method to the best of my knowledge. But if it makes you happy to believe it, that is your prerogative. My objection is that you are advocating for a point of view that is clearly an exaggeration and in a forum that is likely to influence others. Please note, I am not saying that break in makes no difference at all, rather that it is of minor importance. If a new component sounds better after a period of adjustment it is very likely that this is due to the training of the ears rather than a substantial change in the sound of the equipment. Put another way, cj does not ship equipment that does not sound right.

You raise a related subject that is very important and that is the matter of time exposure. Much has been written about double blind testing. If a listener listens to a sound bite for a short period of time and then does a switch to listen to another sound bite for a short period of time, which for simplicity is called an a-b comparison, and then decides to prefer a or b or neither, what is accomplished? It would seem you are advocating that this sort of test accomplishes nothing. If I understand you correctly, we are in agreement on this point. It is far better to listen to music for hours, or even days to acquire a sense of the sonic signature of the artist, the instrument(s), the timbre, the whole ambience of the musical experience before switching to compare to something else. Even a different record or CD off the same master can sound completely different. But it is only in this way that subtle differences can be reliably and repeatedly heard. Or at least that is my belief and it would seem your too. Take care.

Bill

[roberto]

Thank you Bill for taking your time and explain to me your believe, even that I am not truly convinced. I am not saying that my ears are out of this world, but what I am saying is that I am in heaven as never before. You can ask Jeff Fisher about my questions and about why everything was not precise at the beginning, as I was thinking ...he told me to wait a couple of weeks, and do another critical listening with my beloved music. I do not know what had happened, but listening into the music, suddenly something snapped for good...everything started to have more air, and separation, with tons of better harmonic texture...and since them, I am having nirvana. My system never sound as it is now, on these days, not before. The wife is with me on this too.

I do not want to convince you...you have your liking and your knowledge. I am learning from you! Thank you so much for taking your time to respond to me. I studied 14 years classical guitar. So, you get used to the brands of the strings that some Spanish classical guitar player use. I can call these brands easy. Also the fingering. This is something that amused me. I understand what the musician is doing and also in which string he is plucking the musical notes. I can not do this before as easy it is now. The size of the guitar projected in my room, is really fantastic.

These are my parameters, a reason why I am so astonished with these new products.

Happy listening!

[bear]

Those who claim that things do not need break in are just plain wrong. Read the Graham Slee forums for the best explanation of why this is so for electronics.

[Bill Stevenson]

Roberto,

I am happy that your strings sound right to you now and believe me, as a musician myself, I understand what you are talking about. Along with my music system I have a piano and a set of drums in my listening room. On a well recorded piece I can tell you not only who is playing, but often the brand of the instrument. This is particularly so for percussion instruments such as pianos (Oscar Peterson played a magnificent Bosendorfer on the Exclusively For My Friends series recorded in Germany, which sounds different from his more usual Baldwins and occasional Steinways) Also listen Marian McPartland who favored Yamahas). I chose these artists because they were usually well recorded. The quality of the recording is paramount to what we can hear. I can tell you what kind of material drum heads are made out of such as calf skin (Mel Lewis always played them as did Shelly Manne in his early career) vs. early plastic (epitomized by Joe Morello for example). Wire brushes are much more revealing than sticks to my ears. Anyway, it takes a very good recording, a great system, and a trained ear to hear this stuff. How important are broken-in Teflon caps? Minor. Sorry Graham Slee, but not a big deal. And why are we worried about Graham Slee anyway, when we all presumably prefer cj?

Bill

[roberto]

There is a recording by the drummer Steve Davis, DMP brand disc recording, that you can listen when he is using his hand to play the side drum and also when he use a stick.

I have some friends that occasionally we get together and do some recordings. We like bossa nova type or smooth latin music. If you PM with and give me your email address, I can send to you what we are doing. These recordings are just for fun, and there is no commercial intention.

Happy listening!

[Big Dog RJ]

Great discussion on break-in time and it's parameters.
This has been discussed on many other forums for years, with no positive outcome...
The beauty of this forum is not to worry Bill, we are still friends as we all share a true passion for musicality and that's CJ!

Thanks to Admin, and his great efforts to develop a site like this, it is a joy of tremendous value to discuss and compare high quality gear openly without being judged... Which happens a lot on other forums and I'm beginning to get tired of it!

As Roberto mentioned, there is a sudden moment when it all sort of clicks into place and the heavens open... I have experienced this on every CJ component I've owned personally but always thought it was more a conscious state of mind and something that the brain was getting accustomed to rather than an actual phenomenon. Whatever...

But then again as Bill says and as CJ states in nearly all of their owners manuals, warm up time can take around 15mins!
Therefore, I no longer stress about break-ins, rather wait out the 15mins, pour that scotch & light that cigar, and all is well... Until the alcohol kicks in then certainly everything sounds super fine indeed!
Cheers Maties, RJ

[tonye]

So, I got the preamp yesterday ( had to chase down the UPS truck... monkeys...)

According to CJ, they burnt in the preamp to make sure it was working, so I plugged it into the living room (main) system. And I turned it on.

Did not wait to let the amps and preamp to warm up... so I played some old Traffic 24/96 files that I recorded a couple of years ago (older cartridge too).

This was testing the line stage... within five minutes I could begin to hear it.

So, after half an hour, I turned to the Linn/Grado Master 2.

First, Traffic: John Barleycorn must die. Did you know that there's a glorious metal percussion ( cymbal ) on the left side. Now, this is a record I've had since '77 and I'm familiar with it. But now I started to hear more into the mix. Instruments and voices were clearer... although the bass was a little "loose" (Maggie 1.7s, DIY Aleph 5s).

So, right there I had Pat Benatar's Precious TIme, couldn't resist, did not bother to run the woofers -mind you, my current setup is NOT a hard rock system, amazing... really amazing. The top end is now extended and I can hear into the mix and follow instruments.

After that, I shut the system down and went to make dinner. This is now a system that is getting so good that when it's playing music you got to pay attention.

Planning to spend a bit of time every day for a while listening. As it now stands, out of the factory, it already sounds really good. I just needs the customary 30 minutes of warm up.

BTW, parts wise the upgrade does look pricey. I briefly looked inside and I think I only saw like 6 new capacitors -white ones. However, it now looks like ALL caps are CJ's. But, I suppose since you can only get these parts from CJ and the volume for them must be very small, I can't compare the pricing with volume caps made in the millions. Pretty much these are custom caps.

Now, I may have to hide the Lingo upgrade from my wife.