Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Systems G91 Break-in issues???

just to give an idea i setup my g91 on disc repeat for a week continously to burn in the digital output, better after that you shouldn't judge anything before breakin, be patient. it is always very long for CD/DAC combination, and even longer for preamp, quicker for amp.

imho

FB

There is a consumer review of a G08 which can be found here :
http://forum.hifichoice.co.uk/viewtopic.php?t=10755

In it the reviewer states :

"It took between 200 and 500 hours for the dynamic range to open up and the timbre of instruments (particularly strings) to be reproduced accurately."

Which to me does seem like a very long time but seeing as I dont own one I cant compare.

Hopefully things will get better over time for you and your new investment.

Are you sure it's not you ears that are breaking-in rather than the equipment?

Funny how HiFi and cables etc always break-in to produce a better sound, never worse!

Yours sceptically

Cliff

I think we should take into consideration the fact that if our new system sounds different (not necessarily worst) from the previous then our ears will need some time to adjust to that new sound. So equipment might well need breaking in (a phenomenon subjectively perceived by most), but then our ears also need familiarization with the way it sounds, it might be a two-way street.

I am curious to see how the G08 will sound to me later in the year, as I liked it from ground zero (previous player, still in the house, was the excellent 507.

I've had speaker cables sound bad at first then perfect only later after fully breaking in sound not so good. So yes...cables can sound good then bad. It can go the other way. If you can't hear the differences then your lucky. Matching cables to your equipment is not easy.

Soumetimes the cables can cause muddy bass, narrow soundstage, up close and in your face soundstage, no depth, no height, gritty, zing, unfocused and dull...to name a few.

I have two systems and I can play both and demonstrate the differences to a trained ear. A trained ear is someone that has that ability to focus on the soundstage and those people that do it very well are the ones that work in recording studios. Some of us at home have good ears and could have been recording engineers but never persude it. It's just like singers. Singers have the ability to hear pitch. Someone who can't hear pitch changes has a bad ear and can't sing. It doesn't mean they can't enjoy music.

I'm happy to say I have my system perfectly matched and every day it sounds wonderful. I have a few cables laying around that when I put them in my system...I would not be happy with the soundstaging. Even over time!

Ron

I would be remiss if I didn't say that one person's "bright" is another's "detailed" or "extended"

Cheers,

[This message has been edited by John Kotches (edited 06-01-2004).]

So true John..So true!

I have always been a little sceptical about the break in issue. I have always felt that I'm getting used to the sound and over time I think it sounds better. An example is the other day I had a Tom Evans CD player. A friend who has a G08 sat and listened for a short time and declared the Tom Evans CD player to be the best by a long way. At �5k it should be. We then did the test again blind and he picked the G08 3 out of 3 as been the best even after running in. We agreed that he picked the Tom Evans player because it must sound better due to the price. I think it's all psychological. Any evidence to suggest otherwise?

Cliffs

I cannot be sure that it is not my ears breaking in. Note my use of "have half convinced myself" and "am becoming more convinced". No absolutes here.

I'm an electronic engineer by background and am naturally sceptical unless there is a repeatable measurement. Belief in engineering vs mysticism in high end audio is a big part of the reason I chose Meridian. My favourite statement by a respected analog electronics engineer 12 years ago when I last designed circuits was by the famous Bob Pease of National Seminconductor. "If you see something Funny, measure Amount of Funny".

But since succombing to the siren call of the business aspects of a technology career, I no longer have access to spectrum analysers etc.

Whether my ears or the equipment, its a big difference. A track that physically made me wince two days ago with the forward, shouty upper mid now sounds smooth, realistic, even if still detailed, extended etc. This had earlier sounded to me like a significant frequency hump, I'd guess 2dB.

I'm now away for a few days, so my ears will hopefully settle down and I can reassess when I get home. Meanwhile the player is on disc repeat.

Doesn't Bob Stuart have a Ph.D in psycho acoustics or similar? Would love to know his take on all this....

Sanjay

Sanjay,

I don't think Bob has had the time to take care of the formality of getting a PhD at this point. Given his credentials, I'm not sure what value it would bear.

Besides, depending on where he was going, he could very well know far more than his examining committee.

Certainly, his body of work as original contributions to human knowledge is more than sufficient to that level of education.

Cheers,

@Sanjay

have you by any chance had the time to upgrade your software to 1.27 (latest, it's on the website)?

If you didn't, then perhaps at a latter date you will. I saw a mention in the release file about a bug which was preventing DSP software from loading. Not sure what exactly was happening, but if it refers to the upsampling DSP resource, then sound might be affected in earlier release machines.

This is just guessing, maybe someone with more precise info on the subject can tell what that was about. Anyway, if you upgrade, tell us please if you feel ANY difference in stereo sound (my understanding is that you use the analogue stereo out of the G91 to feed the G57, and in this case, upsampling should be an important prelude to the reconstruction filter).

Cheers

I'd concur with Ronomy...breaking in can go both ways. I recently bought a Musical Fidelity X-LPSv3 phono stage. With my kit, it sounded glorious straight out of the box. Alas, within about 15-20 hours of being powered up, it didn't sound a quite as good, and has remained that way since then. It's still a big upgrade on the phono stage I had before, and I've no regrets, it's just a shame that it's never sounded quite as lucid as it did in those first few hours.

My tuppence worth.

George