An update to mu original post. Luckily for me (and very unusually for a Monday) I have some free time today. The amps have been up and running since about 7:00am this morning, so I reckon I've not far off double their total running since my first post in this thread. Anyway, I reckon Antoine made some very good points in his earlier post, more of that later, but the key point for me is that I have broken one of my own golden rules. That rule is to never change more than one thing at a time, and if you do change one thing, change nothing else for at least two weeks, better still a month. This is a rule that I have learnt the hard way over a number of years. You can fiddle around with your system, try this, try that, make a couple of changes one weekend, have a quick listen and it sounds great. Result! A couple of weeks later, you are listening to something, and you notice something significant, it could be good or bad, and the trouble is, you have no idea what has caused it. I made this mistake last weekend. What I should have done is got the new amps, and simply switched them into my system, changing noting else for at least a month. If I had done that, all would be clear now, anything new or different I might be noticing in listening would be due to the 1000 Pro. I had my reasons, the reconfiguration of the rack and system I knew would be a time consuming and frustrating task, and I also knew it was something that I could happily put off almost indefinitely, hence my plan to take the opportunity of having to switch amps to get all this done.
Anyway, for whatever the reason, I was left thinking, was there anything I had changed that might be having a negative impact? Antoine picked up on the additional connection to the Mutec. In fact this extra connection was optical, so I doubted that this would be problematic. Also, I have an additional CD player connected to the Devialet. Could this be generating a ground loop? Unlikely I thought, but it was a change, so for good order I disconnected this and the optical to the Mutec. I could not see that these items would make much difference, and this proved to be the case. However, the principle remains the same, had I inadvertently changed anything else? One thing occurred to me. When I first had the microRendu, powered by 9V iFi, it ran nicely warm. When I added the Mutec, which draws current via USB, the microRendu ran worryingly hot. At the time I solved this by getting a large drill box from my garage, and this is quite a substantial box which includes all the additional +0.5mm drill sizes. Crude, but sticking a large metal mass on the microRendu did keep the temperatures in check. During my rack rebuild last week I looked at this stupid drill box and put it back where it belongs in the garage and replaced it with a metal plate that I found, far neater, but far lower in mass. Anyway, thinking about this change this morning, with the Mutec switched on the microRendu was again getting worryingly hot, so I reinstated the drill box. With a bit of listening this morning, things do appear much improved, I think the super hot microRendu was having a negative impact on sound quality. (coincidentally, Pimm has posted comments about super hot Mac Mini's today, so we have an inadvertent trend here) So I am happy to report that after a bit more listening this afternoon, yes, things are sounding quite splendid! So, is it the microRendu running cooler, or is it just the fact that I've stuck a few more hours on the amps? Due to the breaking of my golden rule I will never know!
One thing, reading back through a few posts, I have noted one or two comments that brand new Pro's maybe sounded a bit forward, more treble, a touch harsh, all comments I recognise during my first 20 hours or so of running in anger. So as someone who does not really believe in 'burn in' or electronics settling down, I have to say that I am beginning to become genuinely convinced that for what ever reasons Devialet's do not sound their best when very new. This comes after my experience of the Mutec, which I am also convinced kept improving over about two months.
On top of this I think that new kit paranoia does kick in and mess with your mind, but it is fair to say that this afternoon the Pro is sounding very good indeed. I am also hoping that my soon to be delivered LPS-1 power supply for the microRendu will allow me to put my drills back in the garage.
Slightly off topic, I did have a chuckle at Antoine's comment 'I hope you've also paid some attention to 'cable dressing' so how you wired your cables, eg. no signal cables running close and in parallel to power cables, putting some distance between digital and analog interconnects/speaker cables etc'. OK, this is a perfectly sensible suggestion, but the reason this amused me slightly is because I have effectively done the exact opposite, this is because my rack has large holes at the back for neatly routing cables, but if you use these to the full you do end up with signal cables and power cables running very neatly in parallel to each other. To be honest, this aspect is more or less unchanged, so my system before and after the recent reconfiguration will be just as bad in this respect. However, the point is taken and I think I will improve the cable layout in the future, another thing to add to my to do list! But I will leave this one for a couple of months, only change one thing at a time remember, and the next change will be the UpTone Audio LPS-1.
Anyway, for whatever the reason, I was left thinking, was there anything I had changed that might be having a negative impact? Antoine picked up on the additional connection to the Mutec. In fact this extra connection was optical, so I doubted that this would be problematic. Also, I have an additional CD player connected to the Devialet. Could this be generating a ground loop? Unlikely I thought, but it was a change, so for good order I disconnected this and the optical to the Mutec. I could not see that these items would make much difference, and this proved to be the case. However, the principle remains the same, had I inadvertently changed anything else? One thing occurred to me. When I first had the microRendu, powered by 9V iFi, it ran nicely warm. When I added the Mutec, which draws current via USB, the microRendu ran worryingly hot. At the time I solved this by getting a large drill box from my garage, and this is quite a substantial box which includes all the additional +0.5mm drill sizes. Crude, but sticking a large metal mass on the microRendu did keep the temperatures in check. During my rack rebuild last week I looked at this stupid drill box and put it back where it belongs in the garage and replaced it with a metal plate that I found, far neater, but far lower in mass. Anyway, thinking about this change this morning, with the Mutec switched on the microRendu was again getting worryingly hot, so I reinstated the drill box. With a bit of listening this morning, things do appear much improved, I think the super hot microRendu was having a negative impact on sound quality. (coincidentally, Pimm has posted comments about super hot Mac Mini's today, so we have an inadvertent trend here) So I am happy to report that after a bit more listening this afternoon, yes, things are sounding quite splendid! So, is it the microRendu running cooler, or is it just the fact that I've stuck a few more hours on the amps? Due to the breaking of my golden rule I will never know!
One thing, reading back through a few posts, I have noted one or two comments that brand new Pro's maybe sounded a bit forward, more treble, a touch harsh, all comments I recognise during my first 20 hours or so of running in anger. So as someone who does not really believe in 'burn in' or electronics settling down, I have to say that I am beginning to become genuinely convinced that for what ever reasons Devialet's do not sound their best when very new. This comes after my experience of the Mutec, which I am also convinced kept improving over about two months.
On top of this I think that new kit paranoia does kick in and mess with your mind, but it is fair to say that this afternoon the Pro is sounding very good indeed. I am also hoping that my soon to be delivered LPS-1 power supply for the microRendu will allow me to put my drills back in the garage.
Slightly off topic, I did have a chuckle at Antoine's comment 'I hope you've also paid some attention to 'cable dressing' so how you wired your cables, eg. no signal cables running close and in parallel to power cables, putting some distance between digital and analog interconnects/speaker cables etc'. OK, this is a perfectly sensible suggestion, but the reason this amused me slightly is because I have effectively done the exact opposite, this is because my rack has large holes at the back for neatly routing cables, but if you use these to the full you do end up with signal cables and power cables running very neatly in parallel to each other. To be honest, this aspect is more or less unchanged, so my system before and after the recent reconfiguration will be just as bad in this respect. However, the point is taken and I think I will improve the cable layout in the future, another thing to add to my to do list! But I will leave this one for a couple of months, only change one thing at a time remember, and the next change will be the UpTone Audio LPS-1.
1000 Pro - KEF Blade - iFi Zen Stream - Mutec REF10 - MC3+USB - Pro-Ject Signature 12
