How long does a unit need to be back to peak ability if it has not been used for several months? Some of my equipment needs 100 to 200 hours of burn-in. Some need more. What do DCS units need?
Jin and welcome to the forum.
When a dCS unit is made it undergoes a comparatively long period of testing and evaluation . These components are individually assembled . There is no production line like a stereotypical factory.
So by the time a unit is ready to be shipped it has already had many hours of activity. Hence burn -in may be considered less than some competitive products. However that is if you believe in the subject. There is a range of products with differing electronical architecture so there is ( or may be) no specific time. I have been using dCS units for over 25 years. Some seem to improve slightly over a couple of weeks @ say 5 hours a day, others seem to remain stable straight out of the box.
You do not need to go through a burn -in routine once it has taken place even if the components had been switched off for months. It will quickly sound as it did before once it has reached thermal stability and that will depend upon the unit in question. Owners of Vivaldi wordclock have the advantage of an icon displayed when this takes place after switch on. However we are talking minutes not hours (20-30?) for this unit post initial burn-in depending on the ambient temperature.
Thank you; this is very helpful.
I would say you are looking at warm up time more than burn in on this.
You can see the internal temp in the settings app section under support, or you can see it from the menu on the dac itself.
Just for reference my vivaldi dac is 40 degrees right now and upsampler 38.
You also have the burn in mode built into the dac’s if you need it, this time you go to the menu on the dac and scroll through to it, but i dont feel this is needed.
I didn’t notice a burn in or break in with my Bartok and then apex upgrade. More of a slow warm up over a few hours when turned on from cold. One caveat is the headphone amp in my Bartok takes about 15 min to thermally stabilize from the standby state and it sounds best once is warmed up.
Thank you. The unit sounds great, but there are some improvements over the hours.