Burn-in Hell, but light is in sight at the end of a VERY long tunnel

I really wouldn’t want any audiophile to go through what I have in the last 3-4 weeks.
I put my system away for 12 months as we renovate the chapel and carve out the audio room.
Install everything minus tt, and cd replay just sounds great on Day One and continues to entertain.
Tentative analog reinstall 9 months ago leading to me tripping my Soundsmith, and having to wait several months for repair.
I ask Soundsmith to go for top factory level spec.
As it returns, I delay reinstall while I commission some mods to my analog, incl new bespoke psus to tt motor and Straingauge energiser, top quality pwr cords and fuses to these psus, new tubes to preamp, and also brand new arm mount, balanced transformer to air arm pump, new nylon unipivot points to arm replacing metal, new RCA plugs to tonearm wire, Rollerblocks under main system balanced transformer.
Finally, FINALLY it all comes together one week before Christmas.
Or so I thought. What I got was pieces of the puzzle, but missing one, and this one critical to the whole picture.
So while bass is off the page scary good, mids really exemplary, imaging, depth and air better than anything I had back in London, my treble has gone MIA.
Ride cymbal patterns, percussion lines, generally snap and energy felt veiled and muted.
And to diagnose what might be letting the side down with SO many changes at once left me with a real headache
3 weeks in and I wasn’t really solving my issue until I realised two things
1- I hadn’t checked speed correctly (bad admission for a vinyl guy), getting a new SpeedStrobe on the job showed I was MUCH too fast. Sorted in 5s.
Now that treble is starting to blossom.
2- and with the help of my installer, we decided on getting some serious burn in done, so I’m spending long hours getting signal thru the stylus, energiser and psus (muted, so I can read in peace, testing the sound at the end of each day playing an lp at volume), and furiously playing around with spkrs toe in, seating distance, subs settings, acoustic panels in and out of the room.
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I have to tell you all, for those first 3 weeks, I was in a bad bad place, two decades upgrading audio, spending a small fortune on gear, collecting 2000 lps. And for what? For THIS sound.
But Ron Resnick, Barry Blue58, Audiophile Bill, and Barry2013 all told me to chill out, work on the details, and things would start to come together.
And today, the first fruits of that coming together became apparent, the bass and mids better than ever, and return to the fold of those treble frequencies.
I’m not done by a long shot, but another 100 hours burn in, and more finagling, and I think I’ll be even happier.
I’ve also really realised my new room is truly different to the last, and this is definitely influencing a smoother, sweeter top end, and I need to readjust.
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Moral of this story? Don’t be an idiot like me and load a dozen plus upgrades into yr analog in one go without realising you’ll lose your tiny mind in the process!
PS thanks to the aforementioned guys for helping me keep my sanity.

Kevin, Ked called out my old room for being poor while I was bigging myself up over there.
I’ve gone on record to acknowledge that.
He hasn’t had much to say since, but has enabled me to get my previously useful Mooks to a grateful new owner.

CJ, yes my mind has gone walkies, never more so than during this analog dialling-in period.

Ron, I’m not quite there yet w the treble, but getting to 25 hrs burn in yesterday, and I had my first day where I can be sure I’m making progress.
I’m learning that my analog is interacting v differently with my more damped, slightly darker, acoustic. And this is most noticeable thru the treble.
And I’m learning the hard way that burn in cannot be rushed, especially with over a dozen new pieces of gear all installed at the same time.

Tang, I’m sure you’re right. I’m probably finding a spurious excuse, and my lack of treble extension is 100% down to my new stylus, energiser, and big beefy transformer psus, needing plenty of burn in. Certainly crossing the 25 hour mark yesterday was really fascinating, and the first time I started to feel properly happy with my sound.
I’m hoping 75, 100 hrs max, is the point where things close to fully yield.

Francisco, that CD Enhancer solution won’t work for my purposes here, I need to run a signal through the stylus and energiser, and by association be putting use into the new psus for tt motor and energiser. That means doing things the long haul way playing lp after lp. I’d rather read up here, have the volume muted, and rack up 75 hours, testing evolution of sound every few days playing favourite lps at volume.

Pretty much, Peter. I had the UK Straingauge dealer over for the day. We very carefully adjusted using protractor for alignment, VTF and VTA. Azimuth is a devil to get right on my setup because unlike pretty much every other tt/arm combination, the lp does not sit on the platter (let alone held down by clamp, weight, periphery ring or vacuum pull-down), it sits on Delrin cones a centimetre above the platter, and the 5” armwand rides laterally on a bed of air, indeed watching the cart track the lp groove is (as in sailing jargon), occasionally like watching a lifeboat being tossed about in a storm!
My installer proudly declares he hates my arm and tt.
No, my issues centre on a few possible areas
1- yielding of stylus, maybe not so because as PeterA (and also Audiophile Bill have both remarked, it’s usually treble ok at the start and the bass that needs to open up - I have precisely the opposite scenario).
2- burning in of brand-new top factory level upgraded Straingauge energiser, big overspecced psus with hefty transformers and chokes, and a ton of wiring, and associated new ancillaries like power cords and fuses, and preamp tubes. Could well be, 30 hours now, and the treble is starting to bloom.
3- three specific setup changes that could be counterproductive. Stacore Advanced which has vertical isolation possibly compromised by vertical isolation of tt mag lev feet, and the change from metal to nylon unipivot points to eliminate “microchatter” via metal on metal.
I’ve tried the tt back on my Symposium rack eliminating the Stacore, and I lose all my performance benefits going this way, with no treble uplift, so assuming Stacore only helping here. I may try going back to the metal unipivot points, but only once burn in complete.

Peter, I should realise by now that slight hyperbole to make a point is counterproductive. All I wanted to convey with the gale/lifeboat analogy was in relation to my tt more than my arm, and that is with the lp sitting on cones and not the platter, and not being secured in any way, any mild dishing of lps is noticeable.
Yes, this probably adds to some extra pressure on the function of the cart. Yet so much is right about this combination, I’m v reluctant to move on, and any analog upgrade would need to be at eg SME level to exceed what I have now.
I’m going to invest in an lp flattened for my most warped lps, but I don’t believe any of this is the cause of my dialling in issues.
Peter, the arm wand has two unipivot points balancing the armwand in the sled that tracks on air along the arm gantry.
(Sorry for the lack of photos, I’m struggling to post them from my IPhone), you can access pics at

www.trans-fi.com

Davey, that’s not going to happen anytime soon . The direct rim drive/air arm combination really does talk to me, over the few years I’ve been running it.