break-in--bane or boon ??

While we’re at it and FWIW, I may as well bring up yet one more variable to consider. And another admittedly intractable one, at that. This one often either goes unnoticed or un-discussed. But, let me start by saying I, too, believe in break in and acclimatization as well, but I most certainly welcome any attempts to experiment objectively, or even subjectively for that matter. Doug, you describe in your very commendable article that you and David were “…listening critically, focused on the songs in a hyper-attentive way”. While I do find nothing particularly wrong with this per se, it did strike me as conceivably inconclusive. Like we all have, I’m sure, I have certainly had innumerous listening sessions in just this state of mind, naturally, and, as well, a wide range of other states including those on the opposite side of the spectrum, where I may be only unconcernedly paying attention, if at all, or otherwise engaged in the music, but just plain relaxed, emotionally off guard and letting myself hear it all without any notable expectations. And I reckon, as audiophiles, we all almost certainly have done that too. But, over the years I have noticed again and again, that I tend to catch various, subtle essences of sound that had escaped my earlier attentions, perhaps many times, or even in fact for a long time, more often when my guard was down and my relative level of anticipatory anxiety seemed at or near its lowest ebb. Maybe that’s a case of the perception coming to me, rather than I trying to go to it, but in practice I find the event cannot be forced, only arrived at. But, it goes without saying that all of us live with our systems over the long term, and, I think that’s how we in turn get to know how we ourselves respond and react to them under various emotional states or moods.

But, remembering my college anatomy and physiology classes, I’m convinced the above actually has a basis in (among other things) physiology and that it can sometimes (and more often than one might think) relate in particular to the scientifically well-understood “fight-or-flight” response. That is said to happen when anticipatory feelings of uncertainty, excitement, or anxiety trigger the release of adrenaline. We usually only think of it in terms of being conscious of feeling its effects, but in truth this “feedback” system, between the brain (the feedback monitor and regulator), the endocrine system, as well as a few other bodily systems, is in truth always “on” – just perpetually in a varying degree of regulation. The adrenaline is controlled and released in our waking state literally on a moment-by-moment basis, all day, every day.

But, here’s the thing, if I understand it right and if I can manage to do the concept any justice: what I also believe is happening in this response is that the brain is also playing some additional roles in this in that, in effect and to a degree, it begins subtly suppressing, or filtering out, sensory perception in our consciousness. Mainly this is a survival mechanism, which in effect may be an evolutionary advantage to help keep us from losing the initiative (both in terms of instinctual decision making and in terms of the differing brain functions that facilitate it) of our brains being able to suddenly process a dramatically swift and near-global shift in our state of consciousness from, say (among perhaps many other examples), the state of our deep and extended (read: relaxed and open) involvement with our connection to our immediate environment or surroundings to that of the brain actively controlling and preparing virtually our entire body for possible, all-out ‘war’ – the moment of the impending “fight-or-flight” decision. One reason for the brain shifting our consciousness away from our senses somewhat is the same for that of shifting away from other bodily functions or processes, like digestion, sleep initiation or cell repair. At a time like this, these functions (and how readily you can closely examine that pretty rose blossom up close and ad mire it for its pleasing qualities) are no longer exactly a high priority. Much better for the brain to focus on things like heart- and breathing-rates, adrenaline levels and constricting the diameter of blood vessels that lie close to the surface of the skin, particularly in the extremities (“vasoconstriction”), etc.

But, perhaps another reason for the brain to curtail our sensory perception, as well as raise the adrenaline, heart-rate, breathing and all the rest, is, in fact, just what all that does to our conscious thinking, of course. All that may actually be the last thing that we wanted at the moment, most likely, but it is there to pull the rug out from under us - literally provoke us into action and jolt us out of our complacency, not necessarily into making the decision of whether or not to fight or flee, but simply into investigating for ourselves whether or not either would be warranted. You see, in all of this the brain itself is simply blind. Its role is just that of a sensor and a simple, ‘stoopid’, if you will, alarm bell that is going off all the time and we are continually placed in the position of determining whether the warning it’s giving us warranted or not. Whenever we are involved with the act of that determination we are literally satisfying our instinct for survival. It does indeed alert us to real dangers, we just have to possibly put up with a lot of false alarms. And it’s hardwired into us. It will work even when we’ve just woken up, or have just eaten a big meal, or are getting ready for bed or are having a bad day…or are at the supermarket, or our children’s little league…or, even when evaluating a hifi. Or, anymore, it would seem. What happened to all our ancestors who weren’t there the day they handed out physiological feedback systems like this one, or those that would rather have gone on smelling the roses despite the rising internal chaos?? They must have made for fatter Saber Tooth Tigers. It’s just something that we simply picked up early and often in our evolutionary history and, in fact, have never lost.

Such a phenomenon can be said to influence auditory perception. Sometimes this discussion falls under the realm of psychoacoustics, but I myself understand that angle less well. The effects of the fight-or-flight response may actually conspire to hit audiophiles at precisely the wrong moment – at the very moment we may feel we have indeed reached “the moment of truth” following some manner of endeavor or preparation. Ironically it’s our own level of passion that we bring with us into the equation (and our perceived struggles, labor and frustrations toward an anticipated goal) that can end up betraying us – raising our excitement level and anticipatory anxiety at just the moment in which, likely as not, more passive, unconcerned attention might have served us better. The result?? We can, and sometimes do, miss things – sometimes even what we might, upon perceiving it subsequently after something closer to homeostasis has returned, regard as more or less of a ‘revelation’. The fight or flight response can even be triggered to a degree by a memory. And then there is genetics. Through variation, we don’t all have the same hair color and we don’t all have exactly the same level of susceptibility to this response to a given stimulus. We may *think* we have an idea of how susceptible we are, but we cannot know. But, we are all human and we all have this trait to one degree or another. No shame in it, of course. It appears to simply be how evolution has wired us. I do not see in it necessarily any sort of ‘psychological failing’ on the part of an observer. I suppose, somebody somewhere could wish to attempt to explain it in those terms, but not me.

So, to me it’s not so much a ‘rush to judgment’ on the part of you and David that you didn’t hear a difference (even if you might have expected to hear one), so much as I think it may just be a matter of recognizing the necessity of giving mother-nature her due in this. But, overall, I expect this is how most audiophiles come to terms with break in (if real) – intermittently, over the long haul and under a variety of different moods or states. I will say, that what has been somewhat helpful for me is to take the occasion now and again to try to take a few moments and attempt to relax first somewhat, before listening, rather than as a result of listening. That and to give myself an adequate block of time to allow for as much of an unhurried listening stint as can be managed – and the deliberate decision to not draw any hard and fast conclusions about my perceptions until I’ve logged a few sessions, not back to back, but separated by at least a few days. But, if, or how, you may end up wanting to consider any of this (if at all) for factoring into any future experiments you may be considering, I will willingly concede those designs to you. I, too, applaud your efforts and wish you continued success. Sorry for the stoopid-long post, everybody. Cheers!

John

After assuming for many, many years that there must be somebody somewhere who indeed had all the answers when it came to just what exactly was happening with break-in (which I believe to be a very real phenomenom - just as I believe accomodation of hearing is quite real too), in the end I gave up as it became evident by default that no such person seems to exist, or ever has...maybe some physicist locked away in a lab somewhere knows the answers, but a recognizable source within the audiophile community doesn't seem to exist and I suspect it's because these things may, in complete totality at least, simply be unknown. IME there seem to be a few patterns that recur: that copper speaker wires usually take a good week or 2 to (fully) break in, that silver IC's often take somewhere around 400hrs (or even more) and that many manufacturers don't seem to want to be caught acknowledging that it exists to their customers. Maybe in the belief that it may either confuse them or that it may possibly discourage sales...or perhaps to avoid being in (what they take to be) the embarassing position of effectively having to admit to their prospective buyers that there's an aspect of their product's behavior that they themselves cannot properly explain...

My own experiences with a FryBaby that I've had for years strongly suggests to me that, with wiring anyway, insulation is likely the biggest factor (by far) that determines break in. But, you can look at the review I wrote up for that in the Agon reviews section.

Donjr, don't get me wrong, your comments are entirely welcome. My system (and I've not yet been in a position just yet to finally post it on Agon and let everybody know what I'm working from) is a somewhat minimal CD-only, ss rig that cost less than $5k, with a little over a grand of power conditioning thrown in (which does do a pretty good job of helping with the resolution, I must admit). But, honestly I would never expect a fellow Agoner to apologize for their rig, no matter how humble! That's one of two faux pas at this point in my hobby I try to avoid: 1) expecting someone else to apologize for what little they have and, on the flip side, 2) complaining that I don't have enough money to afford what I want ;) Either one of those thing is bad form to me. But, so many of us, including myself, have had very humble beginnings in this hobby and I see no reason to forget that. I also expect myself to extend that sense of courtesy to others who've had different experiences than my own - even if it is with the same gear as I use. If someone is talking about their direct experience then they're talking about their direct experience. That's all the authority anyone needs. What I was trying to do in my post above was talk about my own experience, in no way did I mean that to be taking pot shots at you, or your system, I apologize if I made it seem as though I were.

That would have to be my fault sooner than yours, Mapman. :)

Geoff, nope, not the "radio receiver" that you say is out of your control, but that last nth degree of soundstage dimensionality on a revealing system??...just possibly might be missed the first time around...who knows.

Doug, my point, and it's really more of a question for me than anything else, was: what if this phenomenon influences us at indeed a very low level and exists as a sort of 'noise floor' for our conscious state...something we are all so familiar with in our lives that we no longer notice its functioning yet, just possibly on occasion, we have been influenced by it even without any direct awareness that we were...no rhinos involved at this level, of course. I may indeed be off base, though, at best it's no more than my own supposition, really. No attempt to impune your results or efforts, btw. By that I mean that I was directing my comments at you, but not directing them at you, *personally*, (there is a difference).

All that aside and for the record, I DO find the results of your experiment intriguing exactly because they do strike me as counterintuitive. Even more so because so many different components were under test at once - I would've guessed an additive effect, if anything. Both the results and your conclusions do seem to go against my own experience (as I currently accept it, anyway). Either something is inconclusive or wrongly done with the test, or a huge (well, basic, maybe) tenant of audio should be, if not overturned, then completely re-examined(!). Have you done any sort of follow up experiment at all? I'd be curious.

Nonoise, your post perfectly sums it up for me and my own subjective experience with it all has so far mirrored every word of it!