Burn-in time Vs. Getting used to a sound


I have had much in the way of high end audio over the years. ...and the idea of an electronic item needing several hundred hours of use before sounding their best..is an accepted idea now (for the most part). Recently I have heard a growing thought of this just being the user getting used to the sound of a product.. Truthfully in the early days of Large Advents, DQ-10 Dahlquists and other gear..there was never any talk of burn-in time... Any thoughts out there on this.... Truth or Hype?
whatjd

Showing 7 responses by dekay

I feel that it is a combination of both. I can beyond any doubt in my mind hear the effect of break in. But when I switched to silver interconnects for the first time there was more involved in my acceptance of the new sound other than cooking the cables. I had never heard anything like the sound before from my system and the additional detail though still musical took some getting used to. Now I love the sound and only use my copper Truthlink interconnects for poor recordings that I am inclined to listen to for music's sake. In the "good old days" I rarely purchased new equipment, but when I did it was usually being played at much higher sound levels right off the bat than I am comfortable with today. I will admit that I played most of my music to a level beyond what was sonically correct for the room that the system was in. Now when I listen at higher levels on occasion I am more aware of the distortions being created by the room and back off on the volume control. I am now more interested in what my system can do with a sense of finesse as opposed to shear power and volume. There were also other factors back then (other than the shag carpeting) that were a part of the equation that had a tendency to distort judgment.
I kind of performed this test but with the same pair of cables. When I purchased my used HT IC's (already broken in) I knew about directionality but did not know which way the arrows were supposed to go. First time round I had then backwards. It only took about 20 seconds to figure out that something was wrong. I switched them immediatley and they sounded a lot better.
Joe: Why does it take a few minutes, at least, to bring a pot of water to a boil? Does water ever really go away, even when the Hydrogen is released in extreme reactions, or does it just complete a cycle and come back as water again?
SF: What do you do to disturb cables, other than hooking them up the opposite way?
Jostler and Brutus: If I only shared your hearing and mental prowess I could have saved a great deal in effort and money on hifi gear over the years. I may need to eliminate nutmeg in my diet which may account for the auditory hallucinations that I must be subject to.