It's all of the above! Surely we ourselves get broken in somewhat but many of us have experience with breaking in a terrible sounding component without listening to it for several days, and then hearing an enormous improvement. I suppose you could still attribute that to psychological/physiological issues, but then again those of us who have alot of experience have also tried breaking in componenets that just never came around. As to the system requiring re-break-in, I've experienced this also, and attributing this completely to ear/brain issues doesn't hold water when you have other components to compare to (before and after).
Do we break in our componets or do our componets ?
Do we break in our componets or do our componets break us in? I recently added a new addition on to my home. During this process I broke my system down and boxed it up for about 7 weeks. I had dedicated cryoed outlets installed w/ 10 ga romex. The first 10 days or so my sound was horrible with a capital H. I was very distraught to say the least. Over the last 3 days things have changed a lot for the better or so I believe. Have I become adjusted to this sound or did my componets and cables need to break in again? Or is it the breaking in of the new dedicated lines and cryoed outlets? What gives?