The more your ears have zoned in on your equipment;the more you are aware of changes.-----Everything improves with breakin.-----Signal must pass from the piece you are breakng in; to the next piece in chain. This means the second piece must be powered up. No volume need be present. Generally a 6/7 day period of continous 24 hr play is what is required.-----Buying 2 pieces at the same time can add complicaions.----If I bought 2 pieces at the same time "I" would break them both in, at the same time.-----Sometimes afer breaking in a piece or cable and listening to it for several weeks ; removing it and reinserting the older piece can be telling.
Some questions on break in periods....
I realize that some equipment requires a break in period before it sounds the way the manufacturer wanted the unit to sounds, so what constitutes as "break in?" Is it actually usage of the unit in question or does merely leaving it powered on through the night count as part of the break in? If the unit sounds bad out of the box, how many hours are required for break in before the listener decides the unit will never please them? One last thing; should a listener break in one piece of equipment at a time, break it in, before testing another piece of equipment? It seems to me that breaking in one unit at a time would help a person zero in on which item in the audio chain is changing the dynamics of the system.