Burn-in time Vs. Getting used to a sound

Take it from a sales professional, Brutus: Burn-in isn't a sales tool. In 20 years of selling for a living it's never helped me close one deal, even those involving stereo equipment. On the other hand, both my girl friend and best friend unwittingly critique each system change. Without being prompted or having been told anything was changed they have noticed a difference between new cables and ones that have burned-in, a cold system from one that's been on for a couple of days, etc. When one of them asks "What's new? It sounds different." I know the change isn't my imagination. The friend is a respected electro-mechanical design engineer. We've discussed the concept of burn-in and he says the facts back up its existence. Sorry, can't recite the details as I'm a dummy and don't always capture much more than the essence of what he says. The Cliff Note version, though, says passing a current through a conductor does cause structural change over time, transformers are effected by both temperature and being on for prolonged periods of time and capacitors, in fact electronic equipment in general, do change with use. To be fair, this engineer does feel some claims about burn-in are over hyped. He's recognized subtle changes in my system; it's the grandiose claims of "my system was transformed" that he questions. At least so far... BTW, his *other* degree is in psychology and we've discussed the effects of psychoacoustics, too. End result: It's not all in my head. Components do burn-in.

Hi Brutus, A fair question. No. Years ago I took home some speakers to see how they would work with my gear and in my room. They sounded wonderful. I took them back to the dealer and told him to order me a pair. When I got them I was very disapointed, they did not sound nearly as good as the ones I borrowed. That is when I learned about break-in. I go thru this every time I get somthing new. From cartridges to CD players. For me burn-in is in no way psycological. It is too painfull. Excellent post Fpeel.

I do believe it take some time for components to burn-in and sound as designed. It is very true for speakers. The surrounds and spyders on speakers are stiff when new. After several hours these parts loosen up and move more freely which usually opens up the sound. Speakers usually sound lean and hard when new. I have the Sony SCD-1 player. It was harsh when new. It took about 3 months of normal use before it broke in. My friend had one before me. I could tell the difference when his was broken in compared to my new unit in the same system. I was told that capactors need to be reshaped after they have been shipped due to the pressure change in aircraft. It usually takes 50 hours or so. I think all components needs some break-in... some more than others. mike

Every time I have bought a new component there have been significant changes in the sound over a period of weeks, and the sequence of how the sound changes is usually the same. I find this to be completely unexplained by Brutus' view that there is some psychological thing going on. Of course it is possible that my ears are being burned in to the sound of the component - but this would not explain why, when I bought a second Theta Data III it did not sound like my old one for some weeks and then after a few weeks it sounded the same. For Brutus to be right I would have had to subliminally told myself the new (identical looking and identically spec'd) machine must sound different, and then changed my subliminal mind three weeks later. But Brutus - do any of these "nay-saying" opinions of yours have any basis in your actual experience, as opposed to what your understanding of electrical engineering theory tells you. I have yet to see a post from you that refers to actual experience. If your opinions are in fact based on experience, then perhaps you could outline your system and setup so that we may surmise why you do not hear what so many others with highly resolving systems hear.

Brutus, I just saw your post saying you tried a few specialist power cords and heard no difference - so I take back my earlier statement. I am still interested in your system contect, however.