Love getting new equipment, hate the break-in

I always have a bad case of whataboutism when I upgrade. I just can’t convince myself that spending all this money will help the cause. Fortunately never have a bad experience after the plugin. Am jealous of people who have a separate room to do the break in, so as to not have to deal with it. 

It depends, but yes, I've definitely had some break in experiences.  I don't usually buy many new components....it's usually a mod that changes some caps, tubes, or op-amps.  Op-amps don't seem to have much burn in, but good caps definitely do...they often go from sound pretty good at first, to sounding very brittle, thin, and bright, then over time open up nicely.  Some tubes seem to take a really long time to come around too. It's all part of the evaluation process when something new goes in.

Since other variables are also present, like mood, fatigue, sinus congestion, any expectation bias, etc, variability in the electrical grid, atmospheric pressure, ambient noise etc., I usually spend days getting a feel for even a small change in the system.   

You got it. Exactly. You never know... only things will change.

Most of my upgrade cycles last a couple years primarily because of this. You get a component, break it in, then start thinking of the next. All components must be in place and broken in before looking for interconnects and power cords. Many things take over 200 hours.  I have pursued high end audio for fifty years... I bet ten of them were during something breaking in. I have done extensive interconnect comparison. So, I got to know different profiles really well. Speaking of time consuming. 

Not long ago I broke in three Audio Research 160 amps consecutively. (a brand new loaner, then my own, then brand new monoblocks). It was interesting how the break-in was exactly the same for each. The same pattern, exactly. Also, yes it went through the classic flip flop around 120 hours... very common with amps and preamps, where it sounds terrible one session and glorious the next a few times. Then kind of stabilized and slowly gets better. Two hundred hours sees about 75% of the gain... but only 95% at 600 hours. Finally stabilizing completely around 1,000. 

I have an extra system of components for breakin. I have a Bluesound Node, a Schitt DAC, Schitt integrated amp, so I can break stuff in. Yes, I know you can buy a cooker... they are so expensive I just couldn’t do it.... I should have decades ago. But I didn’t. Too late now. 

“Sometimes the journey is more fun that the arrival”?   Buddha