Love getting new equipment, hate the break-in

@ghdprentice  "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." It reminds me when I was breaking in Pathos InPol integrated and after about 200hrs wanted to present its glorious sound to my wife. Well, it sounded awful, my wife looked me with WTF and I was dumbfounded. It took easily another 200hrs to shine and stabilize.

The OP would hate CMS footers- large sonic up and downs during lengthy break-in

When I bought my new Pass Labs monos, I was told there would be a five-day break in period. Fired it up and it sounded terrible, miserable and just could not recognize instrument or voices. Every morning I’d wake up only to find the same sound. I started to wonder if it would get out of this foggy state. Groundhog Day every day.  On the 5th day while still in bed wondering if this miserable sound would still be there. Nope. Full glory. It all came together. The surprising part was it was not a day to day incremental improvement. It was the last 10-12 hours that it changed. Went from zero to 100 overnight. 

Von Schweikert did some break in on my speakers.  I think Coda did as well.  I bought my preamp used.   Everything else was purchased new with the exception of my LHY ock-2 clock. 

Nothing sounded crappy and turned good with breakin.  Any breakin has been gradual and not immediately noticeable. 

I remember when I was an audiophile newbie, I think in the late 90's, there was a buzz about a "state of the art" CD player, Ultech UCD 100, a unit that was rated in Stereophile recommended components. I bought it from a high end store in Chicago, who shipped it to me on Long Island, ny. At first listen, it sounded terrible, like a 99$ Technics or Pioneer.  There was no bass, awful midrange, and very dull high end. It sounded very unengaging. Granted, at the time it was only 16 but processing, but it did have the HDCD chip and dual Burr Brown dacs. I called and complained. Before I could even describe the sound the salesman beat me to it: describing to me how it probably sounded "out of the box". He told me to put in a CD on repeat and leave it for a couple of days as I went to work. Within about 70 hours of constant play it sounded like a different player; great soundstage, much more bass slam, very clear and comfortable high end, just so much more engaging. I still have the CD player today, but use its coax output to a dac. I've never really had to break in anything like that since. But that early experience sure made me respect the concept of break-in.