Love getting new equipment, hate the break-in

The most disturbing issue is when you prefer the sound of something in its "not broken-in" state and have to keep replacing it before it's broken-in. Another thing is when something takes only a few minutes to break-in and you miss the tonal change completely because you made a sandwich or painted your toenails. Or something takes so long to break-in that you lose interest and forget all about it and just enjoy the music...what a drag.

No worries. Your ears....er.... I mean gear.... will break in.

In order to avoid listening to break in I've acquired multiples of amps, pre's and dacs. I can break in on a second system and bonus is I can provide various presentations with my main rig. The single event I most recall from days of having to suffer through break in was this point when suddenly everything came on song. I remember many a time suffering through long incremental improvements when suddenly the system 'bloomed', in mere moments sound went from somewhat uptight, analytical to relaxed and spacious, never ceased to amaze.

I also agree our minds are part and parcel of this break in process, no doubt analysis of sound tends to dominate when changes are made. I'm going through this analysis period with new to me (already burned in) amp and pre. What I've learned over the years is to expect this analytical period so as to not get frustrated and relax the mind so it just lets sound wash over you and get into musical enjoyment mode. Yes, you lose a bit of pure analysis time but the 'true' presentation will come of it's own accord given enough time. Assuming you've made good choices with new acquisitions, there should be no glaring anomalies, it will take some time to make a fair evaluation, for used equipment I generally give it five to ten listening sessions that are four to five hours duration, new equipment may have to add more.

Over three weeks ago, I replaced the ASC capacitors with AudioCaps in my Concert Fidelity DAC.    This DAC been in my system for many years.  I know its SQ very well.     It’s taken over 200 hours of burn-in for Andrea Boceli’s voice to transform from nasal to chesty.  For Joshua’s Redmun’s tenor sax to transform from polite to gritty.    

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goldenways

. . . The surprising part was it was not a day to day incremental improvement. It was the last 10-12 hours that it changed.

Same here.  And it’s still improving.

we sometimes forget that two things can be true at the same time. It seems pretty well established to me that over time our brains will accommodate to the different sound of new components. Just as expectation bias, placebo effect, and other manner of implicit bias seems firmly grounded in science. That doesn’t eliminate the possibility that changes in new electronic components over time could also produce audible changes in the sound. I suppose if manufacturers or others were seriously interested in this topic, properly conducted blind testing might be helpful. I certainly don’t think blind testing is perfect, but it seems it would add to our understanding. on the other hand, maybe it doesn’t make much difference. You put a new component in your system and however it sounds to your ears is what you’ve got.