Burn in and peer reviewed brain research

Very interesting discussion that actually stayed on the rails very well. Seems to me that what it boils down to is that for most of us perception is reality. If we believe it is real, then to us it is.

@jmalen123

"Perception is reality" ends arguments politely, but it glosses over something crucial: the difference between (1) a perceptual experience being genuine—something actually occurred in your auditory system, the sensation is not imagined—and (2) that experience tracking an external cause—the sensation being reliably produced by the thing you believe produced it. A real experience doesn’t automatically mean a real change in the component.

Three distinct claims often get bundled together in burn-in discussions:

What’s audible. Human hearing has roughly 0.5–1 dB resolution in its most sensitive range. Any change below that threshold is inaudible by definition. "It measures differently" doesn’t entail "it sounds different."

Objective vs. psychological change. Components do change physically — drivers loosen, solder stabilizes. The real question: are those changes (a) within audible range and (b) what you’re actually responding to? Alternative explanations are strong: listener familiarity, reduced novelty-driven attention, expectation effects, neural gain adjustment. These produce genuine perceptual change without the component changing at all.

Controls needed to distinguish them. Blind/double-blind presentation, level matching to 0.1 dB, same-session comparisons (auditory memory decays after ~30 seconds), and pre-registered descriptions of what you expect to hear. None requires a lab.

The point isn’t to dismiss subjective experience—it’s to ask whether it’s evidence of something repeatable and for details of the causal chain producing it.

From the end of the article: "The myriad complexities underlying the burn-in phenomenon, as delineated in this review, accentuate the dire need for empirical studies to validate, refine, or refute the posited observations and theories. Given the confluence of auditory physiology, cognitive biases, and socio-cultural constructs, experimental designs that employ rigorous methodologies spanning these domains will be instrumental. Additionally, longitudinal studies assessing real-time shifts in perception during prolonged sound exposure, coupled with neuroimaging techniques, could unravel the neural correlates of the burn-in experience."

In essence, the article neither confirms nor denies that 'burn-in' changes are UNIVERSALLY real. 

Most audiophiles already knew this...  

For what it is worth  - I have personally heard UNAVOIDABLE 'burn-in' SQ changes in tubes, and cables (yet I honestly do not know WHAT changed).  Conversely, my CD player and Amp did not reveal SQ 'burn-in' changes.

Best,

As always hilde45 you get to many of the most salient points in the discussion and I for one appreciate the clarity you bring. It seems relevant that the subtleties in sound of which we are discussing can best be heard by the young whom don't have much experience at listening for them. While us old geezers will have trouble hearing what may or may have not changed. Another irony in life I guess, but it will not impede my quest for something that may be inaudible to me. I will know it's there whether it is or isn't.

Dr. Floyd Toole and Dr. Sean Olive, apparently, studied this phenomena.  Dr. Toole’s findings are published in 

Sound Reproduction: The Acoustics and Psychoacoustics of Loudspeakers and Rooms.

Gemini sighted the PubMed article you mentioned as well.  It also came up with this study

https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3417/15/15/8425

It’s not directly a study of psychoacoustics, per se, but it concludes that any perceived changes are a result of psychological phenomena rather than physical changes in the materials that would be audible to the listener.