Break In Question?

@noromance 

Thank you. I generated them with AI. 

@douglas_schroeder - No, I don't need to read the book you are hawking (they're allowing free ads on Agon these days via this back-door route?). Nothing you have to say will explain to me about the headphones on the chair, either. 

@ghdprentice + 1 - I guess those people who deny the fact of break-in think that all those manufacturers' figures are nothing but lies and only the gullible would believe them. 

@ghdprentice  Thx for posting links to your book.  Wow!    It’s like a doctoral dissertation.    Congratulations on such a massive and arduous undertaking!  I’ve read only one chapter so far.  I look forward to reading more.

- - - 

@larsman I had some Grado RS2e, liked them, listened to them a bunch, so they were broken in. Then got some Dan Clark Ether 2 listened to them a bunch. Then went back to the broken-in Grado, and they sounded horrible to me. 

Clear case of psychoacoustics and habituation. Very real.

For mechanical items there *may* be some break-in (speakers, carts, cans). But electronics, fat chance. Easy test. Get two identical electronic components, break one in, leave the other untouched. Then do blind A-B comparison and see whether you can reliably distinguish the two. Say 8 out of 10 or whatever number of tries you want. Simple chi-square test with 50/50 being the null hypothesis (no discernible difference). Good luck!

Also, long-term auditory memory is infamously poor. I think Amir cited some papers on that. Would have to dig them out. Short-term quick switches are much more likely to pick out differences.

@ghdprentice is speaking truth. I've broken in a few cables myself. One of which was a USB that sounded bright for the first 18-24 hours. My friend whom recommended that cable experienced the same thing. And only told me AFTER I shared my experience.

Listening is indeed a skill. Are some people gonma tell me the USB cabpe sounded bright because my brain and ears were adjusting to the new sound?