In none of the cases with claimed break has it been established that anything changed in the sound of the product. There are a few definitive ways to establish whether a product changes sound through playing; 1. Measurements, and 2. Setting up identical products wherein one has been given extensive playing time and the other is new. Telling a story about what you think you heard days prior is not one of those methods.
I did the testing with multiple products where one was given break in and the other was literally new out of the box, and in addition had zero warm up. I invited an audiophile friend who is deeply into it, system cost pushing $75K MSRP, who is a vinyl lover and has good listening skills, but who is not afraid to disagree, sit with me during the testing. Guess what happened? Read my book.
In order to test the test, to see if the incident was a one-off or a recurring phenomenon, I repeated the two system testing, this time with 8 variables, all considered to be effective and claimed to offer easily heard or significant improvements - all 8 stacked in favor of the one system. And the other system? Nothing, none of the 8 variables. Guess what happened?
Anyone who turns on a component, leaves for a while, then returns days later and declares there is a difference has no idea how to arrive at a conclusion regarding break in. Sorry, the truth hurts.
I also reveal in the book another method to ascertain clearly, directly whether break in or warm up changes anything. It is also suitable to ascertain whether tweaks have made any difference in a system.
audition_audio, the problem has never been trusting what you hear, but trusting what you think you heard previously, i.e. days before, in comparison to what you are hearing now. All of these self-confident men would be humbled if they really did appropriate comparisons to establish reality.
As an example, a simple test could be set up with two identical headphones. One headphone broken in for weeks, if you wish. The other headphone stone cold new. Play them both and listen. There would be some red faces, I predict, as people realized they had been spoofed by their assumptions.
I spoke with a long time audiophile recently who did not agree with my conclusions about break in. He had to replace a driver, I believe it was a midrange driver, in his speaker which was well worn. He expected a variance in sound due to the one speaker having an old driver and the other a new one. Nope; he admitted he could tell no difference in performance whatsoever regardless of the one driver being broken in for years and the other new.
I had the same experience about two months ago. My pair of Wharfedale Opus 2-M2 had a 3" soft dome that developed a rattle. I replaced it wth a new old stock driver that had sat in a warehouse, I presume, because it was dusty. If break in is so important, so audible, then one might think that to drop a new/unused midrange into one speaker might be audible, that it would cause problems. Wrong. Zero impact, zero audible variance on performance.
The entire industry is built upon the notion that human ears are more reliable, more stable, than electronics. And it gets worse from there, because people use that as a basis for changing audio systems.
For good reason, with my earlier self-confidence and ignorance regarding break in as exhibit #1, the foundational Audiophile Law reads: The greatest impediment to advancing an audio system is the audiophile. :)
