Break In Question?

audition__audio

There are clear guidelines prohibiting "self promotion" in the rules regarding forum behavior.

You're mistaken.Yes, AI agrees with your claim, but you'll not find any such prohibition in Audiogon's Terms Of Use or forum guidelines. (So much for the reliability of AI.) Perhaps there should be such a rule, perhaps you should lobby for such a rule, perhaps the rule would be "common sense." But you're trying to invoke a rule that simply doesn't exist.

If you think I'm mistaken, please provide a link to Audiogon's actual rule. (Google and AI don't count. It's Audiogon's rule, not Google's.)

I own Harley's book and think it is an excellent primer. He avoids most controversial topics and concentrates on some basic facts. This is the way to write an audio book. If I decided to write a book that would sell, if selling copies were the main goal, I would find some almost universally accepted audio beliefs and attack them. Even better if I can convince my readers that some sort of industry conspiracy is involved. 

So, my new streamer/dac has just passed the 200 hour of break in time, and I must say the sound difference from the beginning to now is remarkable. 

I guess I should be glad my brain has adjusted. Just kidding...

ozzy

@ozzy I wish I remember where my I bought my usb cable. It was only $40 and had a very noticeable 18-24 hrs bright phase. 

@douglas_schroeder Thank you for your introduction and background. 

You say you have the blessing of many gear coming your way. This is actually a bad thing in regards to burn-in. To understand or notice burn-in, you need 2 attributes:

1) Be very familiar with the sound of a system, so when a new component is switched in, you understand the change and the change over time. In order to notice change, you must first know what is changing.

2) Burn-in time varies greatly. Anywhere from X up to 300 hours, some high quality gear even require 500 hours. If you listen to music 3 hours a day, it can take up to 100 days to complete a 300-hr burn-in. A challenge for someone with access to a lot of gear.

3) This is a bonus. The best way to identify burn-in is not by listening for change. Listening for change is very difficult. What you should do is to listen for what is bad with the sound. If you cannot identify what sounds bad, you are not ready for burn-in evaluation. Once you have identified the bads, you start listening for when the bad traits diminish. That’s how it’s done.

If you want burn-in evaluation the easiest way, have 2 identical products but one with many hours on it, the other brand new.

Another note, keep in mind what makes up good audio sound also involves roughly 30%-50% of things we don’t hear and don’t want to hear. When you know, you know.