Break In Question?

@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.

samureyex, thank you for your thoughtful comments! 

Perhaps more background will help you to understand my position on break in. I have had the privilege of handling a great deal of components, cable sets, and speakers. This is over a 40 year period, 20 years of it as a reviewer. During most of that time I assiduously practiced the received wisdom of the industry and community in "breaking in" products. So, the changes were not so quick as to be unfamiliar with the system. 

I did the same thing as many here, put on music and waited for the product to be broken in over days, 200 hours, 300 hours, etc. I think most here would agree that it is hard to hear a change if constantly subjected to the sound as the said product is purportedly breaking in, though some claim to hear the change in progress. 

As regards your recommended process of break in, I believe that I followed what you and others suggest. Though now I pay no attention to the phenomenon which is called break in, it was not always that way. I understand the mindset and behaviors behind the impetus to break in a product. 

Now, as to your second point, listening for issues/problems. I have deep familiarity with every aspect of my system's sound. I use over 1,000 vocal tracks and over 600 instrumental tracks which I can use diagnostically to know the performance of any system I set up. I spent one decade as a budget audiophile attempting to flip budget gear, letting it break in, etc. in order to achieve close to SOTA sound. I failed, as will anyone who thinks they can get close to SOTA sound on a low budget. I was forced to accept that I had failed when I became a reviewer and had the ability to build higher end systems. It became immediately apparent that break in didn't do squat to supposedly transform a lower end rig into a higher end rig. I have much more I could say about that, but it's sufficent for now. 

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

That is precisely what I have done! I discuss this thoroughly, including descriptions of the systems, the methodology, and in one case, the audiophile who sat in with me on the testing, in my book. Apart from attempting to tease out whether there would be audible changes indicated by measurements, the ONLY way to verify whether break in has occurred is to compare actual products, as I did. 

I have another method, which I discuss in the book, and it is suitable to assess whether tweaks are audible, whether they are doing anything to advance the system. 

The results of direct comparison of broken in vs. new, never used, not even warmed up, components, cables sets, and speakers did not support the belief that the equipment changes sound over time. There is only one conclusion to be drawn, that the audiophile's perception is subject to gross inaccuracy over time. Ergo, the timeframe for comparisons between components, cables, and speakers must be shortened dramatically if there is to be meaningful progress made in advancing an audio system. 

There are a number of consequences associated, and I developed the Law of Efficacy to ensure that the audiophile is making advances when conducting those comparisons. 

I was never a big believer in break in until a few years ago when I bought a new pair of mono block amps.

After about 15 minutes of listening, I wanted to pack them up and send them back to the hell from whence they came. Lots of blare and glare and honk. Very unpleasant. Very fatiguing in spite of having a treated room. My old cheaper stereo amp sounded far better (and it was not a good amp).

But I had a trial period so I let them play on. I would periodically check to hear if there was any improvement. Each time I checked, I did perceive some progress. After about a week the transformation was astounding. They changed from blare and glare to smooth and balanced and liquid flowing. I had never heard my maggies sound so fluid and open. 

This wasn’t a case of just my brain “getting used” to them because I didn’t sit down for listening sessions long enough to get used to them during this period. I kept these amps and don’t plan to replace them anytime soon.

My logical self tries to tell me electronic break in isn’t possible…but I know what I heard and I know that I didn’t imagine it.

He still won't answer my question about headphone break-in after non-continuous listening with no 'getting used to' involved. 

All this talk about “break in” has made me think of something that l have never even considered before.

There has been some debate that equipment with moving parts benefit the greatest. Speakers leading the field because of their mechanical drivers.

So what has suddenly dawned on me is……. 
Do tonearms need a “break in” ??

l personally have never heard a difference other than with an immediate change of model. Is there anyone who thinks that a tonearm improves from being broken in, just like a car engine?