How many times must I say that I regularly have the experience of hearing what is called break in?
Thus, samureyex, you’re wrong. My issue with the received wisdom of the community has never revolved around whether I can hear the changes everyone is claiming. I experience the phenomenon, seem to hear changes in sound over time, just as everyone else. I have spent thousands of hours listening to minutia in the music. It is offensive to hear you suggest that I can’t hear differences. If you think I can’t hear differences, read my reviews and stand corrected.
Larsman, based on actual comparison of identical systems to test the phenomenon of break in, I do know a lot about what you have heard. The same kind of thing I have heard hundreds of times. I have heard "break in" many more times than most of you, perhaps all of you put together! I have built hundreds of systems with dozens of brands of equipment. Is that arrogance? No, it’s a fact. The preponderance of evidence is on my side when I state that I do not have to be at your home and hear your headphones. The odds are statistically exceptionally low that all the stacked equipment and tweaks I assembled and compared broken in and warmed up vs new and not warmed up - not just in one set of trails but on two separate occasions with different gear - were anomalies that have no bearing on everyone else’s equipment. The odds are extremely high that what was demonstrated - no difference - proves that in cases where the audiophile thinks over time that there has been change, it is not so. The audiophile’s ears, perception over longer time periods is inaccurate. Only in shorter time frames is it accurate.
I can’t help it that all of you do not want to accept reality, that your ears are not as reliable as electronics.
I knew when I wrote the book that there would be terrific push back on this and other topics. If the evidence was not so obvious and repeated, I would not couch my comments in absolute terms. One of the reasons they are called Audiophile Laws is because they are dependent upon actual system building and direct (as close to real time as possible, i.e., one or two minutes, not hundreds of hours) comparisons, not perceptions spread over days or weeks.
NONE of you who have criticized my conclusions has anywhere near as strong evidence as I do. If you really wanted to find out the truth, you would get doubles of some part of your system, treat one for as long as you like, then do direct comparison. It is the self-assurance of the audiophile which fools us into thinking that break in is obviously happening because I hear it.
When I started in this hobby, I was precisely like most of you, self-assured, ready to debate anyone who disagreed. After a while reviewing I began to learn things about systems that caused me to question commonly accepted things. I realized that I could test them because I had ready access to multiples of products for review. I put in the extra time to informally test break in. Now, because of testing, comparisons, I was forced to accept the reality, that neither my ears nor your ears (perception) are reliable over longer time periods.
There are big consequences to that conclusion for the audiophile who wishes to advance their system. It doesn’t matter if ten or ten thousand of you post your experiences; they are all dependent upon the same weakness, inability of the ears to be as reliable as electronics.
