2. misc-audio
  3. 1147478988

breaking in audio components

sometimes you get lucky, and a dealer or direct manufacturer enable you to audition a component for a trial period, after which you may return it, or get a refund if you paid for it initially.

sometimes the trial period is 10 days, usually no more than a month.

you place the component in your stereo systems, listen to "test" recordings and try to evaluate its contribution to the sound of your stereo system.

there is the issue of break-in. a component may or not break-in during your trial period.

what criteria do you use to determine that a component has broken in ?

you might ask the dealer or manufacturer how long it takes to break in the component, or how many hours of signal transmission is necessary in order to fairly evaluate the component.

there is always the possibility that the component has not completely "settled" sonically, while in your possession.

there is the chance that if you buy the component, its sound may change after the trial period ends.

is it always a crap shoot when buying components, or has your experience taught you when to tell that any further changes in sound will be minor and not affect your overall sentiment toward the component ?
mrtennis
rwwear
2,847 posts
 
I am very skepitcal as most of you know. But speaker suspensions do loosen up over a short period of time and will produce more bass. We often have to re-adjust subs once they have broken in because the bass increases.
gunbei
2,327 posts
 
I'm positive my underwear fits me much better now then when I first bought them seven years ago.
timrhu
2,779 posts
 
I have experienced break in difference with a new pair of Paradigm Studio 60s. A noticeable improvement after a month or so. I seriously thought the speakers were faulty out of the box but smoothed out nicely. Can't say I've noticed it with any other component or cable.
jeff_jones
418 posts
 
I had a new Arcam Alpha 10 integrated amp that would totally disgust the deaf for the first 12 hours or so, with other products the changes have been either less dramatic or non-existent.
horseface's avatar
horseface
222 posts
 
I worked in the electronic component manufacturing field for 10 years making ceramic capacitors. I can tell you capacitors change value over time and the change is logarithmic - so the largest change is when the component is "new". Some of the high end military contracts required burn-in for each individual component before we shipped them. This was to insure the component value was sound and therefore the circuit it was in was far less likely to fail due to changes in capacitance value. It's nice when you are shooting missiles if they don’t fail. The change in value had to do with how the material changed electrically (capacitance increase or decrease) as electricity was applied to it. After a certain amount of time - the change was negligible. I could go on an on and boar you to tears but I can tell you burn in is legitimate ... if you don’t believe me check out AVX, Kemet, Vitrimon, Kyocera web sites ... they have tons and tons of engineering data for circuit designers. You will want to look at life test data sheets. They might be a little hard to discern if you don’t have a lot of experience reading them but you will notice they are on a logarithmic scale.

You look at how the dielectric changes over time and the design your circuit accordingly. That’s probably why the sound improves significantly over a short time and less as time goes on – the person that designed your linestage calculated it that way. I don’t think I’m going out too far out on a line to assume most conductive materials change electrically in some way over time. If you can calculate this rate – you can design around it.

Any Material Science or Ceramic Engineers out there? Chime in now please …

The Horse
More to discover