Break in period

Break-in has nothing to do with the quality of components

I have nothing more I can say to those who claim dramatic audible break-in changes, which can drive people nearly nuts, have nothing to do with the design "quality" of components; I beg to differ on what constitutes "quality" that's all.

Tube components take much less to warm up and or break in opposed to solid state.. However the real problem is not the topology used its the Capacitors.. The super tight teflon whiz bang Caps take some time to open up.. The oil caps take a little less, in between cheap caps are somewhere between those two on time to sound right... But all caps seem to be a little better with some age on them. Wire, Resistors etc.. Especially Tubes "Burning in" is more or less B.S. Although Can agree with above tubes can change character and smooth out with a few hours on them.
By the way this is just my own opinion on testing the waters and following things after changing out and modifying components.. Mostly it seems to lay claim for true when Speaker drivers or capacitors are involved, they do change and sound better with time.

Shadorne, could you tell us what you mean by 'quality of components', and could you give us some actual examples of high end gear you personally experience did not benefit from break in?

hi marakanetz:

it sometimes happens that the sound of a component changes with time in such a manner that you prefer its presentation before it has received a signal, in comparison to its presentation after it has 100 + hours.

i have experienced both improvement and degredation, following "break-in".

be careful. do not judge a component too soon, especially during a home audition.

another way of looking at "break-in" is as establishing a link between components. as an example, consider interconnect cables. when a cable interfaces a cd player and a preamp. a link is established between three components. if the link is broken after the cable has 100+ hours and the cable is placed between a second cd player and preamp, it may be necessary to establish a new link by running a signal between the cable and the "new" components.

could you tell us what you mean by 'quality of components'

Obviously there are many things that define quality and this may differ from person to person as to what they are looking for (THD+N, TIM, Channel Separation, power, headroom, etc.). I simply included reliability and consistency of response over time as a factor that I regard as one of the important qualities in an audio component. A tube that changes response over a short time of a few hundred hours and ultimately dies shortly after that, is not the kind of quality I would be satisfied with. Others may be happy to put up with these issues and lack of consistency in sound in order to benefit from the fantastic sound of a particular finicky tube. Their definition of high quality differs from mine that's all (weighted to what they perceive as the "best sounding tube")

The list of components that do not audibly drift in a dramatic way with time is far too long for me to mention. Of course, components do age and they do fail but often they last a good many years. A small drift in power supplies as equipment ages is also well known (which is why components are generally designed to operate accurately within a tolerance range).