Break in period

Shadorne, are you saying that engineers deliberately engineer their equipment to audibly burn-in? I have heard some far out theories before, but this one sets new standards.

+++ Often the part selection and design criteria are heavily influenced by the desired products useful life span. +++

Mmm yeah. This statement would have been even more interesting if there was any correlation between burn-in and reliability/life-span. There isn’t, but if you are theorizing that there is, then we have yet again set new standards for far out theories.

+++ Nobody wants a "lemon" out there that hundreds of customers complain about; the cost to make a manufacturing recall to get equipment to perform properly as originally specified to customers; the cost to reputation +++

Well it’s nice to see you’ve done Business Management 101, but again this has zero relevance to the phenomenon of burn in.

I guess you may find individuals that will send back V-Caps because they sound slightly better after 400 hours. Personally I elected to keep mine ... each time.

Regards
Paul

Paul,

My point was that audio engineers design things to sound consistent and significant audible changes ascribed to lengthy burn-ins (after months of listening) is not very desirable.

If I understand you and others, you are saying that this has nothing to do with choice of material or circuit design but is the intrinsic property of most wire and most of the electrical components typically used; a lengthy break-in, lasting several months, being unavoidable and independent of the design or material choices.

I can't see how to reconcile these views - so I propose we agree to disagree. As I am blessed with tin ears, I am blissfully unaware of these minute changes and simply can't imagine how frustrating it must be to be able to hear them. I tend to think of Edgar Allan Poe Usher family type thing ;-) Admittedly this last remark being a bit of hyperbole - for amusement - no offense intended.

Shadorne, your second paragaph is dead on. Yes, let's agree to disagree. Sorry I overreacted earlier. Dave

If I may "explore" Shadorne's comments above, we may find similarity rather than disagreement:

My point was that audio engineers [would aim to] design things to sound consistent and significant audible changes ascribed to [any number of parametres, one of which is] lengthy burn-ins (after months of listening) (...)[may] not be very desirable [since it could result in performance variations between otherwise identical pieces of equipment]

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I wouldn;t think anyone is doubting that -- if I catch Shadorne's drift.

The fact that there IS some change in performance is all the more interesting.

A note about wires, referred to by Atma above: one of the most boringly annoying such situations must be changing the tonearm wire. Once changed "for the better" the new wire often takes an PIA time to "settle"/burn/break or whatever it is or takes for it to sound normal/itself...

Shadorne, your second paragraph comes close. If you like the sound of lets say, Dynamicaps, and decide to use them when you build or modify an amp, they will change ever so slightly the first few hours of use. That is irrespective of your design.

However, this is not necessarily a lengthy process nor is a frustrating one. Dynamicaps do most of their settling within 4 hours or so, and I always get a big kick out of hearing the very subtle improvement as I spin the first 6 to 7 LPs. It’s almost like watching your child getting born, only less costly. Makes all the soldering worthwhile.

Tone arm wire and step-ups take forever to burn in. This is due to the very low voltages going through them. (< 0.005 volt in the case of many MCs). I put them on my cooker and run 2 volts through them for a few hours. Believe me, they’re well burned-in after that.

More than likely the stuff you bought were run for a few hours at the factory for shake down tests. That would all but run-in most components inside your gear.

Regards
Paul