Why manufactures don´t burn in their amps and ...

For those that are using price as an excuse... give me a break!! A manufacturer could easily burn in an amp with tubes, then replace those stock tubes for $10 or $20 each. Assuming the amp was over $1000 to begin with, that's an insignificant amount.

Same thing goes with power cords. It might cost hundreds of dollars for an audiophile to buy a power cord as a consumer, but the actual manufacture cost should be insignificant. Any maker of components should have the connection within the industry to source quality cords -- it doesn't matter if it's hospital grade, or audiophile grade, or if it uses a different type of wire or twist. Those are easy! Some companies might charge you $20/ft of silver wire, for instance, but do the calculations: a ft of .1" diameter (roughly 10 gage) pure silver, weight around half ounce; right now, silver is $14.5/ounce, which yields about $7 for the wire. Just to make the point that component manufacturers who could mass produce this stuff could conjure up a fancy pure silver cable with techflex pvc covers dressed up for under $50 (or maybe $20), depending on the connector.

Well, as always, there are 2 sides to any reasoning. The purely qualitative side of "burn in" is quite subjective in logic. New components will settle and ultimately interact synergistically so that the entire piece performs in unison. This is understood to occur via both a mathematical (calculated) and psychological (subjective) manner. Practically, the manufacturers know that owning a brand new piece is for many the first step in enjoying the hobby. Secondly, why would they interject an opinion that would divide their prospective clients? "Requires burn-in" impregnates (lol) ideas in many peoples heads that could confuse the way they want their product to radiate in prospective clients heads. They leave this to the voodoo of the hobby. You have to be very carefull how you market you product/ideas. After all, a fart in the wrong direction is only defined by which way the "wind" is blowing. Audiophiles are quite ruthless...especially with which fads are most prominent at the time.

Thomas,
Of all the high end equipment I've owned, I don't recall any manufacturer ever saying the component "will sound better with the RIGHT cord". Some do tell you to use a high quality cables.

Power cords, interconnects and speakers cables are subjective, so there is no right or wrong cable. The "right" cable for one person may the wrong cable for the other, therefore high end manufacturers leave such choices up to the customer.

On the issue of burn-in, many manufacturers do burn in their amps on the test bench for an extended period, but usually for quality control/reliability purposes. Its up to the customer to do any additional burn burn-in, if they feel that will make a difference.

Glen

Well not all companies are alike, I recently purchased a pair of Bryston 28B SST SQ mono blocks and went for a tour of the manufactures facility.

They have a long wall basically dividing their work area in the back of the building and on both sides of this wall this is their area specified for exactly this. They just don't burn them in they do a non stop torture testing on every piece. I was shocked to see all these pces and was told they put their product through a rigorous list of test with source plugged in 24/7 through cycles including turning on and off etc.

The power cables they provided where your basic cheapos, better than your norm but they still stayed in the box and my Stealth Dreams got hooked-up.

Even with them doing this the amps still needed many hours of burn in as I noticed changes along the way, I just don't think it would be feasible for long periods of time. Bryston for example is not a mass market type of company, they build each pce as ordered and but at least they do this which is nice where as other companies do much less if any.

20 Year WARRANTY to boot.

You are going to hear more and more about these 28sq mono's, absolutely amazing amps.

I have no affiliation what so ever, these replaced my CAT JL3 Signature MK11 mono amps listing at over $40K which drive my MBL 101E's so that should tell you something.

Cars, well any car needs to be driven when new at resonable speeds to break everything-in properly, just the way it is.

Burn in, for either audio gear or cars, is not performed at the factory (other than rare exceptions) for the simple reasons of cost and practicality. Would you want your "new" car to arrive with 2,000 miles on it just so you could run it flat out on day one? Both audio gear and cars were originally (and still are) set up to be displayed, demo'ed and sold by a dealer. The dealer's gear is assumed to be already run in so the buyer can get a feel for the end product during the demo. I believe that 50 to 100 hours is plenty of burn in for audio gear to achieve its characteristic sonic signature. It may continue to improve over time, but after 100 hours you should be hearing much of what you purchased.

Manufacturers do not include upgraded power cords for the same reasons they do not include stillpoints for support or other tweaks - first, including expensive extras will not allow them to achieve attractive price points, and second, the buyers who want something different will never agree on what "improved" power cords, footers, etc. are best.

Of course, if you buy your gear on Audiogon, it will come already burned in, and you will have saved enough money to purchase an upgraded power cord.