Physical explanation of amp's break in?

Paulwp...Don't give sean a hard time! Although I don't always agree with him, I find his comments interesting/informative. Although I am primarily an academic-type engineer, I have always been known as one who likes to get his hands dirty, and I must say that some of my best theoretical insights (over a 40-plus year career) have come about as a result of screwing around in the lab.

My view in a nutshell is that things you see (or hear) in the lab ought to be confirmed by scientific expanation. Until that is accomplished, you can't be sure that you weren't fooled in some way.

pheeew...i thought i was the only one that didn't believe in break-in of amps, cables, and CD players...well, i guess i'm not alone anymore...thank you guys!

What's funny here, people tend to consider this as something to "believe in", instead of "know". To believe because "somebody told me", or "he must have MSc in EE to know"... LOL! Here you've got an opinion based on a practical experience and professionally measured data, not just a simplified theory. Instead of asking "educational background" :) , it would be more appropriate to provide a data, acquired on a similarly professional level (not "personal thoughts"), that would just prove the opposite... Should be easy, right?

The problem, Dmitry, is there are no profesionally measured data evidencing burn-in. It is a belief based on what people think they hear, based on what people expect to hear. I didn't ask about educational background to support the position taken on the issue of burn-in, but to support the assertion above that he knew what he was talking about.

Here's my last post to this thread.

I am not an EE, nor have i ever claimed to be. I will only add that i have almost 2500 posts on this forum and who knows how many at AA. Having said that, there have been less than a handful of those posts that an EE posted something contrary to what i had referenced when talking on strictly technical terms. To take that a step further, some of these disagreements have been due to poor wording on either my part or theirs and we really were in agreement when all was said and done.

As such, one does not have to have a piece of paper to tell you what they know or don't know. On the other hand, having that piece of paper simply means that someone knew enough to respond correctly to specific questions on tests. This does not give them practical experience when trying to design electronic circuitry or deal with real world problems and situations that arise in such circuitry.

My business partner, who does have his degree, has stated many times over that school taught him the basic fundamentals of theory but most of his knowledge of how things operate has come from hands on experience. My personal opinion is that many EE's will share that opinion as they are smart enough to realize that wisdom and knowledge come with experience. Anybody can read books ( as i did ) but applying that knowledge in a real world scenario is what seperates those that have "book knowledge" and those that can solve real world problems. Having said that, I don't know of any College that issues degrees in "common sense", "problem solving" and "application of knowledge". What College degrees do verify is that someone understands the basics of the subject at hand and that the College that issued the degree is willing to put their name behind that fact. What someone does with that basic level of understanding is up to them. Having that piece of paper does not necessarily mean that they know everything that there is to know about the subject at hand. It simply means that they knew enough to graduate. Mind you, one can graduate with an "A" or a "D-" average also.

Other than that, here's a thread on AA that discusses this very subject. An EE and i both come to the same conclusions there, much as what we have done on many, many hundreds and even thousands of threads.

Hasta la vista, baby.... Sean
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