Break-in

I have never had a component sound worse after break-in. But that's all that means. Not sounding worse doesn't always mean tympanic happiness, for this audiophool.....peace, warren

Try this logic - if you are a product designer, and you know your widget changes its characteristics from its new state to its well broken-in state, do you optimize its performance for the new state, which exists only for a short time, or for the broken-in state, which lasts a long time? I think any intelligent designer would do the latter. I think this explains why some products work a little better after being broken-in.

Nighthawk: Good answer. That's assuming, of course, that the break-in of all the individual components inside a piece is highly predictable. Otherwise, the equipment designers would be guessing -- at least to some degree.

Anyway, I know measurements don't tell the whole story, but I wonder if any of this is measurable. Has anyone done any before and after measurements of speakers, amps, preamps, CD players, etc.? Thanks for your responses.

Components that include elastomer materials, speaker surrounds, and phono pickups can be expected to loosen up, and sound different after some use. Extended LF response is easily measured.

When it comes to electronics, wire, equipment racks, I doubt that anyone can measure any change, although they claim to hear something. Between the ears IMHO.

But how do you predict how a component will sound after break-in, if you don't know what causes break-in? How does an engineer design for a phenomenon he doesn't understand? (Answer: He doesn't.)

As for measurements, I think Tom Nousaine once tested speaker drivers before and after "break-in." The differences were so small that they were swamped by the unit-to-unit differences. I would expect the differences to be even smaller for purely electronic devices.