"Burn in" Are you serious?

I agree that not everyone is equally influenced by the effects of burn it. I unfortunately, am one of the more sensitive to this problem, and really have to exercise caution when testing. This is not a new or revolutionary thought within the audio industry. Even in the early 1980's, people such as Steve McCormack, Bill Lowe (Audioquest), Jim Aud (Purist) and Richard Vandersteen, among others, advised us about the existence of break in. These manufacturers have more recently been followed by a majority of the high end community, in recognizing the fact that this is a real part of the evolution of the sound.

Hi Waldhorner, Yes I think I would expect a difference between an old receiver and a new high end piece. Would you expect a different ride from a new Mercedes when compared to a 78 Chevy? Of course. But that would not prevent me from acknowledging any aspect that might turn out to be superior in the Chevy. Over time and thanks to a few unusual experiences of mine I have learned to trust my ears before trusting my eyes. I know this is hard to do. One example: 28 years ago my band was making our first album in the studio at the top of Radio City Music Hall (same one where Toscanini conducted the NBC Orchestra). I had a "name" producer and one of the most experienced and sought after engineers at the time. The pressure of performing and of being surrounded by "more experienced" ears than mine did not stop me from complaining constantly about something being wrong with the sound. I did not have the tools to describe it but I insisted that they pay attention to my feelings. After a few hours of recording the engineers reluctantly checked into it and found that a 5 hertz tone was being put on tape unbeknownst to them. This discovery prevented problems later on down the reproduction chain, and saved us from losing many takes... I began to trust my ears and my hunches after that and hundreds of similar experiences. It was also a lot of fun watching the Rockettes run around the changing room next door! I would be interested in a clear scientific explanation of break in, but I would not deny its existence in light of my personal experience and the thousands of testimonials here and elsewhere. Objective testing has as many flaws as subjective listening.

Redkiwi and the rest, I will postpone my veredict on burn-in until I have a better room. All I am saying is that at least some of those who are hearing burn-in effects can't possibly because they do not have a revealing enough system-room combination.

By the way, I am not referring to speaker break-in, which is obvious. I am referring to solid state and cable "burn-in" which I cannot really detect.

Joe: The room would explain it if many people did not listen in the near field. I don't ordinarily, but do when I am testing new stuff to buy at home. On the otherside of the coin I have also experienced "burn out" on older tube stuff that I have kept for over ten years. It was, I thought, well maintained. I don't know how revealing the systems were on a whole, but they weren't a match for my ears, that's for sure. If you still have the Silverline's that you mentioned in another thread, I am suprised that you do not hear a difference in new cables. Try reversing a pair of IC's sometime when it's quiet and you have the time to listen. I did this by accident once with a pair of silver IC's and was very upset with the results until I figured out what happened, which only took a few mintes of backtracking.