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Burn In = Voodoo?

I have been an obsessive and enthusiastic audiophile for 20 years, I am not averse to tweaking and The Audio Critic infuriates me. However, I must admit I get a little uncomfortable reading so many posts about "burn in". While I understand that amps may need to warm up, speaker components may need to loosen up, the idea of burning in a cable or say, an SACD player just seems ludicrous to me. Unless of course, the party suggesting the burn in is a snake oil equipment peddlar and needs to make sure someone owns and uses your product for a couple of months before they decide it's really no good. At that point, of course, no one could actually remember what it sounded like in the first place and even if you wanted to return it, it would be too late. Am I being too cynical here?
cwlondon
sugarbrie
3,854 posts
 
There are molecular changes when current runs though a component or cable. There molecules do not immediately change back as soon as you turn something off. If you took a burned-in component or cable, removed it from the system and put it the closet for a couple months, you may find you need to burn it in again.
sugarbrie
3,854 posts
 
J_K : Stan Warren did a test with audiophile friends at a university, where identicle cables were frozen in Nitrogen (-273 degrees), Dry Ice (-100 degrees), and no freezing. An unintereted party knew which cable were which. The panel was able to identify the never frozen cables quickly each time (did not sound as good). They could not identify which cables were frozen in Nitrogen or Dry Ice. Therefore, they concluded Dry Ice is good enough and anyone could do it at home. They did further tests and came up with -83 degrees as the magic number you need to pass to get the full benefits of freezing. I got this information first person talking with Stan (Stan Warren for those who do not know him, is Supermods, Superphon and the "S" in PS Audio.
redkiwi
1,092 posts
 
Cwlondon - if you have been an enthusiastic audiophile for 20 years and never noticed the sound of a new component change over its first two weeks, then obviously the effect of burn-in is irrelevant to you. I find it hard to imagine that you have not heard it, because I have heard it happen so many times - and before anyone mentioned "burn-in" to me. For example, every time I have bought a new pre amp or power amp there have been a couple of weeks where the sound goes from "about right" out of the box, then increasingly thin and weedy, then suddenly fat and cloyingly warm, and then a slow sharpening up to becoming "about right" again. Then the sound just gets more and more natural for a further couple of weeks. These changes have never been subtle for me. Even if you just put a speaker cable that has lain in the cupboard for a few weeks into your system, the sound changes are very significant (for me) over about a week.
trelja
3,223 posts
 
One thing I keep wondering about is this freezing of cables in liquid nitrogen. It is common to do an experiment for school kids with a rubber ball. First, it is dropped on the ground, and bounces higher than your head. The ball would next be immersed in liquid nitrogen. Then thrown against a wall. It then shatters as if it was hollow crystal. I am not sure of the compound used in the ball. Cables are made of teflon(PTFE), polypropylene(PP), polyethylene(LDPE or HDPE), polyester(PET/PETE or PBT), etc. I have no idea which would be adversely affected in the liquid nitrogen, and which would not(I no longer work in a lab, or else I could test this). But, I do know that I would be kind of devastated if my $1000 interconnect was destroyed. Don't think the cable companies cover that in their warranties...
detlof
1,899 posts
 
Jostler, good point, had to grin when I wrote my thread, thinking, that finally it would prove nothing, because it might only prove my own suggestibility. About phonewires though, aren't phone signals very narrow band? Well whatever, your point is good, will have to think up another experiment. (:
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