Break in period

break in never guarantees a dramatic change or an improvement. your brain and ears do the adjusting and acceptence. if you don't like em now, you rarely love'em later.

sound the same toady as at first set up 4 yrs ago. = not a believer in the " the theory" or better "the myth" of the "break in period". As in all things audio you have 2 main camps. tubes vs ss, analog vs digital, , I'm in the camp with fewest members, no breakin time.

Broken record time. Believe what you like.

I don't know what the mechanism is, but I have had experiences similar to Dopogue's, particularly with cables. And with the Avalon Eclipses I bought in 1995, which were so variable in the first 6 months as to induce severe bouts of hypochondria (I must have some hearing disorder, etc etc). High-end audio...not for the faint of heart.

Dopogue, Great observation and I think you're right on. On the Raysonic I had expectations based on the review in 6moons and that is what I focused on for the first couple of hours out of the box. Warm, less resolution, rolled highs. Yep. Then the next day I started listening to it critically and concluded that the reviewer was FOS and, at a minimum, the tubes were a terrible match, no 'breaking in' could fix this sound! Dull, bloated, poor resolution, etc.

I was wrong! I rolled a ton of tubes in the Raysonic and my other stuff trying to get what I expected in the first place. Many weeks later I went back to the same tubes in the Raysonic and its IMHO great, especially at the price! Ditto my Tylers, dammed near sent them back to Tyler!

And for flatearther's amoungst us, my listening was always with other broken in speakers and CDP's available for comparison so I was able to track the changes. You're intitled to your opinions and experiences, but they are not universal for a good reason.