Is it the beer or do speakers/electronics really need some extended warm-up period?

With the Lamm ML 2 amps, you can definitely hear a difference as you play music for the first 45 minutes-1 hour. A gradual opening up in almost all aspects. If it is something else, then it must be the tube line stage or the tube phono stage, or perhaps the cartridge; they are part of a system that noticeably improves in sonics after the first hour of playing. I think it gets better by smaller degrees after that, but it is noticeable, and repeatable. I’ve been using these amps for about 11 years. And many previous amps I’ve owned, all tube, were the same in that they changed sound character for the better after warm up, though perhaps not as dramatically as the Lamm.
The Lamm line stage I had- the L2- had a solid state audio circuit and tube power supply, and Vlad recommended keeping it always powered on; I did that (though I never really liked running tube gear when I wasn’t home). I would pull power during electrical storms, and it seemed to take days for that thing to come back on song after it had been unplugged for a while.
I gather that solid state gear benefits from warm up too, but have less ownership experience in high end solid state gear. Switched to tube amps and preamps around 1974 and have soldiered on with various good tube products since then, none of them poorly made or designed- mostly early mid era ARC stuff.

 For many years my big system needed about 20-30 minutes of playing time to sound its best even with everything powered on 24/7. I believe it was the tubes in my preamp and dac but the Sumo Nine Class A & Audio Alchemy transport warm up as well. The transformation was fairly subtle, mostly image but I'm sensitive to that. It went from closed in sounding to a very open and deep soundstage.
  Now that I am computer based playback, solid state dac, and a Levinson power amp it sounds the same turned on fresh as it does hours later so it really depends on the gear itself

So it turns out from legit scientific studies that alcohol has a ten fold influence on sound than thermal effects on electronics. You can try it yourself at home! It kicks in about 20 minutes, coincidentally about the same time the amp is running optimal and the cables have opened up :) It’s awesome!

It is the beer. Over the years, I have found that the more beer I drink, the louder I can turn up the volume to get the best sound. Alas, I had to quit drinking when replacement mids were discontinued for my speakers. I also had to limit Maynard Ferguson to my old system with electronicly activated speaker protection.

That makes sense to me since almost all systems distort the sound like crazy 😜 when turned up past moderate levels. I’m not hot doggin ya. Beer numbs the brain to the gross distortion.