How much does volume matter when breaking in amps and cables?


I'm not here to debate break-in. I generally leave new amps, components, and new cables playing low volume for a for long periods to start the break in process. Just curious how much does volume play a role in breaking in such. I get that speakers probably need pretty good amounts to push drivers, but what about other components?


aberyclark
mijostyn pleads:
Undoubtedly, electronic equipment drifts slowly overtime as some component values shift with recurrent heat cycles although I have never seen objective evidence of this. There is no electronic device that I know of that changes its characteristics in the first several hours of usage.


So you know electronic equipment changes, and yet there is none that you know of that changes. Fascinating.

mijostyn again:
Maybe class A or highly biased AB amps sound a little different after they heat up although having had several class A amps I have never been able to hear this


That would appear to be the problem then, wouldn’t it? You can’t hear it.

mijostyn, stepping in it Big Time:
I own two 911s a 2006 Speed Yellow C4S and a 2014 Guards Red Turbo S. Porsche’s break in recommendation has always been "keep it under 4000 rpm for the first 2000 miles." Absolute torture but there is no substitute.


You must be new here, or at any rate not following me long enough to know I’m a PCA Driving Instructor (Driver Ed, Autocross, Driver Skills), and former PCA Region President with something like 200k miles personally driven on his 79 SC that has been rebuilt, good friends with scads of Porsche techs. Can you say, oops?!?

First off, the factory break-in that is in "the" manual is different depending on which country the car is sold in. Same car. Different laws. That 4000 rpm has nothing to do with break-in. Sorry. But you could look it up.

Now what’s really interesting, not only for Porsche but all internal combustion engines, the one thing that really does need to be broken in a certain way early on is piston rings.

Very high (read, full throttle) loads very early on (first few miles) are needed to seat the piston rings. What happens is that even highly machined parts still have some fine sharp peaks at the micro level. Subjected to high pressure these will wear on each other in a way that facilitates a better piston to cylinder wall seal. But these peaks are very fine and wear away very quickly whether babied or driven hard. The problem is if you avoid full throttle early on then by the time you do it they are smooth and you lose the benefit.

This is why you never hear anything about Porsche (or anyone else, this is universal to piston engines) breaking in their racing engines for thousands of miles. For damn sure they want their LeMans engines to last. Yet they do not break them in by babying them around at low RPM. This is why if you take factory delivery in Leipzig where they have a track right there and ask if you need to baby your brand new car they will say, "NO! Warm it up, then drive it as hard as you want. That’s what it’s made for."

Experience and knowledge, mijostyn. Imagination is no substitute.


How many watts through headphone cables? One watt or less? How many watts through interconnects? My guess 1/2 watt. Preamp internal wiring? My guess .01 watt. How about tonearm wires? 0.01 watt? Who knows?
Abery,
The short answer is:
1.  40 hours
2.  Start low and work the volume level up with each run increasing the run time as well
3.  Use a variety of music to cover different frequencies
4.  You can use 8 ohm 100 watt dummy loads in place of speakers
5.  Unless the inputs are couple using a capacitor or transformer you do not need to do each input for 40 hours

BUT 
Break in or Burn in as it was called in the 80's and 90's was done because of part failures.  It was found that if a part was going to fail it would fail within the first 40 hours.  Therefore, products received some run time and samples were run for longer periods.  This was done in a controlled environment with measurement equipment.

Note the word controlled and measurement.  Words like Stress, Cook, Continuously Powered for long periods are not used.

So why do this today? 

Products can fail today.  The forums contain post of fires and major failures in products made in China.  Reviewers have had failures and even fires, see Stereophile.

So what you are trying to do is:
1  Ensure that the product is not going to fail
2  Do so where you can monitor it and make sure it does not take out another piece of equipment
3  Gradually loosen up capacitors, inductors, transformers, and speakers

Do not 
1  Leave the equipment unattended
2  Push the equipment as hard as you can
3  Leave the equipment on all the time as the power has to go somewhere
4  Run it in a 90 degree room
5  Violate manufacturers recommendations
6  Attempt to stress the equipment and therefore create its death
7  Run the equipment when it is too hot to touch.  If this is normal then it is a poor design

Just use common sense.  
1  If the equipment is getting hot to the touch, turn it off.  
2  If it is making noises, turn it off.
3  Follow normal listening practices.  Just because an amplifier can do 100 watts does not mean you should run it for 10 hours straight into 100 watts.
4  Use slow ramp ups in volume and run times.  Many pieces of equipment fail at turn on just like a light bulb

After 40 hours or a period of 5 to 6 days you should be able to feel comfortable with the equipment under normal operating conditions.  And the various bits should be loosened up.
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