2. amps-preamps
  3. 156142-976

Break in time that extends to months or maybe even years!!

On another thread, we have a well known and well respected piece of gear ( and great sounding too, IME) that according to the member who is reviewing it, needs in excess of 1000 hours to fully break in!! 

While we have all heard of gear that needs immense amounts of 'break in' time to sound its best, usually gear that involves teflon caps, I question whether this very long break in time is the job for the consumer? Is it reasonable for a manufacturer of audio gear to expect the consumer to receive sub-par performance from his purchase for potentially several months ( years?) before the true sound of the gear in question can be enjoyed? Or, is it ( or should it be) perhaps the job of the manufacturer of this gear ( usually not low priced) to actually accomplish the 'break in' before releasing it from the factory? Thoughts...
128x128daveyf
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mitch2
3,972 posts
 
I’m from Michigan so what do I know - I’ll bring some Bell’s

BTW,
https://northernwilds.com/pickerel-vs-walleye-setting-the-record-straight/
mahgister's avatar
mahgister
13,014 posts
 
Nope, sorry. Einstein would never say something so trite. It doesn’t mean anything.
You are right :) but I love this " trite" citation....
Sometimes banality reflect the situation itself....This was my point....

It is for the last decades in all audio thread this break-in "problem" that is not one simple problem but reflective of a complex situation, a trite problematic, implicating an experiencing subjectivity and a complex audio system .....
I dont think blind test, or comparison will settle that, except for those who call the improvement in some break-in process an illusion because it is mostly only subjectively experienced ( not necessarily an illusion or a placebo tough) and not measurable the way they will like it...

Like say Einstein in a non trite citation:

"“We can not solve our problems with the same level of thinking that created them.”

And this apply also to the break- in problem ….


But you said that this citation is not meaningful.... I dont think so... This is my translation:

“Not everything that counts can be counted,
and not everything that can be counted counts.”

All parameters linked to a problem cannot always be takes into account by the problem's statement
And more than that some parameters of the problem are sometimes secondary for the solution...
mahgister's avatar
mahgister
13,014 posts
 
I forget to say that this first citation is effectively not from Einstein...
It seems trite or a banality... Yes... Not meaningful ? no...And like my "translation" or reformulated statement made it clear, there is a link between the citation falsely attributed to Einstein, and the real citation of Einstein....

the 2 citations are well related to this break-in problem, which is also, in some aspect, an optimization problem....

My" translation" of the trite citation in a new statement of it, refer to what in mathematics, computer science and economics, is call an optimization problem , the problem of finding the best solution from all feasible solutions. is it not clear?

With this short post about this "trite" citation, falsely attributed to Einstein, I was willing to only makes my point in few clear words... But you push me to be more clear, and clarify something that is apparently trite but meaningful tough....

my best....
fundsgon
150 posts
 
Mitch2, yeah well it’s April 20 and still cold here - snow last week and 25 deg F this morning. But sunny, it was sunny. I’ll keep telling myself that. 😬

Pan fried. Mashed potatoes. Ice cold beer. We call them Dore in Quebec. Pronounced door-eh.
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