bkeske, How would a stylus "adjust itself." I could understand the suspension adjusting itself. Thing is why would this always make a cartridge sound better? Why not worse?
Ledermann thinks "break in" is purely psychological. He avoids saying it directly for obvious political reasons. Since I have nothing to sell I don't have to be political. Human hearing is incapable of detecting slow relatively minor changes in sound. It can detect abrupt changes above a certain threshold. It is more likely that we just become use to the sound over time so it becomes our new reference. Have you ever switched back to an old piece of equipment and gone "YUK?" "How could I ever have listened to that and I use to think that sounded great." You had gotten use to it.
On the other hand I can alter frequency response +- 1 db any which way anywhere between 20 Hz and 20 kHz and none of us would know it. 2 dB and I think most of us could identify the part of the spectrum that was being modified. 3 dB is unmistakable to anyone. 1 dB is a pretty big change but to hear it you would have to go to 2dB which is huge. I doubt anything "breaking in" would make a 2dB change in frequency response.
Ledermann thinks "break in" is purely psychological. He avoids saying it directly for obvious political reasons. Since I have nothing to sell I don't have to be political. Human hearing is incapable of detecting slow relatively minor changes in sound. It can detect abrupt changes above a certain threshold. It is more likely that we just become use to the sound over time so it becomes our new reference. Have you ever switched back to an old piece of equipment and gone "YUK?" "How could I ever have listened to that and I use to think that sounded great." You had gotten use to it.
On the other hand I can alter frequency response +- 1 db any which way anywhere between 20 Hz and 20 kHz and none of us would know it. 2 dB and I think most of us could identify the part of the spectrum that was being modified. 3 dB is unmistakable to anyone. 1 dB is a pretty big change but to hear it you would have to go to 2dB which is huge. I doubt anything "breaking in" would make a 2dB change in frequency response.