For Your Edification and Enjoyment re "Burn In", etc.

Thank you for your prolonged reply Doug. Again, no argument from me. I look at the manufacturers of such things as scam artists even if they believe in what they are doing.

Cable Cooker? I just returned from Audio Excellence's web site. Everything they make can be done in a home workshop with simple tools. None of it requires an education. None of it has a sound basis for operating as advertised. I think you should review the Audiodharma. Who buy's the equipment you review? Hopefully not you! 

Every human ear has a mechanism of accommodation. A tiny muscle, the stapedius, tightens up the ossicles in response to louder sound. The reflex is rather slow. It can not respond to impulse noises like gun shots. As it responds to louder music the sensitivity of the ear decreases but this varies with frequency. The end result is that treble and bass increase disproportionally to midrange at louder volumes. Add to this our poor audio memory, perceptual changes that occur with mood and other psychological factors and you have...a mess. Humans in general are very poor at analyzing the quality of audio information. They can tell you what they listened too and in gross terms tell you what it sounded like but they can not remember in fine detail what they heard. They can not reliably identify a single system out of a group of systems. What they hear changes with too many variables to be able to predict.
In order to be remotely reliable comparisons have to be made in rapid succession and repeated multiple times. Evaluations are relative. If a person's system is bright a system that is neutral will sound dull and so forth. What is normal for one person may not be to another. No method of calibration is used so you have no idea where a person is coming from. 

I have made no reference to time frame; the hundreds of hours are over the course of the 14 years of reviewing. Obviously, when a person waits for "settling", which of course, has not been demonstrated, but has been shown not to occur via my informal testing, they will get much more of nothing done. 

I expected that at some point the straw man argument of appeal to analogue might arise. ".. polishing a turd." Beautiful; I'm being called out for condescension by my opponents here, and then that kind of comment is made. An appeal to analog versus digital is a weak argument, a straw man, that has zero impact on the testing.

This paragraph is evidentially wrong, " I might be willing to send you my Audio Dharma cooker but I dont [sic] think from this whole exchange you have indicated that you would be willing to admit any error. Kind of like sending a cable to Frank Van Alstine for review."

When Frank was visiting my home, I specifically demonstrated detachable power cords to show him the efficacy of using different aftermarket PCs, and encouraged him to put IECs on his equipment. At the next show, when I entered his room he called me over and had me look behind his component. There was an IEC! 

Further, Frank made a component called the ABX Comparator, that was designed to do the same kind of testing as I did, but with more rigor. Does that sound like a man who prejudges, who shouldn't be trusted in evaluating things? BTW, I did a review of the ABX Comparator. Guess why? I wanted to see if all the talk about cables and ABX was true, and whether I could distinguish between cables in a blind/random testing environment.

Now, I just finished the article returning to further assessment of tweaks and methods such as burn in and break in. I'm doing all this voluntarily, and my judgment is not to be trusted? I revisited the topic to see if further testing would confirm or falsify, and I'm not able to have a balanced perspective? I am not interested in an ongoing defense of myself for you in the face of that heavy of skepticism. Take it or leave it, so be it. 


I would appreciate it if you tried to rein in your wild, unsubstantiated judgments of me. I appreciate the thought of loaning the cooker, but if I work with one, I will source it elsewhere.  :)




 

random thoughts reading the funny exchanges in this thread...

mc & audition audio -- pots calling kettle black... 🤣

doug writes here and elsewhere as his contribution... his beliefs his findings - yes he talks down to people, everybody gets irritated and gets short and rude, sometimes hard to avoid - lotta anonymous keyboard jockeying happens here from people who have shown less in experience and 'who are you' qualifications than doug

frank v a's abx unit is indeed a truth teller

bottom line, if you are curious enough about anything hifi - gotta find out by yourself, be rigorous with the methodology

which of course, has not been demonstrated, but has been shown not to occur via my informal testing, they will get much more of nothing done.

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Douglas the point I was trying to make, is you have a view that is based on minutes, not hours, days, Weeks and MONTHS .. Do you understand? You said hundreds (100s) of systems. With minutes each.. That is NOT critical listening.. That is passive at best "a quickie".. PLAIN and SIMPLE..

Taking the time on just ONE complete system 1-400 hours. That is why manufactures have help lines..  You summed up your "DATA" in a nutshell, "more of nothing done".

The race is a mile long you quit at 50 yards pretty tough to say how you trained for a mile, but stopped at 50 yards..AND go on to tell others how hard that mile really is.

You can't talk about braking in something if you don't actually do it. 
Let alone assign 100s to the same analogy, it's just not good data.
You literally haven't done your homework...

You want that grade NOW? :-)

Respect..

No the abx is not a truth teller. Check out all of the possible problems most if not all of them arise from the psychological phenomena of being tested. You either allow for any number of subconscious psychological influences on both sides or you dont get any.