@invalid i’m sure that everything was thoroughly tested, but I never heard the term burnt in until around 2020 when I got on this forum. I’ve been around, electricians my whole life, and I never heard them say that the lighting would look better after the wires burned in. I’ve heard the term used when speaking of a new clutch, motor or drag racing rear tires. Those all make sense, but electronics. I always thought once they were wired and tested they were complete. If something requires burning in to be at its best doesn’t that imply that it changes when voltage is applied multiplied by some amount of time? How do the cables know when to stop burning in? If they change after 100 hours of voltage is applied wouldn’t they continue to change?? at some point wouldn’t that mean that they would go beyond their ideal, sweet spot and start going bad? Or do they only go to the good and then burn on into infinite perfection?
Why HiFi Gear Measurements Are Misleading (yes ASR talking to you…)
About 25 years ago I was inside a large room with an A-frame ceiling and large skylights, during the Perseid Meteor Shower that happens every August. This one time was like no other, for two reasons: 1) There were large, red, fragmenting streaks multiple times a minute with illuminated smoke trails, and 2) I could hear them.
Yes, each meteor produced a sizzling sound, like the sound of a frying pan.
Amazed, I Googled this phenomena and found that many people reported hearing this same sizzling sound associated with meteors streaking across the sky. In response, scientists and astrophysicists said it was all in our heads. That, it was totally impossible. Why? Because of the distance between the meteor and the observer. Physics does not allow sound to travel fast enough to hear the sound at the same time that the meteor streaks across the sky. Case closed.
ASR would have agreed with this sound reasoning based in elementary science.
Fast forward a few decades. The scientists were wrong. Turns out, the sound was caused by radiation emitted by the meteors, traveling at the speed of light, and interacting with metallic objects near the observer, even if the observer is indoors. Producing a sizzling sound. This was actually recorded audibly by researchers along with the recording of the radiation. You can look this up easily and listen to the recordings.
Takeaway - trust your senses! Science doesn’t always measure the right things, in the right ways, to fully explain what we are sensing. Therefore your sensory input comes first. You can try to figure out the science later.
I’m not trying to start an argument or make people upset. Just sharing an experience that reinforces my personal way of thinking. Others of course are free to trust the science over their senses. I know this bothers some but I really couldn’t be bothered by that. The folks at ASR are smart people too.
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your ears need to burn into the sound as well. Its no different than anything else that is new in your life. It takes a period of time to adjust to it. If you buy a pair of shoes they wont feel right until they have burned in. Part of this is the rubber becoming softer as you continue to wear them in. Of course eventuallly, the shoes will wear out which is a different thing.
That is because the efffect would be too subtle to see. However audiophiles care about the smallest differences they can hear so that is why burn in cannot be ignored. More importantly, custom tuning is compulsory. If you want your speakers to suit your ears they will need to be tuned to your ears, and not the designers ears. |
@kenjit thanks for the response. I’m not sure all your metaphors work… so you’re saying that the cables stay the same but it’s my ears that are actually doing the burn in? Or do the cables burn in and your ears burn in and your sneakers burn in? What about your feet? Do your feet burn in like your ears? Or only your sneakers burn in like the cables? I’m going to have to ask one of the electricians out there if it’s true that the lighting burns in your house after it’s wired? How long does it take for the electrical wiring in your house to stabilize? I totally agree with you that you need to put your speakers in the appropriate place and that your room possibly could need a tweak or two because of what it’s constructed of but are you saying that this also is a form of burn in? |
Maybe it’s true that history repeats itself some times. You’re in Luck! No joke, a 50+ year in audio and audiophile buddy of mine, he’s had several amplifiers, solid state, many many tube amps (mainstream, custom, one-off builds), several Single-Ended-Triode amps (10+), and umpteen different tube preamplifiers (10+). He’s rotated through many speakers, and MORE TUBES and trying different coupling capacitors, more than anyone I’ve ever met in audio. To a ridiculous degree. After buying a new tube preamp with "tone controls" last year, a few weeks ago he finally caved in and was ordering one these - now retired from rotating gear. And, does not give a hoot about measurements any more - just how it sounds to his ears. Shared he wants to simply turn a knob, play music, change sound with a Remote Control. Tone controls, hey not a bad idea, back to "simpler times" - hahah. Out of Stock. https://www.schiit.com/products/loki-max
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