re-burn in? is there such a thing.

In my experience, every time my system is down for any extended period of time (e.g., a move to a new home), it takes quite a while for it to start sounding good again (30-200 hours of music playing time, depending on the down time and storage conditions). On our last move where the equipment was in storage for 8 months, everything sounded pretty horrible when we first set it back up, and it was a good 200 hours of music playing time (probably more) before the system was sounding as good as it sounding before the move.

Note that I'm talking about the entire system and not narrowing it down to a specific component. Break in time for speakers to come back to life after extended storage is probably the biggest piece of this break in effort, not the CD player.

If my system is off for just days or a couple of weeks, I typically don't notice anything different than the normal "warm-up" before any listening session of 30-60 minutes. I always hear that warm-up period of improvement after the system has been off for 12-18 hours between listening sessions.

I also find that any time I move the equipment around, or connect or reconnect cables, there is always some "settling" time before the system is again sounding as good as it can sound (often just 30-60 minutes of playing time).

Ultimately the answer to this question comes down to "What do you hear?"
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You know I think it does. I recently had to sale two of my CDPs (NAD C542 and Jolida JD100), and go back to an older (90s era) Onkyo changer that I hadn't used for about three years. Everything else in the system stayed the same. At first, the changer sound was somewhat thin, not a lot of body at all, and the soundstaging depth was almost non-existent. Recently I noticed that soundstaging depth and imaging had greatly improved, and that the overall sound had develped some decent body to it.

since i seldom use the cdp, i have trouble determining if it sounds worse then right after i burned it in for 200+hours. i've never been good at sound quality comparisons when they are separated by days or weeks....sorry but my ears and memory just don't work well enough to determine if something i heard last week or month sounds incrementally better then what i'm hearing today.

i use the system often so the amp and speaker burn-in doesn't really play into this situation. the cdp is the only component that sits unused for extended periods of time. when i do use the cdp, it's usually for 30 minutes up to an hour tops. i do notice improvements over the first 30 minutes or so. thus my question regarding a longer re-burn and does it get even better (like my friend suggests).

i'm not looking to "expound audiophile thingies" about anything to anyone. just wondering if i should make an effort to run my cdp for xx hours once a week or month or whatever??. hoping some of you with more experience (better ears and memory) can save me the time/effort of trying to figure it out on my own.

Well, Levy

You might want to do an extended run with some of your favorite CDs just to see. Over a two or three hour period, yours ears will tell you what you need to know. Bottom line, does your music sound right and if it does, then that's all that really counts.

My changer is run through a integrated tube amp, and I can definely tell over an extended period of time, that things ccertainly start sounding better. Now is it just the tubes or the changer, or some 'synergy" between the two, I really couldn't tell you. I just know the "toe tapping" factor goes up.

One thing I would suggest concerning your CD player is that you leave the Power ON. If you don't want to do that, at least turn the power on about an hour or so before you actualy start playing/listen to your CDs. Truth be told, components DO SOUND BETTER when they are fully warmed up.