Is this unusual for a manufacturer to standardly burn-in their units? What about units headed for reviewers?
@lpretiring In my experience it’s not the norm for a manufacturer to pre burn in their products, but it’s sure nice when they do and good on LTA for going the extra mile (it also has the added benefit of reducing the chance of sending out defective products off the line, which is nice). When I was reviewing I always knew if a product was new and needed breaking in or not and proceeded accordingly, and any reputable reviewer would do the same. The value of reviewing a new product not broken in or used in previous reviews is that you can give readers an idea of how long it takes for it to start sounding its best along with the degree and type of change in sound that can be expected, which is nice to know upfront if you’re buying new. For that reason, in my reviews at the end of the product description section I always included details on the break-in process if applicable. That said, it wouldn’t surprise me at all if many of the yahoos out there producing video “reviews” on YouTube, etc. pay no mind to it and just fire out their crap regardless of whether a product is broken in or not either because they don’t know any better or don’t care and just wanna crank out reviews as quickly as possible to boost revenue. Anyway, just my $0.02 FWIW.