phono stage break in?

I agree with Raul about caps needing break in time. That seems, based on my experiences, to be the component that does benefit from prolonged exposure to the signals of music reproduction. To take this one step further, it seems to me that any component with a measurable capacitance gains from this break in as well. DACs, and all chips, are composed of tiny capacitors. I've found that most tubes that I've used settle in within 50 hours or so.

I've not used CD's before this to break in a phono stage specifically. I'm sure many of us have left a CDP on repeat for several days to burn in other components. It does seem to have sped things up a bit, but I suppose it would take the break in of many phono stages to say for sure that this really does speed things up.

If my stereo is playing I have to listen. I don't care how it sounds. A full orchestra usually has full spectrum of music. Use real music for breakin.
Every component(cables are not a component) I ever had not only requires breakin but except for speakers require warm up. Out of the box they are simply unlistenable.
The more expensive the more breakin time. I have also come to the suspicion that the reason so many great products sound awful at the store is inadequate breakin. Cheap products are playing all the time. Expensive products are turned on only for "special customers." Electrostatic speakers need to have thier transformers breakin and warm up.

Dan_ed, Nsgarch, Rauliruegas
I really do appreciate the time your took to explain it to me.

I used to be a firm non-believer in break in phenomena, until I recapped my preamp (ns-10). When I first got it it sounded awful, dry with decreased dynamic range. Over the next two weeks, it changed, but I was actually absent most of time and it was fed just statics from the cartridge...
Same thing goes for my new phono preamp.
Would an RIAA cd make it faster/better? maybe. however, The results that I got using the above methods were more than satisfactory to me.
As for the CARDAS sweep record, I am seriously considering buying it, so thanks for the warm recomendation!!

Noams, it sounds to me like you should get even more improvement as you continue to play through your preamp. What you describe is very much what I also hear as caps break in.

Think about this. Caps are voltage and time devices. This circuit is also affected by resistance, but I'll keep this simple for the sake of clarity. The time component means they are affected by signal frequency. If the signal is somewhat static as you describe then the range that the cap is operating in is limited to the frequency and amplitude of that static signal. Since this is probably nowhere near the range of frequencies produced by music playback, it is reasonable to assume that there are parts of the capacitor's capabilities that are not being exercised. This implies that the best way to break in compnents is to use a truly random sigal. That is random in both frequency and amplitude. This is why the test CDs and sweep records use tones that tend to sweep across frequencies.

All that being said, there is no evidence that I'm aware of that these test recordings do any better job at breaking in components than just listening to music. They're mostly a convenience, in my opinion, and probably do help speed up the break in by allow one to get those 200+ hours in just a few days of continuous CP play rather than spinning records for a month or two. I believe this is especially true for very low signal levels like one would see from many LO MC cars.

On the other hand, several folks that I trust have told me that they use the Cardas record on a regular basis, say once a month, and that they do notice an improvement in doing so. I'm just starting to do this so I can't say if I hear the same benefit or not.

Another advantage of the Cardas record (over, for instance, the Purist CD) is you don't have to get out of the house when playing it!