To avoid adding much to the length of this thead, I'll say that I agree with almost everybody!
Do we hear various components break in? Absolutely. Some more than others, as has been noted. Cartridges, speakers, tubes, capacitors, interconnects and cables (even if cables aren't "components"!).
Do we spend time spinning burn-in CD's to annoy the cats and drive us out into the rain (as Neil noted)? Very rarely.
Unless something sounds really bad, I'll listen to music and enjoy whatever comes out of the speakers. The only time we've used a burn-in CD in recent memory was to try and bring life to some dead sounding connectors lent to us by D**_**. Six hours of horrible noise later and they were no better, and we'd lost six hours of sanity.
Breaking in by playing music is not only more enjoyable, it's educational. As you hear and think about what's changing and why - you learn. This is a good thing, and not to be short-changed by cheating. Instant gratification is what Ipods are for.
Doug
P.S. I am on the Cardas LP monthly maintenance plan. That's not break in, at least in the normal sense. It's bringing the system back to performance levels we've previously heard.
