Absolute top tier DAC for standard res Redbook CD

Long break-ins are usually a result of a LOT of plastic dielectrics in the design; capacitors, cabling and circuit boards. IME, its better to use non-plastic dielectrics like ceramic, paper-in-oil and cotton. These require virtually no break-in and actually sound better than the plastics, even when the plastics are fully broken-in.

This is why I really like Jensencapacitors.com air-core inductors, ceramic caps and the Duelund caps. Great for speaker crossovers, actually the best on the planet.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio

I personally have only had 1 piece of equipment that I heard break in. Oddly enough it was a Roland Capri. I don't know how many hours it had on it but it was almost new. I had it about a month and pretty much hated it from the beginning. Then one day I was listening with the volume up a bit and boom, the right channel just changed in tone and one second after that the left channel changed. A veil had been lifted and the harshness on the top end went away. It was like night and day and it changed enough that I kept it for a couple of years before I moved on. I didn't believe in break in before that and have not heard a change like that again. My guess is that it was the capacitors burning in at that moment but I don't claim to know. Other than that I'm with Grannyring, I think more likely it's us who changes and we just simply get used to a different sound of a new component after a certain amount of time. I also believe for me anyway the sound changes from day to day or hour to hour depending on me, not the gear. I mean what's more likely, the equipment is changing or the life form that's listening to it?

Understand all the comments and even yours Steve. 1200 hours seems excessive and I am darn near positive any small changes are due to something else. I'll say it again, my gear changes on some days or day parts and it has nothing to do with break in. Even our electricity changes with day parts, time of year..... moisture in the air also impacts sound.

I learned that turning my past SS amps off for a short period and then turning them back on made them sound better after warm up if my amps were left on for many days or weeks at a time. I usually least SS amps on 24/7. Again, nothing to do with burn in.

After 500 or so hours we are no longer talking about burn in IMHO.

Yes, I run my gear 24/7 when new to speed up the process.

I just downloaded the new DS Firmware update. Pretty impressive with more "air". How do they do that?

Bill (Grannyring), regarding your comments about humidity being a significant variable, here is some remarkable confirmation, from this current thread:

06-17-14: Georgelofi
... this [humidity] is greatly overlooked. Take any hybrid ESL speaker for instance, they are tuned for a certain sound by the factory. The esl panel on a day when the humidity is 70%-100% can loose as much as -3db efficiency, making the balance sound bass heavy as the dynamic bass driver has not lost this -3db.

I have measured it on my new panels, dry day 5kv bias charge and on a humid day 3kv-4kv bias charge, I tend not to do any evaluations or serious listening on days when the humidity is above 70%. Or if I have to, I can with some trouble turn down the gain of the bass electronics by the appropriate amount so all is balanced again.

Best regards,
-- Al