What Exactly Does "Burn In" do for Electronics?

Mapman, not really sure what you hope to achieve in this discussion other than to reiterate common naysayer qualms and angst related to unconventional audio activities. Yes, it is a democratic hobby, so even those folks who have stopped trying to improve their sound a long time ago can express contempt or skepticism or whatever as it's a free country. If you wish to be recognized as the leader of the pseudo skeptics that's fine with me.

Mapman, not really sure what you hope to achieve in this discussion other than to reiterate common naysayer qualms and angst related to unconventional audio activities. Yes, it is a democratic hobby, so even those folks who have stopped trying to improve their sound a long time ago can express contempt or skepticism or whatever as it's a free country. If you wish to be recognized as the leader of the pseudo skeptics that's fine with.

"Prescription drugs are marketed to us continuously these days. You get a brief summary of the drugs benefits and then you get the many possible side-effects.

At least companies that push drugs are regulated to the extent that they have to disclose pros and cons fully. No such luck with high end audio. THe stakes are just not high enough to regulate anything so its pretty much the wild wild west where anybody can claim anything at anytime with no substantiation and get away with it perhaps."

That's a good point, but I do get a good laugh sometimes when I read the list of side effects. They say just about anything that could ever possibly happen; known and unknown. Of course, its done for CYA purposes. This drug: may make you hot, may make you cold, may give you a headache, may make you head numb, may make you happy, may make you sad.... the list goes on. What I really like about claims audio companies make, is that they're always positive. lol. No way out cables are going to give you headaches. Not even the silver ones.

"THe stakes are just not high enough to regulate anything so its pretty much the wild wild west where anybody can claim anything at anytime with no substantiation and get away with it perhaps."

With regards to that statement, in particular, it may be true in some cases, I don't think the overall situation is quite that bad. Up till this point, I don't think anyone has mentioned patents. Most audio companies do get patents on their work. I'm not a legal expert, but I'm pretty sure you can't just get a patent on anything you want. There has to be some qualifications. The patent has to be on something unique and not conflict with any other patents. Also, I think that you need to show that whatever you are getting a patent on has to do what you say it will. Even is its only on paper and in the design stages.

Just to be clear, I'm not saying that patents are guarantee's that you will get a certain level of performance from your audio gear. They may, however, give some credibility to a design and maybe even take it out of the wild west category. Something to consider, that's all.

I don't know what you guys are talkin about. Burn 'out' is more like it. As soon as I get a component back from rebuild, it's awesome for the first little while and then loses that pinnacle of peak performance, settling down to long term stability. Sheesh. WAKE UP!

With the cost of patents these days running around $10,000 bucks a pop that's a lot of spinach to get some supposed credibility. Besides, one stipulation for a patent is you actually have to describe in excrutiatingly detail how the things works. Furthermore, if someone in some godforsaken part of the world is clever enough to knock it off there's not a helluva lot you can do about it. Not to mention curious little audiophiles with too much time on their hands. Lol