does your system "warm up" and then sound better?

I very carefully experimented with a Unico hybrid. It would take two days to sound its best, with significant changes at 2/4/6/8 hour marks. Even swapping hot tubes with cold, the amp otherwise fully warmed up (i.e. on for at least two days), took four hours for the sound to stabilize (and improve). I tested over several weeks, rolling my fair collection of 12AU7's. Speakers were Fostex F120A single driver augmented with electrostatic super-tweeter.
-- William

Everything warms up Dude!!

Larryi, Electrolytic caps are worse with temperature. ESR increases with temperature sometimes even causing thermal runaway when capacitor heats itself by ripple current times ESR (mostly old dried-up caps). On the other hand electrolyte eats dielectric - aluminum oxide over long time storage. Voltage rebuilds layer of aluminum oxide keeping breakdown voltage up. Temperature is causing also electrolyte to dry-up cutting life of capacitor by half for every 10degC increase.

Temperature also changes viscosity of ferrofluid used mostly in tweeters but sometimes even in midrange. My speakers (Hyperion HPS-938) have 6.5" midrange without suspension (spiderweb) using ferrofluid as a suspension.

Yes, parts (including semiconductors) are getting worse (fail) with temperature but it is very small effect until you cross about 100degC where numbers of failures starts getting very high.

Timrhu brings up a good point.

"I turn my equipment on a few minutes before listening and turn it off when I'm finished. The cdp stays warm to the touch in standby so I don't think it needs any warm up time. The amp warms up in 10 minutes or so."

A lot of equipment goes into standby mode when you hit the power button and not turn off completely. Its like a best of both world approach. Some parts stay on and some shut off completely. My Ayre amps do this.

I asked the question "do speakers warm up too?" a long time ago in the forums.
i "preheat" my amp, preamp, & cdp for 30-45 minutes before listening just like many people do. but after listening to a cd for the hour or so of music on it, i strongly feel that the last 10 minutes or so seems more involving, fuller; the illusion of real musicians playing becomes more powerful. So this can be related to a psychological factor where my senses and/or brain receptors become more acute over time, or the system does indeed seem to reach an equilibrium after going through its paces for a prolonged span of time. perhaps BOTH factors are at work at the same time.
Eating chocolate cake results in enjoying it less and less after you've had two pieces, but listening to music gets to be more fun over time (for me anyway).
i have ALSO discovered (which is true for just about everyone i think) that music
I didn't understand at first (and therefore didn't like very much) is now material i reach for again and again. Brahms for example- couldn't get into it for a long time. Now i don't understand why that is. Our brains and our musical sensitivities improve more and more with every listening. Along with our tweeters and woofers...maybe....