Science behind burn in - Page 3

Theres a difference between burn in and perceivable change if you ask me. Does burn in exist? Yes, things change though usually much faster than what people think, a frequency range of a headphone or speaker could settle.

However does a peice of equipment change over 50-300 hours and cause your "harsh" sound to turn "liquid" or make any other specific aspects of the sound change enough that any human would notice? Heck no.

People give themselves far too much credit, the human ear simply is not even remotely that sensitive.

As far as solid state components breaking in, again that doesnt exist. Not on a perceivable level.

This is no different than someone saying they can hear the difference between a cable that uses some silver vs one that uses a solid copper core. The same goes for silver component wiring or silver solder. People will hear whatever they want to hear, whether it exists or not. And this is often related to what they spent for said component they hear changing as well. How many people who've spent hundreds or thousands for their components will admit they're a waste of money?

The more likely rational behind burn in is that people are re-assuring themselves that they have made the right decision, they become accustomed to the sound, and learn to like it. Volume changes, pad wear, driver positioning etc.. all play an important part as well and all will affect the sound quite significantly explaining perfectly any actual changes that people might hear.

Danger Will Robinson! Danger! =P
They got that squiggly snake thread goin' already, let's not have another.

Yeah let's not go in there. The original question was regarding amps or "solid state" stuff. Silver vs cooper has nothing to do with it and unlike with cables/amps I "precieved" some significant changes after "burn in" in headphones. The strange thing is that those were same headphones each and every time, just newer drivers.
So although placebo is real (like one day your cans sound like the best thing in the world and on other days they're just so-so) it's wierd that it happend with the same headphones so it's not like my brain had to adjust the new sound sig. That sig is anything but new.

But that's off topic, aswell. Go back to capcitors and stuff like that

I read an article that said speaker burn in is bunk and he claimed that all better speakers are sent a signal to loosen the driver at the factory and beyond that there is no improvement. All speakers I have bought say in the manual that they will improve with 75 - 100 hours of burn in but I don't know if that is true or not and is not something I have ever noticed. I saw a post once where a guy was cliaming he could hear differences in his headphones per hour of burn in and I just had to roll my eyes at that one, as I do at a lot of audio myths I see posted on forums that many people *think* are real. Amp burn in is pure bunk IMO.

I've experienced mechanical break-in with speakers myself and documented it some time ago.


I wouldn't dismiss such phenomena beforehand. I regularly experience headphone break-in myself. It's also a matter of believe and disbelieve. The latter is an ideal precondition for not being sensitive to the phenomenon.


Not to my ears. My latest two amps (Opera and Symphony) sounded mediocre at the beginning and excellent after ~300 hours. -- Here's a review of the legendary Corda HA-2 and its burn-in process.
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Could it be because after 300 hours (12.5 days) of listening to the amplifier, you've become used to the sound?

It can't be absolutely excluded. But from my wording you can deduce that I believe in real, physical burn-in. When new and unused, the Symphony didn't sound special, I even liked the Opera better. After 210 hours the comparison ended up in favor of the Symphony, and clearly so. BTW, Jan Meier also believes in burn-in of his amps.
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I could just as easily say the former is an ideal precondition for being sensitive to the phenomena. ie; gullible

What is the concensus behind burn in of components?
-such as capacitors and resistors?

Curious as to what others have to say about this...

Like most arguments of this type, you're not going to convince one side or the other in a thread. the only way to prove it works is to ave the nay-sayer experienc it for themselves.

the science and measurement camp can't prove it. Only the ears can hear it.

Bob

If it was only that simple. You can't even trust yourself when it comes to audio.. I've been fooled by my own self to many times

p.s
there's no damn reason why science wouldn't be able to mesure something before and after burn in. If the sound changes with burn in then frequency response changes with it. If...

That's why when you change something or add something new into the mix, you need to go back and pull it out again to see if there really was a change, or more importantly, an improvement.

This tends to be easier for the DIY'er.

Bob

Good point on the change vs improvement, too. Some times you expect an improvment so much that any change will be marked as improvment..

Another point is that if you don't know what's wrong in the first plays you almost have no way to observe an improvement.
That's off topic though.

Yeah, but you won't dare.
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It's also worth pointing out that the placebo effect applies equally to those "sceptical" of burn-in. Assuming burn-in is real, if one believes burn in is not real, they may fail to hear it due to that expectation.

Like someone that hears a placebo due to the high price they paid for a useless component, the sceptic (actually, the correct term is not sceptic as a sceptic would maintain suspended judgement) may fail to hear real improvements due to the perceived prohibitive cost, due to their perceived association with those they consider below themselves, or due to many other possible factors.