[Mysteri0]

I've heard alot of people refer to 'burning in' their equipment, and I can understand why burn in would make a difference in a pair of headphones (slight speaker movement and adjustments) but how does it affect Solid State equipment? I don't see how you could 'burn in' a DAC or anything like that, there are no analog parts to the system, its all digital expect where it has an analog output, but the output has no moving parts so its not going to change. Just wondering if anyone can explain the reasoning of it all to me. Thanks

 

[Acid_lt]

I am not an expert, as some people here are, but i think there is a lot of "movement" (as you said

) in parts like capacitors, tranzistors op amps and so on. Capacitors charge, discharge thats an electrical "movement" for me. Correct me if I am wrong

 

[Mysteri0]

Hmmm good point, but I wonder if its a large enough amount of moment to actually affect the sound that much, you hear alot of people saying 'It was really harsh out of the box but after I let it burn in it was so much better.'

 

[AdamWill]

mysteri0: but then, people also spend upwards of $1000 on cables that can't be distinguished from zip cord in proper blind testing. Never trust people on *anything*

. I've never heard a convincing account for why there would be any kind of 'burn-in' for solid state equipment, but if you want to believe there is, go ahead - at least it's free....

 

[Zeruel the 14th]

Nothing i've ever read in my research supports the idea of 'burning in' that which has no moving parts. It sounds too much like a huge scam to me. I can understand headphones and speakers...the logic is sound in that respect (true or not, i can't be sure) but i can see no logic nor any evidence regarding solid state goods at all.

I really doubt the basis of signalling makes any difference. Its still electrons zipping about a circuit. No other sector of the electronics industry pushes the idea of components of any sort changing with use for the better, so it strikes me that there is alot of BS going around thats designed to sell grossly overpriced wares to discerning / gullible people. (I still want my own setup...i just refuse to be ripped off.)

I think AdamWill was pretty spot on with the way he put it. I think it should be taken another step and say that you shouldn't trust your own brain. (I don't!) Humans are suggestable and prone to believing what they want to believe. Happens to all of us (My car 'feels better' when its clean). If someone blows unholy amounts of money on wires...of course its going to sound better...they're not going sit back and say. "Gee...this doesn't sound any better at all. I was ripped off!"

To each their own. I'm a value for money person, i hate being ripped off and i won't pay for miniscule amounts of non-existant performance.

 

[Ferbose]

I think whether or not something will change its souns after burn-in depends on its physical property.
But I am not an expert on device physics.
Tubes don't have moving parts, but since the filaments kind of burn away and the plates get bombarded by electrons, they actually wear out gradually. I would not be too shocked if their sonics can gradually change after initial burn-in or even long use.
Othe other hand, metal conducts electicity by having delocalized electrons in the conduction band (apology for these lingo I picked up in quantum classes), and I can't imagine electrons flowing through cables would change any property of the material.
Solid state device such as BJT has p-n-p sort of structures. I vaguely recall from my electronics classes a small amount of charges have to first flow across some junctions to make the device work. But these should happen very quickly with regular use. When I first bought my SACD player, the headphone jack could only drive my headphone to barely audible volume. After a few hours of listening the volume gradually got to pretty loud. The volume difference was very big and could not be mistaken. I guess it may be a sign of burn-in.
My recent experience with class T amplifier shows that it gradually sounds smoother within the first 24 h of use, and then stops changing. In this case, it may be my brain adjusting to the sound or just placebo effect. I am not so sure if this is really a valid observation.
So my personal understanding and experience is that SS electronics need very little, if any, burn-in.

 

[JohnnyLightOn]

The DAC in my Sqeezebox sounded terrible when I first started using it, but after a few days of letting it run all day, it sounded very good. There's no way this was my ears growing accustomed to the sound. Why do you think so many people on here suggest and comment on burn in for solid state equipment? It's not that we're all crazy.

Just because you don't have an explanation for something doesn't mean it's not happening.

 

[Jahn]

plus, capacitors take a while to fill all the way up with a nice juicy charge. some huge caps take a week to just fill up lol! in the same way, do NOT touch a cap when you just turn off an amp - those things are packing a punch until they eventually discharge.

 

[Clown12]

Quote:

Originally Posted by AdamWill mysteri0: but then, people also spend upwards of $1000 on cables that can't be distinguished from zip cord in proper blind testing. Never trust people on *anything* . I've never heard a convincing account for why there would be any kind of 'burn-in' for solid state equipment, but if you want to believe there is, go ahead - at least it's free....

yep. I would think there's lots of sideways thinking here - IC's might improve after 'burn-in' if the IC in question is an 80watt CPU with a heatsink+goo that's melting into place, and you're trying to overclock it 200%. Or in audio it may be a 1+farad capacitor connected to your car battery - not that you'll hear a difference, but it will need a some time to charge unless you really did want to melt the power cables!!

 

[Talonz]

As for each listening session, components change characteristics at different temperatures. They theoretically will sound slightly different after warming up. However, I don't believe in solid-state burn-in per se.

 

[Mysteri0]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jahn plus, capacitors take a while to fill all the way up with a nice juicy charge. some huge caps take a week to just fill up lol! in the same way, do NOT touch a cap when you just turn off an amp - those things are packing a punch until they eventually discharge.

Thats not really burn in though, thats the cap coming into standard operation. Thats like saying 'My car runs really crappy during the winter till it warms up.'

And AdamWill, the reason I started this thread was to find out what other people think, I think the Burn in process for Solid State equipment is bunk personally, I was just wondering what everyone else thought.

 

[Kurt]

http://www6.head-fi.org/forums/showp...5&postcount=36

 

[SDA]

Quote:

http://www6.head-fi.org/forums/showp...5&postcount=36

Cute rant, but it's not really relevant. Actually, it's not really much of anything except spiteful and arguably defensive.

Anyway, I don't honestly think that stuff like cable and integrated circuits can actually burn in, but it's possible there are other things in solid state electronics that can. The thermal goo analogy is a useful one, here: the core and heatsink aren't changing at all over time, but a relatively simple thing that goes between them is. This is a fairly far-fetched example, though, and I'm inclined to believe that in the vast majority of cases (not "all," here, I like to be cautious) the "burn-in" of solid state electronics is a process that occurs entirely in the user's brain.

 

[Earwax]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mysteri0 ..... I was just wondering what everyone else thought.

I build amps as a hobby. I've heard amps change during the first few hours of operation over and over again. Makes sense to me, due to capacitors going through a few charge/discharge cycles -- like your Nimh batteries that aren't at peak capacity until they've been through a couple of charge cycles. (capacitors and rechargable batteries are operating on the same general electrical principle.)

Also, there could be changes related to thermal effects the first few times components are brought to operating temperature. (I've also heard lots of solid state gear that needs 5 to 15 minutes of warm-up time each time it's used. Anyone who doubts SS warm should listen to my D-14, I heard very obvious warm-up effects in that before I even got involved in any of this "audiophile" nonsense.)

Still, the amp burn-in changes I hear generally take place in the first 10 to 20 hours of use, not the hundreds of hours that some report, but I suppose I could be missing some more subtle effects.

And I don't believe in cable burn-in because I've never heard it.