Equipment Break-in: Fact or Fiction

Actually, this is not a relativistic, everyone has his own philosophy matter. Either "break in" or other audio phenomena are real--in the sense that they can make an objective (if not necessarily measurable) audible difference--or not. It might be true that some people cannot hear such differences, but this doesn't mean that there are no differences. If they can't hear purported differences, they may well be more skeptical that there objectively are such differences. But this, too, is not a philosophical or personal values/beliefs matter: either their skepticism is warranted or not. Of course, if they can't hear purported differences, then the differences will make no subjective difference to them, in which case it wouldn't matter to them whether the phenomena are objectively/not merely psychologically real.

Thanks Twl. Perhaps my system or ears are not sufficiently sensitive to hear difference ... I fully accept that this is a possibility.

You know, there's one post above that raises a question that has been on my mind regarding this issue .... "why does everyone report the sound improving during break-in ?" If break-in is a purely electrical phenomenon then wouldn't we have a good proportion of components sound worse after break-in ? However, if the effect is in large part psychological then this would go some way to explain why everything sounds better after break in since our brains are wonderfully adaptable to new experiences.

Now I'm not posting this to provoke the "believers", rather because I think it was a very interesting point.

Seandtaylor, I would respond to your question in this manner. Since I have no solid engineering proof of this phenomenon, I can't answer in terms of data. But I can point to the several posts on this thread where listeners who did not believe in break-in, were converted when they actually heard the phenomenon, even if they couldn't explain it. So, even though these particular individuals would have been psychologically pre-disposed to not hear the differences, they still heard them.

Regarding why nobody seems to hear "reverse break-in" where things start sounding worse with break-in time, it does happen, but then often goes back into the good sound again, as break-in time progresses. I have heard this happen and have heard others report the same thing. My gut feeling is that there is something happening to the equipment that is changed as electricity flows through it. Exactly what it is, I don't know, but I do hear it, and feel sure that it exists as a physical manifestation, and not a psychological one.

The reason I feel sure about this, is that I have, on many occasions, auditioned new items which I had no knowledge of. I had no way of knowing whether they would be good or bad or indifferent. I could tell the difference, good or bad, in these items. In some cases, even though I wanted to like an item, I disliked the sound of it. So I think that the psychological implications are really not valid.

About break in, now that I have concluded that I can hear differences in equipment, and am not self-deluding, then I can feel sure about my observations in the break-in arena. And I do hear changes taking place with time. I cannot fully explain every phenomenon that I observe, but that does not mean it isn't happening.

Well the one thing that i have learned from being around
electronics my whole life is there is a reason and a
mathematical equation for EVERYTHING. To really diagnose
what is going on someone would have to take all of the
exact properties for all of the different components before
using device and then re-examine ALL of the differnent
component properties again after a period of time. This
could be a very time consuming painfull process.

Seandtaylor99 I think you brought up a really good point.
Why does everyone say it sounds better? I know my current
system sounded better to me.

This is why im gonna stick to my first post:

In my opinion the biggest factor is the material used in
the PCB and component fabrication. There are many different
materials and many different properties such as:

Coefficient of thermal expansion (change in length per unit
in all directions x,y and z thickness. This is different for
all materials. FR4 the most widely used PCB material expands
more in the z than it does in the x,y.

Also moisture can play a part in the whole process. I have
seen PCB's not function at all because they werent baked
long enough. And where you live and how much humidity
can play a part in performance. For example I have done a
lot of work for the Dept of Defense and we had to use
conformal coating on PCB's to be used for ground and air
applications. Sometimes PCB's have to be moisture proof.

Dielectric constant Er changing as materials are burning
in could also play a part in burn in.

These are mostly current flow issues not component drift
issues. I think over time the likely cause of the sound degrading will be component drift.

Im not saying im right or anyone is wrong.

Thats my story and im stickin to it!

Spluta, just for curiosity, Er is a force to be applied to distruct dielectric dipole?