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break-in--bane or boon ??

as a reviewer , i often receive equipment which is new and has no playing time.

i have to decide whether to break in the component and if so, how many hours is necessary.

i have often asked manufacturers for guidance.

one cable manufacturer said the cables--digital, analog and power, required no break in. another said 24 hours.

when i reviewed a mcintosh tube preamp, i was told by a technician that no break in was necessary. all i needed to do was leave the preamp on for one hour in order that the tubes were "warmed up"

can someone provide an objective explanation as to the basis for break-in and how to determine how long to break in different components ?

for example, cables comprised of different metals, if they require break in, is there a difference in the requisite time for a given metal, e.g., gold, silver or copper ?

can someone provide an explanation as to what is happening during the break-in process ?

can one devise a mathematical equation to quantify break-in hours, as a function of the parts in a component ?
mrtennis
elizabeth
6,726 posts
 
Tough question.
Every component or cable i ever had was different.
Some items seem fine from day one and never actually change any.
(or at least not to notice)
Other items start out horrible, and get better in a few hours.
Some are fine, but after being used just mellow out.
No reasons I can fathom.

The worst first sound to final good I ever had was from a 7 meter Hero balanced cable pair. Took a few days.
donjr
1,311 posts
 
Cable break in is imaginary. They will sound different from each other but there's no break in. Its just your ears adjusting.
ivan_nosnibor's avatar
ivan_nosnibor
782 posts
 
After assuming for many, many years that there must be somebody somewhere who indeed had all the answers when it came to just what exactly was happening with break-in (which I believe to be a very real phenomenom - just as I believe accomodation of hearing is quite real too), in the end I gave up as it became evident by default that no such person seems to exist, or ever has...maybe some physicist locked away in a lab somewhere knows the answers, but a recognizable source within the audiophile community doesn't seem to exist and I suspect it's because these things may, in complete totality at least, simply be unknown. IME there seem to be a few patterns that recur: that copper speaker wires usually take a good week or 2 to (fully) break in, that silver IC's often take somewhere around 400hrs (or even more) and that many manufacturers don't seem to want to be caught acknowledging that it exists to their customers. Maybe in the belief that it may either confuse them or that it may possibly discourage sales...or perhaps to avoid being in (what they take to be) the embarassing position of effectively having to admit to their prospective buyers that there's an aspect of their product's behavior that they themselves cannot properly explain...

My own experiences with a FryBaby that I've had for years strongly suggests to me that, with wiring anyway, insulation is likely the biggest factor (by far) that determines break in. But, you can look at the review I wrote up for that in the Agon reviews section.
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