break-in--bane or boon ??

Mapman, I couldn't stop laughing at that one.
Aren't the Yankees damned anyway?
Thanks.

Al, I understand the other variables you mention but if the ones you list were the ones responsible, then the improvement wouldn't stick around as long as it has. The improvement would come and go depending on time, weather and what have you. What I hear is constant. Consistent.

As for my anticipating in other recordings what I hear in the first one that I hear an improvement in, it has never been of the same amount or degree due to the different quality levels of the recording and pressing. I'll even go to the trouble of bearing through some mediocre recordings to see if they benefit from the burn in improvement and most of the time, they don't. They're still bad.

It takes a really good recording that I'm familiar with and others of that ilk when it comes to evaluating and appreciating the improvements.

For the life of me, in all the years I've been listening, I can't understand why some people can't hear what I hear while others do. I'm glad I do and feel sorry for those who don't (please understand that I'm not condescending).

As for a methodology that would, or could, ascertain break in or burn in of a cap, wire, chip, etc. I don't see how it could be reliably done. Everyone would have to be present when it happens. And when would it happen? And would everyone have the hearing acuity to discern it? Would the system be of a revealing enough nature to demonstrate it? It wouldn't be repeatable as once it's burnt in, it wouldn't happen again. Everyone would have to be imminently familiar with all the recordings as one would not suffice. It would be too onerous a task.

I feel it would have to be in a relaxed setting that one is intimately familiar with, with recordings that one is intimately familiar with, with no time constraints, and no anticipation involved. The very nature of burn in would dictate this approach.

As for validity, I hate to sound like a politician, but trust me.

As for veracity, see above :-)

All the best,
Nonoise

Geoff, nope, not the "radio receiver" that you say is out of your control, but that last nth degree of soundstage dimensionality on a revealing system??...just possibly might be missed the first time around...who knows.

Doug, my point, and it's really more of a question for me than anything else, was: what if this phenomenon influences us at indeed a very low level and exists as a sort of 'noise floor' for our conscious state...something we are all so familiar with in our lives that we no longer notice its functioning yet, just possibly on occasion, we have been influenced by it even without any direct awareness that we were...no rhinos involved at this level, of course. I may indeed be off base, though, at best it's no more than my own supposition, really. No attempt to impune your results or efforts, btw. By that I mean that I was directing my comments at you, but not directing them at you, *personally*, (there is a difference).

All that aside and for the record, I DO find the results of your experiment intriguing exactly because they do strike me as counterintuitive. Even more so because so many different components were under test at once - I would've guessed an additive effect, if anything. Both the results and your conclusions do seem to go against my own experience (as I currently accept it, anyway). Either something is inconclusive or wrongly done with the test, or a huge (well, basic, maybe) tenant of audio should be, if not overturned, then completely re-examined(!). Have you done any sort of follow up experiment at all? I'd be curious.

Nonoise, your post perfectly sums it up for me and my own subjective experience with it all has so far mirrored every word of it!

Douglas_schroeder, I also appreciate the discussion, thank you. I believe in such a small world, this represents the route toward best sharing the hobby.

Though I may reference your comments directly (and to others in other threads), my true intent speaks to a much wider audience. For one whose minds have already decided, I do not hold on to false hope. However, I understand that many read the forums. The aim is to not only ensure that the other side's opinions do not solely exist so that they see no counterpoint, but to spur their own curiosity and potential toward experimentation and keeping an open enough mind to try new things.

Douglas_schroder, "I believe the only way to resolve the issue is not through logic and argumentation, but by simple comparison of units."

We agree completely on that point. In fact, that's EXACTLY where I'm coming from.

The DynaKits I've built are sometimes at the same time, from the same parts bins. My experience is that one obviously will get broken in first, sound the way it should, and the sound of the second will eventually catch up once it goes through the same process.

Just a quick diversion back to objectivism. The trend through my lifetime in the realm of high-end audio has moved away from science and engineering, and toward black magic. Because of the way this business works, there's no longer enough money from sales to attract research dollars from the big companies as in the past. Over time, those who remain to manufacture this gear have less of a scientific / engineering / mathematical background than at any point in the past century, it increasingly became a cottage industry. Not to go too far down this road, but we live in a field populated by folks who have gone as far as algebra yet we require calculus in order to move to the next level. By that, I mean improvements on the level such as SACD over CD.

Douglas_schroeder, "You think I sound like a skeptic, and I think you sound like a subjectivist. :)"

Absolutely! I do admit to that willingly. My past twenty five years lie in science and engineering, so you would think I must be an objectivist, and to a large measure I am. I live in the world of mathematics, and seek out the explanation for things we hear. I don't listen to square waves, but I do know that music is a far more (orders of magnitude, actually) complex phenomena than a sine or square wave, and so the static algebraic devices that simply measure those artifacts are incapable of painting the truer picture our ears provide us with. The Scientific Method revolves around observing what makes a difference in the truest sense of the word, and right now, regardless of whether one thinks my statement sounds silly, our ears, hearts, and minds remain the best measurement devices available. As my good friend, The Doctor (Mechans) likes to say, "the proof of the pudding is in the eating." In other words, the sole aim of all of this is enjoyment of the music.

Finally, for those who need to see an example of capacitor break-in, please take a look at http://sozoamplification.com/break_in.html The article I've previously mentioned showed a much more involved and surprising trace than this via whatever computer program the author employed, but I hope that some will consider that this whole break-in thing might just involve something more than pixie dust.

John, you hit the nail on the head when you said, "I DO find the results of your experiment intriguing exactly because they do strike me as counterintuitive. Even more so because so many different components were under test at once - I would've guessed an additive effect, if anything." Precisely; I was expecting somthing, but phhhhht. Nothing but the exact same presentation.

When three different components, including cabling, amp and source do squat for Burn In, I'm done with it as a serious "tool" to improve systems. My attitude now is, if it happens, it happens, but I'm benign to it. IOW, if I want change I make it happen, I don't wait for it. :)

Fight or flight

Mapman wrote,

"I am a big believer in spirituality and how that affects how one
interacts with the world."

I don't doubt that you are a big believer or that spirituality affects how one
interacts with the world.  However, I'm not referring to spirituality any more
than I'm referring to new ageism, Zen, placebo effect, expectation bias,
group hypnosis, Magik, subliminal advertising or long distance healing.  
What I'm leading up to is the Idea that what we're hearing when we listen to
music on our stereo rigs is not really the sound that the system is
producing!  We cannot hear the real sound of the system, we only hear a
cardboard facsimile of it, a more distorted, compressed and uninvolving
version.  

The reason we cannot hear the real thing is because of many things in the
environment that produce stress or anxiety and degrade our sense of
hearing.  As Ivan described, the fight or flight syndrome reduces sensory
perceptions as more important biological procesess take over.  The
problem is that the fight or flight syndrome is always present because so
many things, even ordinary things,  in the modern world produce it. Since
the mind-matter interaction is primarily subconscious or autonomous we
are not aware of it and cannot control it.  Obviously, since everyone has
always been subject to this unfortunate circumstance we take it for granted.
We did not see this coming.  

Have you ever turned up the volume and found the sound to be way too
distorted?  That distortion you hear is not produced by the system, well a
little bit maybe.  The distortion you hear is actually produced by the reaction
to the fight or flight syndrome.  Because other biological functions have
priority the senses of hearing and vision degrade, so the distortion is a
manifestation of the degraded sense of hearing. The stress or anxiety is
produced by things that we interpret as threats.  Obviously not everything in
the environment is a real threat but since the subconscious mind cannot
always be absolutely sure, it sometimes over-reacts.  Better safe than
sorry.

An example of something that produces this effect is an ordinary telephone
book (of all things).  Taking all telephone books out of the house will usually
be audible when you go back and listen to the system.  Even if the
telephone books are in other rooms of the house, they should be removed.  
The telephone book is perceived as an intruder by virtue of the fact that it is
linked to a strong Field created by the tens or hundreds of thousands of
identical telephone books.  So, the link to that field can be eliminated by
removing the telephone books from the house, making the house Safe from
the telephone book "information field". That's enough
information for now, I suspect. :-)

All of this doesn't change the fact we still have the problem of deciding if or
how the same old things affect the sound, things like fuses, wire
directionality, burn-in, etc.