Equipment Break-in: Fact or Fiction

That's totally cool Spluta, and pleased to make your acquaintance. There is no bias against engineers that I can see, just a bias against those with closed minds that always assume posts here that don't match their knowledge must be the ravings of deluded fools.

I am surrounded by hundreds of engineers at work and I can see why the issues arise. While there are fantastically clever and interesting engineers in the team, most are worker-bees by comparison (not their fault, just dipped out in the gene pool) who are trained to work within engineering rules that have been established by others - nothing wrong with this, just good practise. But the years of not questioning their boundaries seem to me to take some of them them far from being experimental scientists and they get very rigid in their thinking - only some.

Now I am not saying you are like this. When I read your posts I can see that is not so. But we do get one or two here who like to pounce on someone who is honestly expressing their experiences and beliefs and demand scientific proof or a retraction and a thousand hail Marys. Their justification for taking a 'holier than thou' attitude is often a statement about how they are engineers and our poor dumb fools should just listen up - hence the occasional cringe factor.

Now being mainly an economist, I can understand the sentiment. Boy do you hear some really dumb theories from 'bush' economists. But it is simply rude, arrogant and self-defeating to say - your opinion does not count, because I am the economist and you are not, and I say you are wrong.

Alright then gentlemen; I agree let's all bury the hatchet & I retract any controversial inflamatory remarks.
I have heard these audiophile theories & have laughed at probably 95% of them too - but when I hear the evidence for myself then I have to believe that there's a lot more to this than the textbook theories ever taught me in engineering school. That's right; I'm one of *those* myself. Not to be haughty about it though; long ago I too refused to believe I'd ever accept any of this nonsense, but an open mind + experience has admittedly taught me differently & made my rig sound so much the better for it. And *that* my friends is the bottom line IMO.

Redkiwi,

Good to meet you also... Sorry I really thought i was
being attacked.

Im guessing most of the people in this forum are pretty smart (yes even if their not engineers) and alot of them are probably perfectionists also. There seems to be a certain type that gets drawn into HI-FI.

One point i want to make is alot of the engineering people
i know dont have the faintest idea the difference between
a good audio component and a bad one. One of my buddies
is a brilliant engineer and he thinks the stock CD player in his car is just fantastic. I almost puked when i drove somewhere with him and he turned it up. My dad has been
in electronics since he was 16... thinks 50 bucks is too
much for a speaker its unbelievable. You should see the look
on his face everytime he comes over there's always new stuff.. He just shakes his head and gives me that your crazy
look. So what im trying to say is even being a good or even brilliant EE doesnt qualify anyone as being an audio expert
automatically...I do understand that.

There are plenty of people here that i want to learn from.
With years and years of experience. I have years with musicical instuments and electronics but i dont have years of HI-FI knowledge. And that is what i love now.
So whenever i think i can make a good point i will throw
it out there but at the same time im listening more than
anyone for other points.

Bob just read your post I understand 100% and i agree.
Thats why im here.

To learn..

Best regards

Gents and Ladies,
This is the most interesting post here IMO ever that occured for the whole Audiogon existance and I do appreciate these controversal thoughts that came up here.

Man of science tend to deny or assume but the final result should be the number and/or equation.
Electronics do involve influence of chemistry and thermo-dynamics and even maybe in our discussed burn-in proccess in audio freequencies.

I however still hold my position towards believing that burn-in is more of a marketing and psychological issue rather than physical process, but there could be different long-term factors that I have no knowlege how to define or calculate them; therefore I only assume that influence of thermal adoptation along with other values of a chemical and physical proccesses can be neglected compared to the electrical.

Nowdays, as I believe I described my understadning of burn-in proccess as function depending on time by simple 7th grade physics formula by simply dividing the signal path over the speed of light for the peak of the equipment performance.

Also I greatly appreciate everyone along with author for bringing up different thoughts. Let them ALL be honored and not to be attacked whether it's from scientists or ordinary people.

The reason why I leap into these discussions about burn in is that I believe that failing to allow for burn in is the cause of so many bad mistakes by audiophiles. The problem is if we cannot even agree that burn in exists then we will not agree that even burnt in components take a while to settle after shipping, and then it becomes pretty difficult to warn newer audiophiles about the perils of hasty auditioning.

I have no doubt that fears, Marakanetz, that marketers and salespeople exploit the burn in story to pull the wool over peoples' eyes, have some foundation in fact. What I am more concerned about is that without an appreciation that burn in is a factor, then many will come to quite erroneous conclusions about components and cables that they try.

Take for example, the comment I have heard that the Plinius SA102 lacks PRAT. One that has been used for less tha around four months sounds exactly so - soft and sluggish. The fact that it sounds so is utterly obvious in any competent system. But equally, a burned in SA102 has PRAT in spades, and that is again quite obvious.

So if you suspend your disbelief for a moment, you may understand why I believe that nay-saying on burn in will cause newbies to be quite confused and waste a lot of time if they rely on an overnight trial of equipment before buying.