"Burn in" Are you serious?

Check out the thread...burn in Vs. getting used to a sound.

I once had a 2 meter pair of Nordost SPM interconnects cut in two and reterminated by Nordost into two 1 meter pairs. One pair sounded about the same as before, but the second pair needed almost a month of constant playing before they sounded like the other pair (more harsh at first). I concluded burn-in of cables may be from one end to the other, so one half was still burned in, the other like new.

Well Waldhoerner if you don't have a "broken in" unit to compare to the new and you don't have an A pair and B pair and a cable enhancer like 1953 and you are at the sole discretion of your ears and you have a decent aural memory, assuming you have heard a "broken in" unit it might go something like Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun's decision on pornography back in the early 70's, "I can't describe it I just know it when I see it". Well that could be paraphrased to your question something like "I don't know if it's "burned in" yet but will when I hear it". Most of these things are gradual improvements that just become evident over extended listening. Sometimes not at all. Or maybe they do but you really don't notice the change until you can compare it with a new identical item. I have done that and noticed differences at that point. The wishful thinking comes into play when you hope that the amount you spent on the item was worth purchasing it in the first place!

I have taken some flack for my view on burn in, but here is MHO. I do believe in burn in... I do I do I do. I agree with most of what has been said above, which is in line with my experiences. I do not believe that something which sounds absolutely dreadful out of the box will be "transformed" into something wonderful by something like 100 hours of use. You may go from dreadful to marginally acceptable, and someone may have experienced something different, but I do not believe this would be the average, everyday experience.

Hi Waldhorner; When I get a new IC, cables, component etc., I make notes about the music quality/character of my system with the new piece right away. Then a few days to a couple of weeks later I critically listen and make notes again, and of course compare the two. I suppose you could argue that you've just gotten used to the new sound in two weeks, but the questions to ask are: (1) is there any difference?, (2) do I like it? (3) is it fatiguing? etc. If you use music that you're intimately framiliar with you'll know. Cheers. Craig