Broke-in? If tubes don't sound good after 8 hours of warm-up, then they're the wrong tubes for the application or the listener's preference. We're not talking about capacitors here.
Hi Tvad, even eight hours would be a break-in period. I purchased two new pairs of the Early 60 Siemens CCa tubes about a year ago. And yes after a few hours they do start to open up. After about 25 hours they sounded even better. Even used NOS tubes that were not in service for many years need a few hours of Burn-in, maybe a better word, would you not agree?
Jim