Is Equipment Break-in a Ruse

Five weeks ago I traded in my trusty Rega Elex-r for a brand new McIntosh MA5300 integrated amplifier and my one year old Rega Apheta 2 phono cartridge for a new one and a week later I sold my Rega RX3 speakers and purchased new pair of KEF R3s with stands. The difference going from the Elex-r to the McIntosh with the RX3s was obvious of course, the new amp had better grip and more extension and definitely better definition but the change in cartridge after listening to the old one on the new equipment wasn't so obvious. I thought maybe the new Apheta 2 sounded a little bit brighter the first couple of minutes on the first record I played than it did later on that same record. I observed nothing notable on anything else I played until the R3s arrived a week later after selling the RX3s ( in the interim I listened to headphones through the Mac). Immediately there was an increase in bass extension and a deepening of the soundstage which had images more distinctly populated throughout. Also the tone and color of instruments like sax and trumpet had a more immediate quality than before. I definitely found listening the new speakers more engaging.

So its been weeks since I brought the new equipment home and started listening to it and the only notable changes that I've been able to discern was when I installed the bungs that were supplied with the R3s in their rear ports that significantly smoothed and cleaned up the bass. I have yet to move the speakers around to see if I can perfect the imaging as having left them where I first plunked them down when I first set them up. Since I don't listen to the same thing over and over again and as I've probably played thirty plus different records and CDs over the last five weeks I have no radical sound quality changes other than those associated with installing the new equipment to report.

I wonder what your observations have been with equipment you recently or not to distant in the past have set up.

 

I think I have heard some subtle changes over time in speakers. It makes some sense to me that this might be true of mechanical devices. I might have also just become more used to their sound. I'm going to say I'm about 50/50 on this.

For other devices I do not think break in is real, especially things like cables. I find it very suspicious that nothing is ever said to sound worse after it breaks in - never. It always "smooths out" or it's characteristics become better.

I do not think people are lying or trying to be misleading in any way when they say they hear the effects of break in. I do think their psychological expectations color their perceptions on this way more than they want to acknowledge.

I hope you enjoy your new components, regardless - and if the break in sounds good to you, that's great.

 

I feel like there is a thread on this somewhere

IME speaker break in is very real, for KEFs up to 6 months. That has been my experience with LS50 and Reference 1. Midrange opened up significantly over that time.

Cart, amp and tube break in also very real IME.

Cable break in seems silly

 

Speaker and cartridge break-in is a real thing - mechanical suspensions and all that. I would swear speakers even sound different depending on the humidity level but that could just be psycho-acoustics?

 

I believe anything with capacitors does break in over time. My technical knowledge is zero but my friend who is a electrical engineer gave this as the reason IF burn in can be diserned

 

Break-in is certainly not a ruse with B&W speakers. Both my CM10s2 and 805d3 were substantially different (and better) after about four months of use. Deeper bass with more pleasant highs in both cases. I was pretty amazed at the difference.

 

Speakers generally break in - the suspensions soften.
Magnets may lose their strength over time.
Some passive cross over components may not be stable (Thermal, load and time changes may alter their values and thus the sound)

Valves are changing constantly.

In the short term most solid state gear is relatively stable
(Sound may change as components warm up and the various component values change)

Some swear by cable and other component break in times.
Apart from speakers my own experience suggests in the short term for most components "break in" is a factual fallacy - poor sounding gear still sounds poor.
It is possible that one can get used to a certain "flavour" of presentation over time - suspect this is more to do with the listener breaking in rather than the equipment.

 

Yes, it is part of a plot by the Commies in league with the Illuminati to hold audiophiles all over the world in thrall.

The only things that can break in in a system would be physical parts* like a cartridge stylus or speaker cones. I posted before I once did a test beating dozens of Ford 5x7s totally to death-slammed from maximum positive excursion to maximum negative excursion for IIRC 240 hours. Yes, the suspension loosened up! You can find other tests online, less severe, showing small to moderate changes in suspension stiffness. However, even moderate changes in suspension stiffness don't automatically mean significant frequency response changes.
--> Break-in is pretty much in your head, as you get used to a system

*well, electronics can literally warm up, conceivably with some small effect. But that's over maybe hours, not days and weeks and months.

 

That was the downfall of Alnico. Modern materials don't degauss unless exposed to temperature extremes-and vehicle interiors that I worked with could hit 300F!

Definitely some types of capacitors can denature over time. But that's not on a break-in time scale, that's like over decades.

Interesting point, they do burn out. I wonder if they really "break in" though? Be interesting to talk to an actual tube engineer. Offhand I'd think it's more like a light bulb-fine fine fine then POOF breaking on turn-on. Tube folks chime in...

 

Tubes definitely change in character over 50-100 hours from new and are stable until they are toast. At least that's been my experience.

 

Some people know it's real, some don't. Those that do will not be convinced otherwise, nor will those that don't.

Judge for yourself with your gear, which definitely includes cables and your ears.

 

My wife broke me in a long time ago.

 

I believe that there will be no shortage of threads that continue to debate about break-in / burn-in etc. Possibly the only thing about the topic we can all agree on.

 

Years ago I bought a pair of Paradigm Studio 60 V.2s brand new and seriously considered returning them within the first week. I called the shop I bought them from and the owner asked me to live with them for a while. After about a month they smoothed out nicely. It was a Jackson Browne song that made me want to return them, but a month later the same JB song lost the harshness that turned me off so much. Speaker break in is real IME.

Now to the Kef R3, I've had a pair for more than a month now, and haven't really noticed any change. My suggestion for @Morbius is to move them out from the back wall a much as possible. I moved mine from 36 inches to 66 inches (front baffle) and the imaging just blows me away. Image depth went from not much, to amazing deep. Not sure why, but soundstage height increased also.

 

Ouch

 

Do audio equipment isolation cones break in?

 

All components, over time will sound "different". Better?? That's in the ears of the beholder. It makes sense that tube gear, by virtue of the tubes..sound different hence the popularity of tube rolling. Again, read...not better, but different. Now for speakers, that's a different story, but not much different. They do expand and breathe so one would expect they would reach their actual sound after a period of time. Same goes for cartridges. Now piggybacking on @ayrehead , my wife has changed me over the decades. Do I sound better??? Hmm, I should ask her.

 

In my opinion, break(burn) in is an entirely legit phenomena. The improvement in low frequency extension, high frequency detail and soundstaging I noted after 200 hours with my Dynaudio speakers was not placebo.

 

It's real for tube gear and speakers, for solid state stuff(maybe the capacitors), and definitely not for cables.

 

LOL.....

 

If you've gained mass, then your resonance frequency has dropped...

 

Does anyone say it's placebo? I hadn't read that one. What I say is your brain gets used to all kinds of stuff. Jet noise, people showering, tinnitus ringing, whatever. So let's say your speakers have a recessed midrange, and you are used to that and can "listen into"it. Then you change to new ones which are flat-that would now sound too bright in the mid, but eventually your brain will recalibrate. Or for a different example when I re-tuned a friends car to have less boomy bass. He complained of no bass but I told him to give it two weeks without touching. At the end he was fine, and said that yes he could now hear the low bass.

So there's definitely a "burn in effect" however the physical causes are not tremendous-if they were, that would be another set of problems called "quality control" and "warranty" ha ha. This topic is interesting, because certainly for transducers you can measure and prove there are small changes. On the flip side, nobody can prove that the differences they hear aren't due to psychoacoustic accommodation. Therefore it becomes a matter of belief and faith = religion...

 

Speakers certainly do break-in.

http://www.gr-research.com/burnin.htm

 

I have absolutely noticed break-in effects on carts.

 

After 100 hours of break-in of my R-2R DAC the bass became cleaner and tighter and high frequencies improved too. I talked to other owners of the same DAC and their observations were similar to mine.