Is Equipment Break-in a Ruse

Discussion in 'Audio Hardware' started by Morbius, Dec 13, 2019.

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  1. csgreene

    csgreene Forum Resident

    Location:
    Idaho, USA
    Well played! ;)
     
  2. head_unit

    head_unit Senior Member

    Location:
    Los Angeles CA USA
    You mean, our hearing? :p
     
  3. head_unit

    head_unit Senior Member

    Location:
    Los Angeles CA USA
    That is SO true. But I'm always glad to help, ship it all to me and I'll give it a decent burial:
    Head_Unit, #1234 Le Basément Secrète, Euro Disney, France. (Post-Brexit, send to 777 Mickey Mouse-san Way, Tokyō Disney, Japan).
     
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  4. noladaoh

    noladaoh Retired

    Location:
    Arkansas
    Well, if you consider your ears to be equipment, maybe.
     
  5. SandAndGlass

    SandAndGlass Twilight Forum Resident

    I have not really found that any speakers sound really any different when breaking in. Not to where it makes any real discernible difference that might be important to me. If any of them did, I would be fine with it, because it would make sense to me as to why.

    We understand a lot more about capacitors that are used in audio today, than many years ago. Even outside of audio, many capacitors have to be allowed to "form". Capacitors are electro-mechanical devices that store and release electricity with a wide range of voltage and current ranges.

    If you don't use a device that has capacitors in the circuit for some time, the capacitors may need to re-form, in order to operate properly.

    I'm not suggesting that all capacitors that are used in audio circuitry need breaking in, but it is logical that some types might, more so than others.

    Tubes are more often than not, run-in at the time of manufacture or before sale. I had never noticed a tube amplifier not sounding good when I first put in new tubes and fired it up.

    I had bought and was listening to a Line Magnetic 22-Watt SET amplifier. That got me thinking about a small single ended pentode Decware 3.9-Watt Mini Tori that I had bought a year or so previously and was sitting on a shelf.

    I got it out and lit it up and discovered that one channel was out. After swapping tubes to the other channel, I discovered that one of the power tubes was out. I looked through my tube box and found that I had a new pair of Tung Sol 6V6GT pentode tubes, so I swapped them out.

    I was sitting doing something while listening to streaming music. I remember looking up and thinking, that this sounds rather bad. I could understand that after coming from the Line Magnetic SET, that this little amp might not measure up. But, it was not that, it just didn't sound very good at all.

    I thought that I hadn't remembered it not sounding good back when I had first tried it out.

    Since I was otherwise occupied doing something on the laptop, I had not bothered to turn it off and go back to the Line Magnetic.

    About a hour passes and I find myself sitting there, being thoroughly engrossed in the music, that was sounding extraordinarily excellent. I was puzzled? Then I had forgotten that I had replaced the power tubes, when I was listening an hour earlier.

    It went from a not very good sounding amp, to a particularly excellent sounding amp, within that hours time.

    The tubes were not some sort of exotic sounding tube, but retailed for $45 a pair.

    I happened to take a photo of the Mini Torii sitting on top of the Line Magnetic, shortly afterward.

    You can see the Tung Sol tube boxes on top of the Zu speaker and sitting on the guest amp table, next to the Line Magnetic integrated.

    [​IMG]

    Though the Decware Mini Torii is a low powered amp, I thought it now sounded the best, out of the dozen tube amps that I have used with my Altec speakers.

    The 6V6GT power tubes are on either side of the large tubes with the orange glow, that are in the center.

    [​IMG]

    A member on the Bottlehead amp forum comments...

    "I have a career as an engineer behind me, but still no convincing explanation. In fact, darn few explanations that are even plausible! Here are two barely-plausible ones:

    1) mechanical "settling down", i.e. micro mechanical motions that eventually stop as the plastic deforms into a more stable position. The electrostatic forces are certainly real; you can hear sound coming from most capacitors if they have signal on them and the room is quiet.

    2) Dielectric absorption is nonlinear and hysteretic, similar to magnetic hysteresis. Just as iron transformer cores are demagnetized, it may be that biases in DA can be removed to settle around a normal operating point."

    Since Decware amps are custom built to order, Steve Deckert has different options available at build time.

    Here is what Steve says about the capacitor options that are available in his Anniversary Amp.

    The SE84UFO25 also comes with a fantastic cryo-treated copper foil beeswax signal-capacitor. If you want you can have your amp custom built with VCAP brand copper foil caps. The option is presented in the shopping cart when you purchase the amp.


    [​IMG]
    1) poly film cap 2) aluminum foil beeswax 3) copper foil beeswax 4) VCAP.

    If you have no idea which option would be better, get the default cryo-treated copper-foil beeswax caps as they sound as good as the VCAPs but do not require the long burn-in period before they start sounding great. The beeswax may eventually wear out in 20 or 30 years and may need to be replaced. The VCAP will last forever. I would not say one cap has more resolution than the other so we demo the amps with either cap.

    I agree with you, I would at least want to listen to it from time to time, to see, out of curiosity if nothing else, what changes are taking place during the break-in period, if any.

    Other than my personal experience with that one tube amplifier, I don't recall ever noticing any break-in differences in any of my other gear. Never really paid attention. I turned on the piece of equipment and it sounded good. I left it with that.

    I've never noticed any wire break-in of any kind, not that I expected to. But then I use plebeian wire in my systems, like $20 a hundred foot spool of RCA speaker wire from Amazon.

    Sounds fine to me.

    I also turn on my gear and listen to it as soon as it warms up and stabilizes enough to turn on.

    Always sounded fine to me.
     
    Claude Benshaul, head_unit and timind like this.
  6. spanky1

    spanky1 Forum Resident

    Location:
    East Tennessee
    It seems reasonable to deduce that anything that has the ability to mechanically "break-in" would, naturally, wear-out over time. Not sure how one could argue otherwise from a scientific (or logic) standpoint.
     
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  7. Louis Kirsch

    Louis Kirsch Forum Resident

    Location:
    Rolesville, NC
    Ha, Lol, it has and my resonance surely has :)
     
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  8. SandAndGlass

    SandAndGlass Twilight Forum Resident

    All mechanical things do wear out. Things with moving parts wear out. I am wearing out...
     
  9. Jerk The Handle

    Jerk The Handle Electrician

    Location:
    Moonbeam levels
    Most likely, like how they sound better after a bit of "cablerobics" exercise. Endorphin rush making you relaxed and all.
     
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  10. head_unit

    head_unit Senior Member

    Location:
    Los Angeles CA USA
    The issue is not whether there are mechanical changes-sure there are with speakers and cartridges blah blah. And I don't think "is there burn-in" is a debate, at least I certainly believe the perception of a component/system's response can change.

    The debate is whether mechanical changes cause reliably audible* response changes over a period of time, or whether the listeners are simply getting used to the sound of the system.

    This debate is interesting to me because the "it's real" proponents often seem vehemently opposed to the idea that they are just getting used to the sound of the system. I find that doubly curious since most everyone agrees our acoustic memory is very poor. I'm not sure what the shame in "getting used to" is; we get used to all kinds of stuff in life from the way a car drives to the way a shoe fits and on and on.

    From a scientific method point of view, it's unsolvable, since you can never control out all the other variables like weather/barometer, individual mood and stress, etc. Plus even if you could use MRI super-electron-miscroscope particle accelerator measurements down inside the brain, those who DO "believe" would likely show actual brain perception changes, similar (but not the same!) as the placebo effect.

    *As I noted before, mechanical changes in a speaker do not at all mean significant changes in the response. For example, a sealed box woofer's suspension can loosen but the air in the box still provides stiffness, and the total response shifts just slightly.
     
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  11. head_unit

    head_unit Senior Member

    Location:
    Los Angeles CA USA
    Can I order specific flavors? Like Sage if I want a drier sound, or Thai Rainforest for a more lush sound? :laugh: Actually beeswax makes sense to me. Don't know anything about VCAPs though I've heard the name.
     
    SandAndGlass likes this.
  12. Andy Saunders

    Andy Saunders Always a pleasure never a chore

    Location:
    England
    Break in believer here.... had too much kit that has clearly shown that this trait.:)
     
  13. Taliesin

    Taliesin Forum Resident

    Location:
    Ontario, Canada
    A local high end dealer would break in their freshly delivered speakers for 2 weeks before putting them out on the floor. Why would they go to that trouble if they didn’t have to. It’s real!
     
  14. Claude Benshaul

    Claude Benshaul Forum Resident

    Yeah but you could also ask why doesn't the manufacturer break in his own equipment prior to shipping it out from the factory? Logically if it worked it would be a dead easy way to gain an advantage over the competition without investing a cent in this expensive business called R&D.
     
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  15. csgreene

    csgreene Forum Resident

    Location:
    Idaho, USA
    So their customers were buying used speakers at new prices? Why not let the customer do that? Nonsense and marketing baloney.
     
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  16. Subagent

    Subagent down the rabbit hole, they argue over esoterica

    Location:
    Arlington, VA
    I would guess that the speakers were being broken-in as demonstrators. Presumably those that the customer purchases would still be boxed. It would be quite the operation to run in every pair of speakers sold.
     
  17. Taliesin

    Taliesin Forum Resident

    Location:
    Ontario, Canada
    Nailed it!
     
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  18. avanti1960

    avanti1960 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Chicago metro, USA
    Two reasons - time and money. Say you are a manufacturer of speakers. Are you going to invest in and continue to pay for floor space for staging and testing? Are going to invest in and maintain the equipment needed to burn in the speakers? Are you going to pay for the labor involved in all of the above? More importantly are the end consumers going to pay for the additional costs that are added to the bottom line?
     
  19. Tullman

    Tullman Senior Member

    Location:
    Boston MA
    Wilson Audio break their speakers in at the factory. Convergent Audio Technology burns their amps and preamps in at the factory, as well.
     
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  20. Pastafarian

    Pastafarian Forum Resident

    Obviously your talking about speakers you're using for demonstration only and in my experience a dealer will run a system over the weekend before a customer will sit in front of it.
     
  21. Claude Benshaul

    Claude Benshaul Forum Resident

    You are asking very good questions for which I don't have an answer since I'm not an audio equipment manufacturer. But somehow I suspect that all these resources you mentioned could be made available if burn in was bringing such a definitive improvement as some of of are led to believe.

    I don't have an opinion on the subject, perhaps because I don't really care enough or perhaps because I never noticed much of a difference or perhaps because I'm getting old and cynical and found a long time ago how easy it is to fool anyone into believing anything.
     
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  22. Morbius

    Morbius Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Brookline, MA
    Its typical that all sophisticated electronic devices get burned in and soak tested during production. Basic quality control.
     
  23. SandAndGlass

    SandAndGlass Twilight Forum Resident

    Here is a link to an article on capacitors and how they perform in an audio environment, including ratings and recommendations. Have at it!

    Humble Homemade Hifi
     
  24. Tullman

    Tullman Senior Member

    Location:
    Boston MA
    Right. In other words not much break-in is required for CAT or Wilson products.
     
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  25. Gregory Earl

    Gregory Earl Senior Member

    Location:
    Kantucki
    It's not break-in. It's just quality control. They don't want it to go out the door dead on arrival. That's bad for business.
     
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