More crucially with speakers, they are made from materials which behave differently at different humidities and temperatures (rubber cone surrounds, paper cones etc). Enclosures will also cause differences potentially unless open baffle. These differences are quite measurable. But this isn’t really a running in issue as such but may be relevant if you start your listening session in a cold room and think that everything sounds better as the room and equipment warm up.
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Is this not disinterring a corpse, why do this, again, again and again?
As I age I’m becoming more open minded and less fixated on maintaining and defending a particular position on anything. I have great respect for science and I’ve always been interested in where science leads us in our understanding of phenomena we encounter in life. However I’m also not an absolutist in the sense that if science can’t explain something then it doesn’t exist. There is much we don’t know and to quote “we don’t know what we don’t know”. It pains me to see people take polarised views on subjects that once that view is taken they feel they must defend at all costs. On the topic of burn-in in my work experience (industrial electronics and automation) burn-in was/is real from the perspective of equipment that went through a burn-in process prior to final calibration before it was released to the market. This often revealed not only potential component failures but allowed stabilisation of hardware through thermal and process load cycling. Does this apply to audio gear? Well yes it does it my opinion more to some components than others. One of the previous comments mentioned capacitors for instance that do change as indeed do resistors and other electronic components. What about cables? Cables also have capacitance, resistance, impedance etc so why are cables not subject to the same forces as other electronic components? We don’t live in a world where science can explain everything nor can AB testing be considered absolute in determining whether A or B are different or the the same. How your ears perceive something musical from one day to the next will vary depending on your mood, physical situation, how you slept the night before etc. Ask a trained musician to detect a specific tone from one day to the next and you might get a more consistent result. For those that believe that burn-in is a real issue for audio gear well that’s just fine for them. Let them be with that belief. If you don’t hold with that belief well that’s also just fine. You can also get on and enjoy your life. Use your audio system to enjoy the wonderful experience musicians and artists are creating and bringing to us every day. That’s the important thing to focus your time on.
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+1 BrianK
Well said!
A side by side a/b test (conducted with as short a time possible between switchovers, like under 10 seconds) IS a good test between two different items.
It’s what’s done by pro audio (music recording, mixing, mastering) professionals to evaluate equipment differences.(To pick the best item to use for the job)
Burn-in is a harder thing to confirm, even if using just your ears. You will need multiple stocks of whatever items at different hours.
Warm-up on the other hand (to me) is very real. I just leave all the stuff powered on. I used to turn on/off the equipment on a daily basis for my two different rigs. I wouldn’t like the sound when turned on from cold. It wouldn’t sound as ‘liquid/relaxed’ in comparison to when it had been left on. From a cold start, the sound jumped out more but in a harsher way. I preferred the more relaxed sound when left on. Leaving the rig on 24/7 and also having a Torus for power, now my rig just sounds the same regardless of the time of the day.
I don’t really make a big deal of it. Just leave it on. For level stuff, there is no difference in energy consumption. Amps are the only things you have to worry out, especially if they are Class A or tube - you have to turn those on/off. Class AB 24/7 is more tricky and dependent on the model. Class D you can treat like source equipment - no need to second guess leaving amps on 24/7. They are so efficient.
If you use the rig frequently, leave it on. If you use it only occasionally, you can turn it on/off.
How unfortunate! All of our systems are doomed to break-in, warm up, or whatever. They won’t sound like new anymore!
Amazing admission that the difference is there!
Can you please post the individual band settings? If I superimpose my hearing test cure I probably get a linear response…
I beg to differ.
They showed clearly there is a difference, and in this case it’s for exactly what you’d expect.
They didn’t show a difference between one sort of balanced XLR to XLR and another, but they showed a measurable difference nonetheless.
This result shows that the hypothesis “RF noise on the interconnects can detrimentally affect sound quality” is worth looking at further.
Burned out is real. Burned in is not.
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Brain-in is real. Burn-in is not. 
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burn in is absolutely real without any doubt what so ever. i bought a eufonika h22m headphone amplifier and at the time had sennheiser hd650 headphones that i`ve had about 3 years. the eufonika amplifier sounded very clear and sharp and was too much for my ears. i was told the amplifier needed 100+ hours burn in. it turned out to be about 220 hours of burn in. the difference in sound was still very clear but the sharpness in sound was much more rounded and everything was noticably fuller sounding and much kinder to my ears so yes burn in exists and not something i imagined.
Burn in often means that you will eventually get used to the change in sound and like it. Personally I wouldn’t buy anything that I didn’t like on first hearing but was told it would improve over time.
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Oldest trick in the box. Puts a nice amount of pressure on you as if you fail to notice you might not be a worthy member of the tribe.
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Hello,
Id the Eufonika amp a tube amp? If it is, do you think the improvement you heard is based on the tubes or the overall electronics of the amp? I’m no expert on tubes, just have noticed users of tube-based equipment do say burn-in for tubes is very real.
How can someone hope to compare auditory memory from 100 hours of listening ago when most people can barely rely on auditory memory from minutes/seconds ago?
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Burn in for 45 days please.
Return window closes at 30 days.
There, fixed it for you.
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If burn-in existed would it go something like this,
“`> = some arbitrary amount of time”
sound > better sound > better better sound > better better better sound > better better better better sound > ……
Or like this,
Sound > better sound > peak better sound > sound getting worse > …
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Who has a good hifi in their home and a car stereo? Does the car stereo sound as good as the hifi?
I highly doubt it. Is the car stereo unlistenable? Not at all. Our hearing makes compromises and employs filtering that we’re barely conscious of.
Burn-in? Seriously. I’ve seen numerous tests where measurements do not change one iota between an hour and a hundred hours. Yet audiophiles claim to hear mystical changes that can’t be explained by science or engineering but can somehow be explained by audiophool marketing voodoo.
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