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In Reply to: Ditto posted by sgb on December 24, 2004 at 12:43:48:
In other words, why would the wearing of a path through the electric circuitry, make it sound better, rather than worse?
Follow Ups:
First, you made an assertion that is not true, so your question cannot be answered. Electrons do not "wear a path" through circuitry.I believe what you're really asking is, what physically changes in a piece of electronic equipment over time that may affect its performance? That is possibly answerable if you are willing to stipulate a particular measurable performance parameter.
A circuit drawn is a theoretical concept which cannot be rendered perfectly in the physical world. Schematically, all components are perfect. Wire has no resistance, and does not radiate or absorb energy. Inductors have no resistance or capacitance, capacitors have no leakage or inductance. But actually, in keeping with the law of entropy, the physical materials of all components degrade with time. This should cause a drop in performance, not the other way around.
There are some exceptions: the dielectric in some capacitors is chemical based and requires voltage to form. Mechanical parts tend to be tight upon assembly, and may need use in order to "break them in," i.e., mating parts loosen up and "wear in" for a better fit and lower friction. Speaker suspension materials become more flexile after a break-in period. Age and operation tend to relieve the physical stresses in materials due to the manufactuing process.
The more interesting question is this: Do the naturally occuring changes in physical components cause measurable changes in a device's performance? I'll guess that 99% of the time, the answer is no. It is at this point that the masses will rise up and claim their 30-40- or 50-year old ears can detect unmeasurable changes in sound. We have now left the world of science so any opinion is valid.
GPB
... and humans generally have much better vision than hearing. Have you ever noticed an improvement in your TV's picture as it "broke in" over the course of several hundred hours"?Didn't think so.
ISF recommends at least 100 hours of usage prior to calibration to allow the display characteristics to settle.
I'll bet most CD players or amps could benefit from some adjustment or recalibrating after a few hundred hours too. That misses the point. What those who advocate "breaking in" electronics argue is that the performance improves over the break-in time, without any recalibration.I'll bet if you calibrate a TV new right out of the box so that it's "perfect" and come back after letting it "burn in" for 300 hours, that particular calibration will look worse, not better. And after calibrating again, the performance will be the same or worse than the first calibration - not better.
where did you get this fanciful notion of "rapidly stop degrading" from?it is not supported by empirical measurements. typical TVs are designed to last 10,000 hours (though 20-30,000 hours are not uncommon).
in the first few hundred hours, the set's performance in terms of linearity and predictability improve, not degrade.
I'll bet if you calibrate a TV new right out of the box so that it's "perfect" and come back after letting it "burn in" for 300 hours, that particular calibration will look worse, not better. And after calibrating again, the performance will be the same or worse than the first calibration - not better.All would agree to the first sentence. But the second sentence simply flies in the face of experience. Recalibration will produce a picture that is the same or better, and the resulting drift will be much, much less than in the first few hundred hours.
The fact that the calibrations will remain at the new settings for much longer than fresh out of the box gives us evidence that the balance within the circuitry has changed in some subtle ways.
Regards,
Geoff
I agree entirely with what you said. Of course the second calibration will hold longer - that's why I said "settle" = "stop rapidly degrading".My point was that the break-in period itself does NOT result in better performance. It's the recalibrating after the break-in period has degraded the performance that matters. And, I believe, the second calibration will result in no better picture than the first calibration. It will just hold longer, that's why it's recommended to wait the 100 hours.
No one here who advocates "breaking in" an SACD player as a means of improving its performance has ever suggested that it be recalibrated or adjusted in any way after the break in period. They simply suggest that the player will "magically" sound better all by itself. I don't buy this.
Since you agree that the "second calibration will hold longer", you agree that changes have occurred in the circuit during the first couple of hundred hours. Some will not agree with that.Anyway, the same "breaking in" applies to amps, and they need no calibration. Read the current tendency of reviewers to run any piece of equipment for a few days to a week or so before listening. Why would they bother?
I've recalibrated my SACD player a few times.
Regards,
Geoff
I disagree that these changes, occurring over the course of hundreds of hours, are likely to be an improvement.Why do reviewers run a piece of electronic equipment for a few days to a week before reviewing it? I suspect many just say they do to humor the true believers. A proper warm-up of an hour or two should be all that's necessary.
BTW: Why have you recalibrated your SACD player? Was it beginning to sound too good?
The reason why many components sound better after break-in is because the sound the designer intended to get out of the component is the sound after break-in. If the designer was trying to optimize the sound out of the box, then break-in could make it sound worse. But it would take extra effort to optimize the out of the box sound because the designer would have to keep rebuilding his prototypes with new parts all the time.Nevertheless, some components do sound worse after break-in. I have an inexpensive Panasonic F87 DVD-A player that sounded best new.
Hey Dalton, try hanging out on some videophile forums for a few days. They make us audiophiles seem "normal".
ages well... or not....I think break-in helps but that's a pretty subjective assessment.
Why wouldn't showing the electrons the way through an electronic circuit allow them to better find the way? Wearing a path? As you should by now know having repeatedly asked this question, the forming a capacitors is probably most at the root of this phenomenon.
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a
for the matter of equipment break-in, I believe that just about anything mechanical -- be it cars or galoppita machines — will work better once they have a little time on them.I guess none of you guys ever played little league baseball, or bought a new pair of shoes either, Seems to me that all of us as kids did our darnedest to get those gloves broken in. As an adult past 60 I try to hold on to a pair of comfortable shoes as long as I can. I can't think of anything I'd rather not do than break in a new pair of shoes.
This being Christmas eve and all, I wonder how many of the responses below are coming from the grinches or the guys who expect nothing but a lump of coal.
Why do you just assume its just the signal path...simplicity....? Start by trying to understand how components works from an electrons viewpoint...then think how an amplifier actually works and then stop...think about loudspeakers the effect of temperature, chemical degredation and magnetic fields polarization et al..... No dont bother Just have a happy Christmas without the headaches all these real clever people do who actually design modify and work on repairing the things....You meanwhile just keep correcting their English or statements you disagree with....It seems to eat up endless amounts of cyberspace and keeps us entertained.....stick to lawyering If thats really what you do...suggest you also check your own spelling of cause/corse/course..... whatever....D.... LOL
There seems to be an awful lot of superstitions and unsubstantiated claims surrounding component and accessory break-in. With thousands of aging components in the equipment, why would the net effect always be an improvement instead of a degradation?Also, it’s been shown that hearing memory is extremely poor. So it’s hard to believe that anyone can really remember and track such slow subtle changes to determine the claimed sonic improvement. You need to make a recent comparison to determine this reliably.
Ok My initial reply was to widen a subject for this particular writer to open up his previous mundane thinking..instead of just repling to lesser subjects and comments......I also deliberatly avoided the term improvement,,, This is not a subject I have on;y spent five minutes or even years on...possibly 10 times that....OBVIOUSLY IM NOT GOING TO GIVE A SHORT RESPONSE WITH ALL THE ANSWERS..Even though I became aware of reserach in Germany in the 1930s on this subject and similair sonic evaluation of cable by telephone companys about the same time. The answers are still being unravelled..
But I will break down "Duis" original serious queston into two...and respond to your comments....Yes the memory on anythying has its known failings especially in absorbing and retaining new information...If you follow this with reason, then constant rehearing is the process which allows information not previously retained or observed to suddendly become noticable,ie the memory side isnt working as hard on repetition...shall I say this again...? Hence this partilly explains the perception of running in. However when people try the simple change of interconnects to a run in against a brand new one and hear differences or more detail then this part standing alone falls down..
As regards your second point re ageing . No Its not quite just that,or the old standby dry joints...,Its more likely a combination of effects caused by micro heating,chemical reactions , diodic effects, Microphony and short term micro magnetic fields having an influence on the signal progression..
Think also of this as you would of a loudspeaker xover ie tiny parts of the overall signal suddendly finding themselves slowed down and going out of phase.Sometimes the failure of the power supply to meet demand in speed or current causing a droput etc (USA ? Outages)
This is on top of these same effects hitting a poorly designed economically designed power supply which in turn is subject to variations noise etc etc..So the idea as stated by someone elses reply , Its great in theory but reality its far more complicated.
Just typically example is the fact that stereo amplifiers ezpecially running class AB will not be identically matched,even if they were the bias setting resisters could be changing temperature independant of each other due to different signals being passed through each half of the stereo amplifiers....just to add to the scenario, we have not touched upon the D to A magical electronic conversion process....
.All these changes should only cause a small but significant change to perceived sound and are probabvly less that the average (repeat average)listners ability to notice without concentrating....Dave
*****With thousands of aging components in the equipment, why would the net effect always be an improvement instead of a degradation?*****Approaching the issue with your skepticism in mind shows the absurdity of the whole audiophile break-in nonsense.
I've never seen any proof that "breaking in" electronics can help. On the other hand, I've never seen any proof it doesn't. Of course, it's pretty obvious that electronic gear will degrade eventually. In the world of musical instruments, violinists insist their instruments improve with age (again, no proof). I play the flute and piano, and in my experience, those instruments can only get worse over time, though I also offer no proof. (Some say a piano, no matter how well maintained, must be completely rebuilt every 75 years.)All I can say for sure: wine does improve with age (at least some wine and for a certain number of years). Beer does not. Happy holidays.
Speakers, of course, just like the catcher's glove, need to move freely.
Maybe eectrons can move "faster" once a pathway is worn through a circuit, in a particular piece of gear. But I'd appreciate someone translating that into why it would improve, as opposed to degrade sound, to do that? Maybe because the product is R&D'd with broken-in parts?
a
hate to see what you are like the rest of the year.
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