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Is The Running In Of Electronics A Myth?

TheDecameron said:
Joe when I began my career, a senior manager in the company said to me

"Dec, there are three kinds of people in the world, do you know who they are?"

"no, Arthur" says I.

"the first two kinds are those who make things happen and those who watch things happen... but do you know what the third type is?"

"no" says I

"Dec " he says, "those are the people who have things happen to them."
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I'm definitely in the second category, though I sometimes nod off and maybe unwittingly become one of the third category.
 
I know cartridges take around 50 hours I have fitted enough and they nearly all need a tweak once run-in.

Electronics, friends and myself build, definitely change as do commercially made/bought things. Solder in a new cap and you will always have to wait.:rolleyes:

I once soldered a couple of new tags to an arm lead and it took an hour or two for the solder to burn-in and the sound change - was not expecting that one either!:eek:

And don't get me started on cables!:mad:

So no not a myth. I'm puzzled by anyone who would think it was. :confused: *

Oh and warm up time is not a myth either in case anyone was gonna ask that one! My friend uses a whole lotta oil caps in his amps they can take weeks to burn in and a couple of hours to warm up and go transparent each time you turn his system on! Another friend and I went round his house one evening. My friend said "your system is sounding a bit off this evening". By the end of the evening he was saying it's the best he'd heard it. I knew about the warm up issue and now so does he! Oh and no alcohol was consumed that evening.

I can also see it in the motion on my Blu-ray player it's a tiny bit jumpy until it's been on 20 mins or so then it's smooth.

* However, there is a theory now backed up by science about the taste receptors on our tongues - some people are called super tasters because they are so sensitive to certain foods - I think there could be genuine differences in people's hearing perception which may explain these differences of opinion on the sound of things. Over the years I have come to accept what people say about sound as it's their perception :)
 
Time Audio said:
I know cartridges take around 50 hours I have fitted enough and they nearly all need a tweak once run-in.

Electronics friends and myself build definitely change as do commercially made/bought things. Solder in a new cap and you will always have to wait.:rolleyes:

I once soldered a couple of new tags to an arm lead and it took an hour or two for the solder to burn-in and the sound change - was not expecting that one either!:eek:

And don't get me started on cables!:mad:

So no not a myth. I'm puzzled by anyone who would think it was. :confused:
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But does it make more difference than a large single malt - that's the important criterion . . .

H.

:):):):confused::confused::confused::):):)
 
Not into Whisky :eek:
Quite like a good Margaux though :)

Love the waveform in your smilies :):):):confused::confused::confused::):):)

"What waveform?"........

Just my perception :)

:):confused::):confused::):confused::):confused::)
 
Harry1212 said:
but at least they used to double up as waffle irons . . .
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Sometimes 12 weeks was good! We used to get loads of A1 and MA50's back at MF which had melted toroidal tx's and it wasn't unusual to fit a new one and after leaving it on all night on test to find the tx fried again in the morning.....
We then used to change some resistors to lower the bias on those ones before putting another one in.
 
sq225917 said:
While I have a Mdac modded just like Steven's I wasn't aware of it 'burning in' on return from John. It certainly sounds different stone cold to how it sounds after five minutes of being on, but that's all.

Which is considerably different to how it changed over the first week of initial ownership.
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Maybe it all happened on John's workbench.

- Richard.
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Joe Hutch
What puzzles me (if burn-in is real/audible and some stuff sounds crap without it) is why manufacturers don't burn-in equipment before distributing it.
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Joe, such refreshing naïveté.
They don't do it so that you will carry home the mug's eyeful with the superficially impressive yet shrill, unrelenting sound.....hoping that the sound will improve gradually with teh 'burn in' - it won't but your brain will apply parametric EQ ( known as the WTF!! mastercurve) to your auditory nerves in order to cope with the merciless onslaught.
 
Arkless Repairs said:
Inded! That's bizarre!
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May have been something to do with switching to another input whilst soldering the tags or unplugging the phono leads and plugging back but it took a while to sound good. Remember solder also changes over time - crystal size etc...but agree most of the micro structure forms on cooling.

Anyway Caps and arm re-wires defo burn in - witnessed that many a time!;)
 
I was informed today that "we don't call it 'burn in' any more". Too many negative connotations......often implying smoke!

The correct term is now "run in".:rolleyes:
 
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