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Is The Running In Of Electronics A Myth?

Time Audio said:
Some maybe do burn-in their equipment. Seem to remember an article about Cary or one of those US tube Cos burning in their kit. I think some others too. Also SME do some running-in of turntables etc.
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Valves, because bad valves fail very quickly and can take out expensive transformers under warranty.
Turntables, because motors and bearings are mechanical and do actually run in
 
this burn-in thingy is a syllabus in engineering called Robust engineering

burning in process is meant to find any faulty parts. once equipment pass this process, failure rate would reduce tremendously

saying burn in will change the sound might be true or false.
 
I regularly find that the aging of solder is a major contributing factor to improved sound quality. In fact I tend to lay my amps down like fine wines for several decades after I purchase them just so I can hear them at their best.
 
You can certainly hear the difference between lead-free solder and 40% lead solder. The latter lifts the sound to another level. Perhaps that's why old amps sound so much better than new, since lead solder is more or less banned.
 
Ozi2 said:
I've been an audio reviewer for years and I understand pretty well why dealers says that burning in is a myth.

Oz
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Dealers calling it a myth? I never experienced that. The first time anyone mentioned the concept to me was a dealer. My dealers were real big on the burn in thing- think about it, cuts down on returns. By the time you "give it some time to burn in" you are beyond your return period.
Some manufacturer's owners manuals mention "running in" or "warm up" periods too.
I find it mostly true with speakers and cartridges. Turntables and amps? all I'm going to say is if I did'nt like the sound out of the box- further "burn in" or "break in" time never made me like it better. But that's just my own experience.
 
Tilters said:
Dealers calling it a myth? I never experienced that. The first time anyone mentioned the concept to me was a dealer. My dealers were real big on the burn in thing- think about it, cuts down on returns. By the time you "give it some time to burn in" you are beyond your return period.
Some manufacturer's owners manuals mention "running in" or "warm up" periods too.
I find it mostly true with speakers and cartridges. Turntables and amps? all I'm going to say is if I did'nt like the sound out of the box- further "burn in" or "break in" time never made me like it better. But that's just my own experience.
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According to Purite Audio 700 hours 'burn in, is just the blink of an eye, Keith's reply when I posted that I sold a Marantz SA7-1 after 700 hours. LOL.
 
Purite Audio said:
Just to be serious for a moment I don't beleive in 'burn in ' for electronics.
Keith.
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I agree the sound of a cd player or amp is not going to magically transform itself. If I don't like something out of the box, or at the dealer, I don't ever like it. They even used to say sometimes at the dealer when I did'nt like something "oh it's still burning in". It's Just an excuse for crappy sounding gear.
Now I remember the owners manual to Epos ES 11 speakers said about 12 hours run in time on the drivers may give some improvement- that makes sense. Similarly phono cartridges may improve with use.
I had a pass labs class A amp and also a tube amp that mentioned "warm up time" before optimal operation in their owners manuals...that makes sense too.
 
Seem to remember a proper study explaining the settling of dielectric materials in capacitors and so on being used to explain why they do burn-in. Of course cables are capacitors too so explains them changing etc. Can't remember where I read it though but it was a proper study/paper.

My plasma screen certainly took ages to burn in and I was not able to get it to settle and calibrate properly for ages. Has definitely settled now though.
 
Pardon the interruption - scheduled thread maintenance in progress

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Purite Audio said:
Capacitors 'form' I'm fractions of seconds,
Keith.
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Not all of them. Depending on their size, the currents being applied to them and their construction they can take tens of hours to fully form. The input bias on my phonostage took days to settle this was due to the caps only having very small current applied to them.

When one has limited experience of a field its usually best not to make blanket statements.
 
This is according to the technical director of Mundorf and Clarity Caps, the Mundorf guy thought that perhaps a small current through an over specced cap 'could' change, he had no proof though.
Clarity Caps also sponsored a study with the University of Cardiff studying ESR ,again couldn't find any correlation .
Keith.

( free range caps may be different though ? )
 
Purite Audio said:
This is according to the technical director of Mundorf and Clarity Caps, the Mundorf guy thought that perhaps a small current through an over specced cap 'could' change, he had no proof though.
Clarity Caps also sponsored a study with the University of Cardiff studying ESR ,again couldn't find any correlation .
Keith.

( free range caps may be different though ? )
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Was this just for film caps? I though the forming issue was well understood for electrolytics.
 
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