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Post by redog on Mar 10, 2014 18:49:23 GMT -5
I recently had someone over to demo a pair of speakers I have for sale. He decided not to buy because the speakers only had 50 hours on them, and my amp only had about 10 hours. He claimed that there was not enough "burn in" time on them.
I'm thinking maybe this was just his excuse because he didn't like the speakers, but I read alot about "burn in" in the EMO lounge. Does a class d amp really have a burn in time? What exactly is "burning in"
I understand speaker burn in to some extent because you have moving drivers that loosen up over time. I do not understand "burn in" with amps, wire, power cables..... What is "burning in" on these products?
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Post by pop on Mar 10, 2014 18:59:27 GMT -5
Blah blah blah. Buyers are liars  |
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Mar 10, 2014 19:10:08 GMT -5
The only burn in after effects my ears were able to detect were from new speaker woofers, and tubes.
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Post by Gary Cook on Mar 10, 2014 19:47:15 GMT -5
Speakers being fundamentally mechanical will have a loosening up period for the drivers. That's where my experience of "burn in" stops, the rest I have never heard or experienced.
Cheers
Gary
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Post by Boomzilla on Mar 10, 2014 19:47:54 GMT -5
I recently had someone over to demo a pair of speakers I have for sale. He decided not to buy because the speakers only had 50 hours on them, and my amp only had about 10 hours. He claimed that there was not enough "burn in" time on them. IMHO, he's an idiot. |
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klinemj
Emo VIPs 
Official Emofest Scribe
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Post by klinemj on Mar 10, 2014 20:12:39 GMT -5
I don't consider amps or CD players or anything purely electronic to have a burn-in time. Speakers...yes. Amps...no. And for speakers, it's just a matter of mechanical hysteresis. And, to "burn in"...it's really a relatively few cycles of the speaker material to reach their "burned in" state. And in fact "burn in" is an improper term...it's really cycle fatigue. "burn in" makes it sound like something is catching fire...it's not...it's just behavior of materials within their elastic deformation region. Unless...you over power them and burn them up! (and they don't sound better after that happens!!!)
Mark
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Post by garbulky on Mar 10, 2014 21:07:45 GMT -5
Refusing to buy a product because it's "too new" is a little wierd for me. I have noticed differences with burn in with woofers. With amps and DAC's - SOME - sound better the longer it's left turned on "warm up" but the difference isn't obvious. I wouldn't reject a sale because of burn in. I would take a guess that he just didn't want it.
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Post by dust770 on Mar 10, 2014 23:08:09 GMT -5
He could have burned them in himself if he believes in that sort of thing, so this excuse makes no sense. He would rather it been "more used" the newer. Sounds a bit strange.
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Post by lionear on Mar 11, 2014 0:16:52 GMT -5
I think so, yes. I do believe there is such a thing. In my experience, Cardas cables, plugs and sockets, and solder take forever to break in. And in addition to mechanical "burn in", speakers have a lot of wire in them, and they need to break in, too.
As for my XPA-100, there was a bit of "nasal" sound in the vocal band - and this has disappeared after a couple of months.
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Post by Gary Cook on Mar 11, 2014 0:58:13 GMT -5
I've been using Cardas solder since it was released, I bought about 5 kgs (10 rolls) of quad eutectic about 10 years ago, not a lot left now though. I've soldered everything from microphone leads to speaker cables and everything in between, including hundreds of components to circuit boards. Plus done many repairs on the fly and I've never heard one skerrick of audible difference. In a rack of 10 amps I could install one brand new one, out of the box, unwrap the plastic, plug it in with a new power cord and it doesn't sound any different from the other 9. In a run of 50 speaker cables, 30 to 60 metres in length, I can replace a handful with brand new cable, straight off the roll, crimp and solder, and the new ones don't sound any different from the rest. So please understand my scepticism when it comes to solid state hardware and cable burn in. I've literally had hundreds of occasions when I could have heard it and haven't, nor has anyone working with me.
Speakers, being a mechanical device are a different matter, they definitely do have a new sound and their sound changes over time, albeit not a very long time and not very much.
Cheers
Gary
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Post by Nodscene on Mar 11, 2014 1:34:26 GMT -5
I noticed a fairly big difference with my UPA-7 after being used. As I stated in another thread I was really disappointed initially as I found the amp too bright (I'm sensitive to higher frequencies) and there was a distinct lack of bass. I was ready to sell it or keep it and live with an expensive mistake. Thankfully it mellowed out and has become a great neutral amp. I've never heard much before in the way of burn in for most other electronics (even some speakers) but I did find a distinct change over time with this amp in my system.
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Post by deltadube on Mar 11, 2014 2:07:29 GMT -5
fun I was just looking at the cable cooker... to burn in the cables... Cable Burn-in All cables will require a break in period, depending on the materials used this can take upwards of 400 hours with some types of cable. The conditioning process can be at best inconvenient if being done using your audio system. Some applications such as speaker cables and phono cables can be very difficult to properly condition with normal use in an audio system due to the signal levels required to completely burn in these types of cables. For instance, very few people play their system loud enough to properly condition speaker cables, and phono cables will never completely burn in with the small signal from a phono cartridge. The CABLE COOKER produces a signal approximately 2000 times higher than the average MC cartridge! We use the audiodharma CABLE COOKER versions 3.0 and 2.0 Pro for all our cable and outlet conditioning. The CABLE COOKER will expose the cables to continuous signal levels they will not experience during normal use in an audio system. This improves the sound quality of all forms of interconnects, speaker cabling, and power cabling beyond any normal break-in cycle. The CABLE COOKER 3.0 uses a swept square wave which starts at 0 DC and is calibrated at just over 40KHz. This frequency sweep improves on every sonic parameter, translating into more transparency and dimensionality, a deeper/wider soundstage, and deeper/tighter bass information. We use the CABLE COOKER 3.0 for all our interconnect, powercord and speaker cable burn-in. Read more: www.takefiveaudio.com/mall/shopcontent.asp?type=burnin#ixzz2vdSoPhWn |
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Post by frenchyfranky on Mar 11, 2014 2:35:45 GMT -5
Wow, are they manufacturing laser lens cooker too? And optical cable cooker too? I'm very interested...   |
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Post by frenchyfranky on Mar 11, 2014 2:41:12 GMT -5
Here is a real BBQ audio cooker...  |
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Post by redog on Mar 11, 2014 6:23:41 GMT -5
Ok cable cookers, explain to me in a factual way what is happening to your cable during burn in.
Does the signal travel faster after burn in? If so why?
Does the signal carry more information after burn in? If so why?
Is there some type of physical or chemical reaction taking place? If so why?
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hemster
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Particle Manufacturer
...still listening... still watching
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Post by hemster on Mar 11, 2014 6:40:26 GMT -5
Ok cable cookers, explain to me in a factual way what is happening to your cable during burn in. Does the signal travel faster after burn in? If so why? Does the signal carry more information after burn in? If so why? Is there some type of physical or chemical reaction taking place? If so why? Maybe the electrons flow faster because previous ones have paved the way...  Also, don't forget the metaphysical reactions!  Hmm. I wonder if the cable smells toasty, after burn-in. Barbeque smell perhaps? Can one burn-in too much and char the cable?  |
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Post by flamingeye on Mar 11, 2014 7:14:16 GMT -5
speakers do burn in but it only takes maybe 20 minutes to worm up , but most speakers have been burned in at the factory and the rest is your ears adjusting to the new sound
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Post by redog on Mar 11, 2014 8:10:53 GMT -5
I finally got the power cable broken in on my laptop. Let me tell you, the processor runs so much faster now! Even my internal hd graphics are better, almost as fast a a stand alone card! I still have some breaking in to do on the ssd, but I'm guessing after another thousand hours burn in time the ssd will be screaming.
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Post by pop on Mar 11, 2014 8:42:15 GMT -5
On a side note, where is the review of those Goldenears? |
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KeithL
Administrator
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Post by KeithL on Mar 11, 2014 8:53:44 GMT -5
Yeah, they wear little ruts in the wire - and smooth over the sharp edges between the atoms.... a...yup... Metal does not change significantly with use (in the electronic sense)... which rules out interconnects and speaker cables. That goes double (or more) for power cables because: 1) They don't burn in anyway. 2) The job of a power supply is to turn whatever comes in via the power cord into clean power to run the device; so, even if the power cord made a difference, a properly working power supply will remove that difference. Speakers; definitely yes - especially woofers (ditto for headphones). I've never heard a solid state component burn in, but some people insist that they have, and electrolytic capacitors do change over time - so that's at least possible. Tubes definitely change over time. HOWEVER, human beings are also subject to burn-in.  After you listen to any component for a while, it starts to sound "normal" - because your brain gets used to what it sounds like. If it's really bad, it starts to annoy greatly; although you'd be amazed what you'll get used to if you DON'T get exposed to other stuff to contrast it to. If it's not too bad, your brain pretty quickly "recalibrates" itself so that what it's used to hearing sounds "normal". (We have evolved to be very sensitive to differences in things; and establishing a "norm" lets us do this.) So, yes, this means that you start not noticing minor flaws after a few hours - or days - and so your PERCEPTION is that those flaws have been reduced or eliminated. Of course, the only way to prove this would be to set up a group of people who are quite convinced that they have stuff that's "burned in", then swap SOME of it for brand new versions of the same thing and see how many guess correctly which components have been swapped. (In fact, a "full blind" test, where they aren't even aware when the swaps will take place, would be the best.) Ok cable cookers, explain to me in a factual way what is happening to your cable during burn in. Does the signal travel faster after burn in? If so why? Does the signal carry more information after burn in? If so why? Is there some type of physical or chemical reaction taking place? If so why? Maybe the electrons flow faster because previous ones have paved the way... Also, don't forget the metaphysical reactions! Hmm. I wonder if the cable smells toasty, after burn-in. Barbeque smell perhaps? Can one burn-in too much and char the cable? |
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After you listen to any component for a while, it starts to sound "normal" - because your brain gets used to what it sounds like.