Are You A Disciplined Audiophile?

Disciplined? There are very few components that actually change for the better with age. "Break In" in an illusion of weak minded audiophiles who can not get it through their heads that human sensory systems accommodate to stimuli. Equipment does not change, only the way you hear it changes. Having said that there are a few mechanical devices like cartridges and speakers that might change initially. 

Ask yourself this question. Why does equipment always improve with break-in and not worsen? 

Why is the audiophile world ruled by Mark Levinson's rules, it has to cost more and look cool to sound better?  

Being an audiophile means one should strive to improve the performance of one's system by any means one can afford that is practical. An evolutionary approach is necessary for most of us because finances do not allow otherwise and technology moves on. Besides, I think it is more fun this way. There was a day when you could by excellent equipment in kit form, build it yourself and save big bucks along with learning to use a soldering iron. Why did Heathkit, Eico and Dynakit go extinct? What does that say about us? Fortunately, the DIY speaker crowd is still healthy and with new digital active crossovers one can easily build a better loudspeaker than one could afford otherwise. 

@mahgister is right to question my motives. I am either very arrogant, a troll, or perhaps I'm trying to bring some sanity to this hobby. I expect to piss people off because I do not try to avoid it. If that makes me arrogant to mahgister then so be it. A cable does not sound different or better after 10 hours of use, after 10 years of use or after 10 minutes of use. The same goes for electronics, tonearms and turntables. I have never heard a cartridge break in although I can think of reasons one might. Most loudspeakers do not break in, they only break down, the law of entropy. Planar magnetics and ESLs do break in because the membranes loosen. Ribbons just get worse. So, why do so many people think equipment "breaks in'? Because they perceive an improvement in sound quality. There are a zillion reasons people hear an improvement in their systems, but the main one is because they expect to hear an improvement and they get use to the sound (accomodation) validating their expectations. Many of us are quite aware of the neuropsychiatric aspects of hearing and account for it in our evaluations. Many are not aware of the tricks our brains can play on us. These perceptions seem as real as any, but they are an illusion. The problem for me it that many people create livelihoods taking advantage of this and they know darn well that they are scamming people. It appears that people like being scammed judging by the outrage at my comments. I have seen people in the audio business use the " It has not broken in yet" excuse for an unhappy customer knowing than in a few days or weeks the person will accommodate and whatever it is will sound better. Many audiophiles I know enjoy getting stoned. The music always sounds better when you are stoned, you notice details you gloss over when sober. The system is performing exactly the same , but boy does it sound better when you change your neurochemistry a little. 

I am intrinsically a negative person. I tend to focus on flaws and not positive attributes. You can't fix problems unless you identify them. My system never sounds as good as I know it can. There are always problems to chase. If this hobby were easy it would not be any fun. However. I think we should romanticize over music and not silver tonearm wiring. 

@deep_333 Thank you for the video and a great example of how you can tilt anything to your perspective. His routine for measuring TS parameters is quite valid except for the driver being held in a very loose manner. It should be locked in place on a non resonant surface not sitting on rubber bumpers. He does show you what happens when you put the driver on a very floppy surface. I clamp the drivers in a bench vise. Here is mistake number 1.  He uses two different drivers (of the same type) manufactured at different times with no way of controlling things like poor tolerances of changes in materials. The proper way to run this experiment is to use the same driver, measuring it new and then serially after periods of time. New, after a 1 hour burn in and then a year or two later. Having said that the difference he measures between the drivers is more than one could explain by loose tolerances. Remember what I said. Drivers not not break in, they break down. Subwoofer drivers do not last near as long as other drivers. I keep two spares available as I lose one every two or three years. So, what did he measure, the speaker breaking in or breaking down? Subwoofers will loosen after a short burn in period which is usually done by the manufacturer. After that it is all downhill. By break-in people are usually implying that whatever it is sounds BETTER after a period of time. (Why never worse?) What a particular system sounds like has more to do with the person's mood than the age of their equipment. 

I just lost a driver last week. It is something like 10 years old. The post mortem revealed a delaminated voice coil. Rock and Roll:-) 

@deep_333 I am not arguing at all with the measurements. Most audiophiles when they talk of breaking in what they really mean is "sounds better" The measurements changed so that means the driver now sounds better. If the enclosure was designed around the original TS parameters the driver now functions worse. Subwoofer drivers, if driven correctly, lead a horrific existence. They fail more frequently than any other type of driver. Another problem is "sounds better" is a human interpretation heavily influenced by factors other than reality. IMHO, after burn in, dynamic drivers do nothing but wear out, some more quickly than others. 

Now I have to go get a tree off my driveway:-(