Well, to burn in gear w/o buying aftermarket gadgets as listed above, with cables it is my understanding you need signal / current at least going through that cable, obviously. If you are burning in an interconnect on your CD player, you need to have the CD player running, obviously, but I do not believe you need the preamp on and I see no reason to need the amp on. I think you get the picture. For electronics, you need signal going through the piece you want burned in. EX. If a CD player, run the CD player; if a preamp, run a source to the preamp and have the preamp on; an amp would need all three on. Again, you get the picture. A side note, on an amp, does the volume level matter??? That I don't know.
Brian
Brian