Burn In = Voodoo?

I have often pondered along the same lines as you have. Possibly we both have a cynical bent of mind. So what....however, I have found that phono-cartriges for example after hours of playing, slowly begin to change, generally for the better, in the sense of better tonal cohesion and balance, better soundstage, less harsh highs, better defined bass. The same goes for all sorts of cables, some break in faster, some take a hell of a long time. If you are regular listener, its hard to really notice, especially if you have REALLY made a sonic upgrade from your old stuff, because the process does not go in leaps and bounds, but seems sort of continuous except at the end, when the stuff really begins to bloom. If you have a listening partner however, who only will lend you his ears occasionally, he ( with me mostly she ) will ask you, what you have done to your system, which seems so much more "musical". So I don't think its snake oil really, but something which can be objectified by experience. The change in interconnects, but also with speaker cables can generally be percieved from dry and laid back and dynamically understating to open and blooming and approach more closely what we describe as musically alive and natural and dynamically fluid. I realise , these are poor descriptive terms, language fails me here, but if you are regular concert goer, i.e. an audiophile masochist, you will find after a while, at least if you were lucky in your choice, that with the "new" stuff, the gap between the real thing and the sound your gear produces has been reduced more than you had been led to perceive at the beginning , when it was still brand new. About SACD players, I cannot say.

Magasam, I agree with you about the psychological effect of being infatuated with a component as time goes by, but only if it is a true improvement to the one we had before in its place. If its not "better", we tend to hate it, don't we, ever more deeply as time goes on until we get rid of it. Its sort of like adolescent love affairs. No wonder the other gender keeps telling us, that we never grow up. Thank the Audiogods, we don't!!

Jostler, good point, had to grin when I wrote my thread, thinking, that finally it would prove nothing, because it might only prove my own suggestibility. About phonewires though, aren't phone signals very narrow band? Well whatever, your point is good, will have to think up another experiment. (:

Jostler, would you mind doing an experiment:
Step one: Listen to your system with music, you know well.
Step two: Without detaching your wires from you gear, i.e. ic's, speaker- and power cables, lift them up, shake them vigorously, place them differently to where they were before. The greater the difference the better.
Step three: Immediatedly after that, listen to the same piece of music as before.
Step four: Tell us about what you perceived.

I agree, it has nothing to do with burning in new gear, rather with your contention, as I perceive it, that nothing happens to the wire, once it is hooked on. I don't mean to be imposing in any way, I'm just suggesting you do, what I once was told myself, because I was of the same opinion as you are now. Man, was I flabberghasted by the result.

Sean, I like your post, simply because I can underwrite every point you make. Incidentally, I also have this nifty German machine, which indeed DOES nake a difference.(Careful though, because Jostler rightly pointed out my autosuggestibility (; Would not miss it anymore, inspite of all the messy plastic threads having to be gotten rid of. If anybody is interested in the US outlet for this thing, mail me.

Jim, Megasm gave you the infos I also would have, had he not come first. Its definitely worth a try. The Cable Company is very serious business. Robert Stein is very helpful. I've been dealing with them for over ten years now and never got bad advice. I would do as Sean suggests and send in a duplicate cd to be processed. Pianos, Sopranos I find especially good for testing, also smallish Jazz combos with good soundstaging on the disk.