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Burn in vs perception

Posting here in speakers, but could probably go in any of the forums. Question of the night: how much of burn in of components is actually burn in of our perception? That is, is burn in partly us becoming accustomed to a change in sound.
 

I’m listening to my SF Amati Traditions that at first I found a bit strident, but I now find lush, dynamic, and generally brilliant. I bought them as 1-year old demos so theoretically they should have been played enough to be broken in. I haven’t changed anything in my system—I have been working on my room with more stuff, but that’s it.

Sometimes reviewers or arm chair audiophiles (me) will state that said component needs to be plugged in and left alone for weeks until it gels with the system. Could this simply be our own perception burn in OR is something real happening here?

For speakers I can buy it (woofers need to loosen up and all), but I almost always buy used, and I almost alway a) find a difference of a new component (good or bad), and b) in time, I couldn’t tell you what the change was. Maybe just me, but our brains are pretty good level setters.

I willing to bet this can be a large part of “burn in”.

 

 

w123ale

Showing 3 responses by erik_squires

erik_squires
15,843 posts
 

Hi @jdougs  They were based on stock ICEpower 250 ASP units.  I didn't have to play music, just leave them powered on for a couple of days.

erik_squires
15,843 posts
 

Oh, almost forgot.  This one has happened to me and a few other poeple.  Using ICEpower amplifiers (Class D) I came back after being gone for a weekend.  I had turned off the rack (fear of surges).  When I first got back I could not understand why my system sounded so bad.

I finally realized, 2 days later, it was that I had turned the amps off.  For some reason those Class D amps, and maybe others, really don't sound very good until you leave them on for 2 days.  They don't have to play anything, you don't have to listen to break in your ears. Just leave them on and they will sound better.

My Luxman however has no such issues. 

erik_squires
15,843 posts
 

I don't want to make a lot out of burn-in, but I'll tell you my story.  When I started getting into speaker mods I upgraded the tweeter and midrange caps in a pair of Focal speakers.  For about 2 days I was having weird surround effects.  Sounds would appear to come from under and to the right of my chair.

They stopped with nothing in my room changing at all.

Based on that, I feel there was definitely something going on related to head related transfer function math.  That is, there was some odd comb filtering going on that caused me to perceive the sounds in the wrong place which eventually went away.

It also tells me that if we are measuring for these effects, the standard cap measurements in the basic AC tutorial won't be adequate.

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