Physical explanation of amp's break in?


Recently purchased Moon i-5, manual mention 6-week break in period, when bass will first get weaker, and after 2-3 weeks start to normalize. Just curious, is there ANY component in the amp's circuitry that known to cause such a behaviour?

I can't fully accept psycho-acoustical explanation for break-in: many people have more then one system, so while one of them is in a "break-in" process, the second doesn't change, and can serve as a reference. Thus, one's perception cannot adapt (i.e. change!) to the new system while remain unchanged to the old one. In other words, if your psycho-acoustical model adapts to the breaking-in new component in the system A, you should notice some change in sound of your reference system B. If 'B' still sounds the same, 'A' indeed changed...
dmitrydr

Showing 1 response by aball

I guess it is clear that there is no need for another EE like me to comment on this, however I am about to. The thread has drifted to where it is hard to tell what the latest consensus is but if it matters at all, I think we tend to over-analyze burn-in a lot. I have done lots of research in system reliability (for aircraft systems mostly - they get picky about this sort of thing) and capacitors are by far the biggest problem and change the most. However, I hate to say it but the design uses a given value and not every component is matched when installed in your amp (and it drifts anyway), thereby making burn-in moot for amps and preamps. However, speakers are a different story...but that is for another thread.

As a final note, we don't actually understand everything in the universe, do we?? Some of you sound like you do. Each year I spend in EE courses (I am now at year 8), I realize how little we actually understand well - and that is the part that shouldn't be forgotten. Everything changes, nothing stays put. Arthur