Vinyl Warm Up Time

@joeycastillo stated " Anything on the chain can be doing except you pre and power as you mentioned that Streaming is not affected, leaving it happening on the analog side. "

Under the guise assessments made within this thread are based on End Sound being subjectively assessed.

None of the devices referred to in the quote are producing Sound, they are managing an electrical current, either as part of producing the signal to be sent, or Amplifying / Adding Gain to the sent Signal.

The Signal only becomes sound after having left the Xover in a Speaker, where at such a place electrical energy is converted in to Kinetic Energy, that is to move a device that moves air, hence, Electrical Energy from the Source is transferred to sound and Sound Energy is migrating into local structures.

There can also be the suggestion Migrating Amplitude, can effect the local structures where certain materials being effected react in a way that is bettering the End Sound being heard to the environment. Improved Absorption or a less harsh reflection could be the effect on a material being exposed to energy from sound.     

A Driver that is creating the movement of air, is made up of a variety of materials that have a mechanical function and also are assembled in a way that interfaces between the materials that are used.

In the same way the Cartridge requires the effects of Kinetic Energy to warm it and enable the selected materials to become optimised in their function. The Speakers Drive Units are requiring very very similar from the Kinetic Energy being produced.

Nearly all users of all speaker designs will inform on a Period of usage being required before the Speakers reach their Sweet Spot.

As for Amp's try explaining to a Amp user where Valves are in the Circuit that a period is not required until the Sweet Spot is the manifest.

I am to start using SS again in my system, I can easily add a SS Device when all other items are discernible for their having reached an optimised function. It will not be long before I learn if a SS Device benefits the End Sound being produced from a period of being in use.

I would not myself encourage anybody with a Very Expensive Cart' and having heavily invested in getting the Set Up for the Cart' dialled in to near perfection, to remove the Cart' and bring in a much lesser model to see if their Cart' is faulty unless it is exposed to a period of Kinetic Energy effecting the critical mechanical interfaces.  

I can see tube's Amp warm up time...but SS...I never thought about it.

The Technics SL10 and SL7 warms up the record and stylus..

To me that makes the music sound smoother. 

Solid state devices have an ideal operating temperature, just like tubes. Even if you leave your SS phono stage or preamplifier in "stand by" mode when it is not in use, the audio circuitry still has to warm up a bit after operating DC voltages are applied. In my main system, I alternate between an SS and a tube preamplifier.  Warm up of the SS device,before optimal performance is achieved, is as obvious as it is with the tube device, even though the former is always in standby. It's not just transistors and tubes; it's also capacitors, resistors, diodes, etc, that benefit from a bit of warmup.

I can’t speak about the Ikeda cartridge (mentioned by @slaw as being similar to Londons and Decca in not having a mechanical damping material), but Londons and Deccas have a tie-back cord (running from just above the stylus back to the pickup body), the cord material being non-heat transferring in nature (it is some sort of thread I believe). Of course they both have normal styluses, and in place of a cantilever a wide L-shaped metal blade to which the stylus is attached. The blade is not run at an angle, but rather straight up to the cartridge’s magnets and coils. But while "normal" cartridges commonly have some form of rubber damper located where the cantilever is attached to the cartridge body, the Londons and Deccas do not. So while their styluses and cantilever blades may experience the same "heating" as do normal designs, because of being rubber damper-free there is one less cause of change in the cartridges sound as it plays longer.

My favorite hi-fi retailer, Brooks Berdan (widely acknowledged as a turntable set-up expert) "ran in" every cartridge he sold, putting (I believe) about 20 hours of playing time on it before releasing the table to it's owner. After those 20 hours, he realigned the cartridge, to compensate for any changes in the cart's suspension. Everyone knows a cart's suspension "relaxes" after a certain amount of playing time, just as does the suspension of loudspeaker drivers. 20 hours may not completely relax the suspension, which may take up to 100 hours. Deccas and Londons neither need nor benefit from run-in; they have no suspension, which puts greater demands on the tonearm (arm tube stiffness, bearing quality).  

The above admittedly comes from one unschooled in the related sciences, so may be ignored. But I wonder how much heat is being produced (see below), and how quickly that heat is dissipated in the heat-conducting materials of the cartridge (stylus, cantilever). 

What this topic brings to mind is the degree to which the stylus riding in the LP groove may be heating up the vinyl. Walter Davies of The Last Factory (makers of Last Record Preservative) claimed that the heat created by that stylus/groove contact is the cause of record wear, the heat causing tiny chips of the vinyl to be dislodged from the groove wall. I personally am more concerned with my LPs than I am with cartridge warm-up time. But that’s just me.