How much of burn-in/ break-in (in hours) is objective vs. getting used to sound?

caesar said:

I could never understand the subject of break in or burn in. I have experienced break in with speakers, but there was actual, physical motion of drivers involved. And it took under 200 hours.

Does break in actually happen and how long does it take with:

- electrolytic capacitors in amps?

- turntables?

- DACs?

- Transports?

- Cables? this should be among the easiest things to verify

Or do we just get acclimated to a new and different sonic signature over several hundred hours?

Do brands that market themselves from an "engineering" positioning, such as Sanders amps, Spectral, etc., believe in break-in?

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amirm said:

Hi Bob. Without knowing it, you are actually arguing my response that you quoted. That there was no way, no how the customer had such a horrible experience when he first turned that DAC on. That is why I put zero, let me repeat, zero weight on that word. With some rare exceptions, today's DAC *devices* are built on DAC *integrated circuits* that are so good that you really can't screw them up that way. And their spec sheet mentions no word whatsoever about the need for burn-in.

You are actually misunderstanding as usual. The word is more than likely a bit of an exaggeration to display how th DAC improved after break-in. Common sense, poetic license. All you can do is read spec sheets, we are talking real world, there is a difference.

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I don't know who John hired to design that DAC, or who is manufacturing them. But I am confident even in the worst case, they would not put out a product with such aberrant performance when first turned on. Since the customer said after just one hour performance improved, we know it was not broken which would be the only explanation for such poor performance as he reported and John kindly provided word for word.

As usual another insult. You display obvious disdain for people who are accomplished at their craft. Hmmm wonder why...

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You ask for common sense explanation but you can't use such here without understanding how DACs are designed and how "impossible" it is to get them to convert digital samples to analog with such performance when first turned on at customer site. One needs to use engineering common sense and everything there would point to impossibility of the device being so non-performant, however you want to interpret the wording.

This is your amateur engineering perspective, if I am not mistaken you have never professionally designed a piece of audio (or any hardware) have you?

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And I trust you that you have as have others. No disagreement on that. The issue is working backward, without technical knowledge and that of psychoacoustics, and coming up with a technical explanation of cause and effect. Study of the former would say what I explained above. Study of the latter would tell you the elasticity of our hearing system. We don't hear the same over time. You can listen to a piece of music 100 times and at episode 101 hear a note you did not. That note was always there. Your brain simply did not focus on it to hear it. This should make common sense to you.

Because you cannot fully understand the reality you create an explanation which makes you feel better, cool. Does not make it correct in all instances though.

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You are pleading with me to understand your universe as you know it. How about doing the reverse a bit and try to understand the universe on the other side? That there are readily explainable causes for differences we hear that are not attributable to causes we attach them to. So to the extent you hope for me to bend your way, I hope you are not so obstinate as to refuse to do the same in reverse.

Not pleading lol... Have a very clear perspective of both sides and how REAL engineering differs greatly amateur book driven engineering.

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amirm said:

Hi Bob. Without knowing it, you are actually arguing my response that you quoted. That there was no way, no how the customer had such a horrible experience when he first turned that DAC on. That is why I put zero, let me repeat, zero weight on that word. With some rare exceptions, today's DAC *devices* are built on DAC *integrated circuits* that are so good that you really can't screw them up that way. And their spec sheet mentions no word whatsoever about the need for burn-in.

I don't know who John hired to design that DAC, or who is manufacturing them. But I am confident even in the worst case, they would not put out a product with such aberrant performance when first turned on. Since the customer said after just one hour performance improved, we know it was not broken which would be the only explanation for such poor performance as he reported and John kindly provided word for word.

You ask for common sense explanation but you can't use such here without understanding how DACs are designed and how "impossible" it is to get them to convert digital samples to analog with such performance when first turned on at customer site. One needs to use engineering common sense and everything there would point to impossibility of the device being so non-performant, however you want to interpret the wording.


And I trust you that you have as have others. No disagreement on that. The issue is working backward, without technical knowledge and that of psychoacoustics, and coming up with a technical explanation of cause and effect. Study of the former would say what I explained above. Study of the latter would tell you the elasticity of our hearing system. We don't hear the same over time. You can listen to a piece of music 100 times and at episode 101 hear a note you did not. That note was always there. Your brain simply did not focus on it to hear it. This should make common sense to you.

You are pleading with me to understand your universe as you know it. How about doing the reverse a bit and try to understand the universe on the other side? That there are readily explainable causes for differences we hear that are not attributable to causes we attach them to. So to the extent you hope for me to bend your way, I hope you are not so obstinate as to refuse to do the same in reverse.

I will address your last point in the next post. Thanks for chiming in.

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amirm said:

I don't know Mike Moffat personally so I take your word for it that he knows more than me. What I won't take though the assessment that we should to what he says because I happen to have first hand experience with one of his products. My son bought one of their $400 DACs and unfortunately it lived up to the derogatory version of their company name when it came to both subjective and objective performance. My son reported that he could hear the activities of his computer through the DAC when he was playing games! Let me repeat: despite spending $400 on a stand-alone DAC, the noise from his PC was readily travelling through this DAC.

I put the unit on the bench to measure it. At first one channel cut out. I traced that to the fancy cables they had sold him. The center pin had come apart in the RCA connector due to poor soldering and lack of any kind of strain relief. Replaced that and measured the device and this horrific result showed up:

Anything other than center line is spurious distortion/noise. You can see a spike on the left and right rising up to -50 db. Cassette decks have noise floor below 60 db. Yet we have a digital device producing such awful performance. Mind you even with this kind of problem it did not sound screetchy.

Anyway, their other products may be better and he may be a genius designer. But he sure as heck is not going to get my business or get me to be impressed with anything he might say on this topic. Find some other authority to appeal to as this one will not work on me. I am however ready at any point to test his ability to hear DAC burn-in.

Again, thank you for your comments.

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BobShermanEsq said:

Does this have anything to do with burn-in? I think we all are aware of your flawed useless measurements.

Sorry to hear your son has a defective computer. I hope he can find someone who is able to fix it.

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amirm said:

Sharing experience is cool. But then you went 10 steps past that with Dave, demanding that yours is more correct than his.


Suspect? You can be more sure than that.


That would come with a different tone than you used above. I have read countless forum arguments on burn-in. None have gone as far as yours in specifying hours and minutes for such processes. You are way, way out there with your views. You have to dial back your process that made your arrived at these conclusions way, way back before there is any reasonable meeting of minds.

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