Have you ever walked into someone's house and it just plain stunk? If you could bear the first few minutes, you gradually begin to get used to it and after a while you don't even notice what was almost making you puke?
Have you ever slowly
got into a hot bath on a cold day, and after a few minutes (assuming the water temperature stays the same) the water that felt boiling hot now feels just right?
Have you ever gone from natural light into 100% artificial light and for a while everything looks a shade of yellow but after a while the colours look right again, and when you go back out into the daylight all the colours look wrong for a while?
Have you ever drank a glass of wine and it tasted not that good, but you persisted with it and after a few bottles it tasted quite good? (This is so common it is referred to as an "acquired taste").
Have you ever been in a situation where there was some talking or noise that was distracting you, and without out even thinking about it you tuned out. When the noise suddenly stops this is when you realise it was still there.
Have you ever ever (with the exception of loudspeakers) attached something new to your listening setup, and it tok some time to perceive the difference? Or it took some time to get used to the difference?
Well, that's all five senses. How is hearing so utterly reliable compared to the rest? I say that what other people refer to as the burn-in period of their magic power cord or flux capacitor or whatever is simply their ear making some kind of adjustment. How it finally settles down to something it is happy with though, I don't know.
Have you ever slowly
got into a hot bath on a cold day, and after a few minutes (assuming the water temperature stays the same) the water that felt boiling hot now feels just right?Have you ever gone from natural light into 100% artificial light and for a while everything looks a shade of yellow but after a while the colours look right again, and when you go back out into the daylight all the colours look wrong for a while?
Have you ever drank a glass of wine and it tasted not that good, but you persisted with it and after a few bottles it tasted quite good? (This is so common it is referred to as an "acquired taste").
Have you ever been in a situation where there was some talking or noise that was distracting you, and without out even thinking about it you tuned out. When the noise suddenly stops this is when you realise it was still there.
Have you ever ever (with the exception of loudspeakers) attached something new to your listening setup, and it tok some time to perceive the difference? Or it took some time to get used to the difference?
Well, that's all five senses. How is hearing so utterly reliable compared to the rest? I say that what other people refer to as the burn-in period of their magic power cord or flux capacitor or whatever is simply their ear making some kind of adjustment. How it finally settles down to something it is happy with though, I don't know.
Well said. And can´t be said often enough.
IMO an "audiophile" should never deny this or he is beyond reality.
I always liked the comment from Nelson Pass himself (as THE subjectivist?) when he jumped in some subjectivist thread and said that it´s maybe just a burn-in of our ears. Can´t seem to find that one for now.
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=33304&highlight=
IMO an "audiophile" should never deny this or he is beyond reality.
Well, I think that can have other reasons as well.
I always liked the comment from Nelson Pass himself (as THE subjectivist?) when he jumped in some subjectivist thread and said that it´s maybe just a burn-in of our ears. Can´t seem to find that one for now.
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=33304&highlight=
Yup, works in reverse too (i.e. the novelty wears off), particularly after building an amp. My stereo 6V6 SE amp worked pretty good at the time but I'd much rather have these amps.
One very, very easily observed sign of adjustment is frequency response. Change the bass or tone on your amp, if it has such a control. Listen for a while. Maybe a few days. After a while you won't notice it (although because you'd have this statement in mind, you'd be testing yourself and you'll always know it's been changed).
Tim
One very, very easily observed sign of adjustment is frequency response. Change the bass or tone on your amp, if it has such a control. Listen for a while. Maybe a few days. After a while you won't notice it (although because you'd have this statement in mind, you'd be testing yourself and you'll always know it's been changed).
Tim
Sch3mat1c said:
Yes.
Back when I was a teenager and wasn't even aware there were people called "audiophiles" out there and wasn't aware of any equipment other than that offered by the mass market, I'd been in the habit since I was even much younger of listening to the stereo with the bass and treble controls cranked all the way up.
Then I encountered my first "audiophile" who advised keeping the tone controls out of the circuit.
I did as he suggested and it immediately sounded absolutely awful! Like someone had put mattresses over my speakers. Yecccch!
Instead of just cranking the bass and treble controls back up though, I kept them where they were, perhaps because I felt a bit of peer pressure and wanted to be like my "audiophile" friend, even though I thought it sounded like crap.
But over time, it began to sound better and better. Instead of sounding muffled and indistinct, it started sounding more natural, and I began to hear details in the music that I'd never heard before.
Eventually I came to like it very much and when I went and cranked the bass and treble controls back up like before, I thought my ears were going to start bleeding.
The brain is quite an interesting thing. It's great at pattern recognition, and particularly keen to changes in patterns. But when a new pattern emerges, the brain seems to behave differently to it initially than after the pattern has been repeated over time.
It still amazes me how many audiophiles go on and on about how great our ears are, but remain in seemingly complete denial of the fact that those marvelous ears of ours are plugged into that brain of ours and that all that we perceive is ultimately what goes on in that brain.
I also find it curious that break-in is such a recent phenomenon. Some claim night and day differences due to break-in, yet no one to speak of seems to have noticed it 20 years ago. This is sometimes explained by the much higher resolution gear we have today. Yet break-in is ubiquitous whether new gear, old gear, vintage gear, leading edge, bleeding edge, hi-fi, mid-fi, low-fi, etc.
se
I totally agree with what was mentioned in the first post. I realized that too a while back. Consequently this is what I do when I want to find out the strong points and weak points of a new piece of audio equipment at home. For me, this will always be for speakers.
1) I will not listen to any serious music for two weeks, one week minimum. What I mean by serious? To me, it means listening at pretty loud level.
2) Then I pick my favourite music for listening/testing. Favourite to me means the music needs to have good bass. Example piano bass, kick drum bass, upright double bass or overall very involving music.
3) And finally after going without music for two weeks, I'll listen to the music that I described above.
4) I will listen to it for about 2 to 3 minutes. Then shut off the music.
5) Within these 3 minutes, you'll be able to determine the strong and weak points of the speakers and I'll write down what I heard. Per first post of this thread, after a while, one would "get used to it" and one can't make any meaningfull judgements.
6) After I have determined the weakness, I'll spend, say, the next 12 months tweaking (moving) the speakers to try to "improve" the sound.
Yes, it's a painfull process to go without music for days or weeks ...
1) I will not listen to any serious music for two weeks, one week minimum. What I mean by serious? To me, it means listening at pretty loud level.
2) Then I pick my favourite music for listening/testing. Favourite to me means the music needs to have good bass. Example piano bass, kick drum bass, upright double bass or overall very involving music.
3) And finally after going without music for two weeks, I'll listen to the music that I described above.
4) I will listen to it for about 2 to 3 minutes. Then shut off the music.
5) Within these 3 minutes, you'll be able to determine the strong and weak points of the speakers and I'll write down what I heard. Per first post of this thread, after a while, one would "get used to it" and one can't make any meaningfull judgements.
6) After I have determined the weakness, I'll spend, say, the next 12 months tweaking (moving) the speakers to try to "improve" the sound.
Yes, it's a painfull process to go without music for days or weeks ...
In my experence new equipment does "burn in", but over a period of minutes to maybe a couple of hours. Then we adjust the bias or DC offset or what ever. After that any changes that take place come in these two different cases, both of which can be measured.
1. Normal drift during warm up from cold to normal operating temp.
2. Long term drift due to component aging.
I think any thing else is most likely caused by burn in between the ears of the listener as stated above. I count myself in here because I know it happens.
Later BZ
1. Normal drift during warm up from cold to normal operating temp.
2. Long term drift due to component aging.
I think any thing else is most likely caused by burn in between the ears of the listener as stated above. I count myself in here because I know it happens.
Later BZ
I'm not one to believe in audio voodoo BS, but speakers do need a little time for the suspensions to loosen up and my Alephs did (visible on the scope) change in the first 2 hours. ( I don't recall exactly what the change was. I think a ring in 1K square wave dissapeared. You can search for the thread about my amps about 10 months ago if you're interested) (A bit more difficult with this 10 post crap) Maybe the caps were forming or something.
But the picture in the fridge thing helps high frequecy definition...NOT
But the picture in the fridge thing helps high frequecy definition...NOT
I agree with the orginal post.
Oh, SURE let me send you my $100 and calbles so you can hook them up to a tone gererator for 3 days.
Sorry for the scarcasm.
Hey what ever floats your boat I say go for it.
But as for me I think as long as you should spend a little money on nice cables, but come on.
and one quick question shouldn't amps be burned in? if for no other reasons than safety?
Oh, SURE let me send you my $100 and calbles so you can hook them up to a tone gererator for 3 days.
Sorry for the scarcasm.
Hey what ever floats your boat I say go for it.
But as for me I think as long as you should spend a little money on nice cables, but come on.
and one quick question shouldn't amps be burned in? if for no other reasons than safety?
what's all this about hey??? personally i'm a believer in burn in... you see, after leaving my cables to burn in for a few days, the sound improved greatly... not only did my listening experience improve, i pulled out my meter, and measured lower capacitance, inductance and resistance in the cables i burned in. i believe the burn in process altered the atomic structure of the materials in the conductor, greatly improving transconductance... ???
Yeah, anyway, i put the transconductance thing in there on purpose, so before people start sending a whole lot of posts telling me what an idiot i am, now you know...... and the cable burn in thing... what a load of crap (both what i said and what this company claims). Normally i would say don't judge it untill you've heard it yourself, but i think the fact they are offering to burn in used cables is showing how ridiculous this idea is.... would't surprise me if they said "send us your thirty year old cables with rusty, bent RCA jacks, and we'll burn them in and bring them to life."
thanks for the entertainment Magura.
anyway... maybe the burn in thing is also something that in some cases is purely psychological, and not just 'aquired.'
it's like in medical trials they must give some of their crash test dummies the real thing, and give some a placebo. This helps in trying to eliminate the one's who the new treatment really did work for, and those who simply had a purely psychological healing.
maybe burn in gives people a placebo effect, making their brains trick them into thinking their sound is better.... if they hear a better sound imediatly after getting burnt in cables sent back to them, this is definatly not aquired... and you know what, i wouldn't mind paying $30 to burn in a couple of cables if it makes me percive the sound as being better, even if it's not.... people pay much more money to a psychiatrist to make them believe/not believe something, so why not give the same idea a go for much less cash??? i mean, for most of us here on this thread so far, including myself, we are all skeptical about this cable burn in, and therefore wouldn't get any psychological benifit, so maybe it's a waste of money here... but for the average easily misled consumer, if what they are now hearing is better than what it was, then that was money well spent.
keep it real
Yeah, anyway, i put the transconductance thing in there on purpose, so before people start sending a whole lot of posts telling me what an idiot i am, now you know...... and the cable burn in thing... what a load of crap (both what i said and what this company claims). Normally i would say don't judge it untill you've heard it yourself, but i think the fact they are offering to burn in used cables is showing how ridiculous this idea is.... would't surprise me if they said "send us your thirty year old cables with rusty, bent RCA jacks, and we'll burn them in and bring them to life."
thanks for the entertainment Magura.
anyway... maybe the burn in thing is also something that in some cases is purely psychological, and not just 'aquired.'
it's like in medical trials they must give some of their crash test dummies the real thing, and give some a placebo. This helps in trying to eliminate the one's who the new treatment really did work for, and those who simply had a purely psychological healing.
maybe burn in gives people a placebo effect, making their brains trick them into thinking their sound is better.... if they hear a better sound imediatly after getting burnt in cables sent back to them, this is definatly not aquired... and you know what, i wouldn't mind paying $30 to burn in a couple of cables if it makes me percive the sound as being better, even if it's not.... people pay much more money to a psychiatrist to make them believe/not believe something, so why not give the same idea a go for much less cash??? i mean, for most of us here on this thread so far, including myself, we are all skeptical about this cable burn in, and therefore wouldn't get any psychological benifit, so maybe it's a waste of money here... but for the average easily misled consumer, if what they are now hearing is better than what it was, then that was money well spent.
keep it real
benny said:
Keep it real...???
As far as I understand, we might need to wait until the electrical (not mechanical) system reaches to its heat equilibrium. Then, we are ready.
Honestly, I do not know here what the meaning of the burn-in is.
Since we can’t see the electrons inside cables and can’t see how they work there, we could feel free to make our imagination. Sometimes, their imagination is sweet, very sweet to attract their customers who like to roll the money to smoke.
HaHa. You reminded me of something, SY...
Remember when we were kid, we used to enjoy listening music from
radio pocket? When we grew older, then prestige became more
important. We were so proud then telling friends that we owned a Sansui.
Don't you think that at the end we all just get used to the sound
of expensive stuffs?
Now that it has been explained, and that prestige is not that important
anymore to most of us grown menD) how long do you think it takes to
restore our brain so that our ears will get used to the sound of a
pocket radios again?
Remember when we were kid, we used to enjoy listening music from
radio pocket? When we grew older, then prestige became more
important. We were so proud then telling friends that we owned a Sansui.
Don't you think that at the end we all just get used to the sound
of expensive stuffs?
Now that it has been explained, and that prestige is not that important
anymore to most of us grown men
D) how long do you think it takes torestore our brain so that our ears will get used to the sound of a
pocket radios again?
Oh, so it was you Circlotron!
Now I know why it didn't sound like SY
Anyway, and honestly, IMO this issue is the most advanced topic in audio. I believe that I have played with audio stuffs much longer than most of us here. You may think that I was born on top of a PCB, and since then doing a lot of stupid things. Lots of hours had been spent on this stupid hobby.
I'm really not a stupid person (if we talked about IQ), but what has been the result of those hours working with audio stuffs???
You must have been noticed that I know almost nothing about electronic theories!
Now I know why it didn't sound like SY
Anyway, and honestly, IMO this issue is the most advanced topic in audio. I believe that I have played with audio stuffs much longer than most of us here. You may think that I was born on top of a PCB, and since then doing a lot of stupid things. Lots of hours had been spent on this stupid hobby.
I'm really not a stupid person (if we talked about IQ), but what has been the result of those hours working with audio stuffs???
You must have been noticed that I know almost nothing about electronic theories!
Thanks for the link Magura, very entertaining.
Does anyone have any idea why they charge more for longer cables ?
It's not weight, because shipping is an additional charge (based on weight), and is not burn-in time (which is 72 hrs).
From the Nordost site, describing the CBID-1:
"These phenomena are also addressed by the complex circuits of the "toaster". In addition, the pulsing process is programmed to release gases trapped in dielectric materials during the manufacturing process"
Now, shouldn't they say something like "do it in a well ventilated area" ?
I mean with all those gases being released and all....
J.Guilherme
Does anyone have any idea why they charge more for longer cables ?
It's not weight, because shipping is an additional charge (based on weight), and is not burn-in time (which is 72 hrs).
From the Nordost site, describing the CBID-1:
"These phenomena are also addressed by the complex circuits of the "toaster". In addition, the pulsing process is programmed to release gases trapped in dielectric materials during the manufacturing process"
Now, shouldn't they say something like "do it in a well ventilated area" ?
I mean with all those gases being released and all....
J.Guilherme
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