[jackman]

Idle musings...

I love it when people debate/argue audio issues, but I hate it when people jump all over someone because they disagree with the "review" of their "pet" gear. I often laugh because it seems that when a person posts a positive review about a product everyone likes, comparing it to a more expensive commercial unit, no one questions the scientific procedures employed by the tester. They never say things about "break-in" or "warm-up", system "synergy" or question the cables, music or the hearing (or sanity  ) or the tester. They just agree and go about their business, feeling secure in their purchase decision. Manufacturers are equally guilty of this, however, some like to do things that irritate me even more.

This got me thinking...I began pondering several things I have read over the months/years. Several assumptions or claims I have tacitly accepted without questioning were suddenly under the microscope (not a real microscope as I do not own one) and it led me to say "Hmmm". I say "Hmmmm" a lot throughout this observation, although I want it to be publicly known that the expression/word/whatever-you-call-it "Hmmm" was NEVER actually uttered during the course of my observations. I don't ever recall using "Hmm" during an actual conversation in my entire 37 years... [/i]

Do some manufacturers have built-in "excuses", like lack of break-in or warm-up, when their product is outperformed? I recently (okay, about a year ago) came across an article in a stereo mag (not Stereophile, the one with the black and white cover) in which a manufacturer was showing a new line of speakers at an audio event. The reviewer commented that the speakers sounded a bit bright or harsh and the manufacturer said they did not have proper "break-in". It made me think: "how dumb to you have to be to demonstrate a pair of speakers at a show without breaking them in?". Why even hook them up or play them if they are not at their best? Then it ocurred to me, (Aha!) was this in fact the case or was it just a convenient episode of "excuse making"? He could have blamed the AC or the room acoustics but he chose to blame it on lack of "break in". This makes sense because if it was the room or the AC, other manufacturer's products would have had the same issues. Hmm...I wonder

I am familiar with manufacturers who state seemingly outlandish break-in and warm-up requirements for their products, ranging from one month to six months. This makes me wonder, what is breaking in, the equipment or the listener's ears? I believe capacitors need time to burn in and wires seem to settle down after a week or so, but scratch my head when I hear about gear needing exteded time (like several months) to break-in. Do some designs require up to six months to break-in or is it just an opportunity for a convenient excuse when equipment is outperformed? Hmm...I wonder yet again.

I have read posts (I spend way too much time on this stuff) in which people complain about their metal dome tweeters sounding "bright" after 100 hours of constant play or 100's or hours of play, only to be told that their gear needs 500 or 1000's or hours to settle down. In my experience, harsh speakers will sound just as bad after 40 hours as they do after 400 hours. It may be a case of system synergy or room acoustics but it ain't (sorry former English teachers...) break-in. An amplifier that sounds brittle or ear-bleeding harsh at hour 199 is not suddenly going to be transformed into that silky smooth tube-like "dream machine" at hour 200, IMHO.  Could it be that people's ears are just getting used to the sound of their harsh gear? Hmmmmmm.........

Don't laugh, as rediculous as this may sound, the same thing happened to me when I got a small dog. I have always had large dogs but my wife came home with two small dogs from the pound that we were going to watch temporarily...eight years ago. Anyway, I got so used to the size of the little dogs that when I visited a friend's house a couple months after getting the little dogs, his lab seemed HUGE by comparison. I have known the lab for years and he never seemed large before. He hadn't grown since my previous visit six months prior, however, my perspective had changed! Maybe I was just getting "broken-in" to the smaller dogs. There are a million examples of this happening...hand in bucket of cold water for a while will make room temp water seem hot, etc. Can the same be said of audio gear? Hmmmmmm..........I say yet again!  

Warm-up is another issue I question. I believe solid state amp designs require more warm-up than tube. I accept this as a fact. At least this is one of the things I have learned from Audiojerry, a man I trust and respect. However, how long does it take for a typical CDP to warm up or the average amp or preamp? Does a DAC require warmup (an outboard one like the DIO)? Do certain pieces or designs requre more warm-up than others? Is the warm-up issue similar to the burn-in question in that it gives manufacturers or owners of equipment that is outperformed an excuse or reason to doubt the claims of people who have tested gear without coming out and calling them liars?  

Think about it, if you need to run something continuously for 100 hours or 1000 hours (depending upon who is making the claim), how can you do any head to head comparisons? I suppose you could drop your amp, preamp or CDP over at someone's house or your local shop and have them run all of the test components continuously for a couple days (or months!) to give sufficient "warm-up" but that is not what I'd call convenient. Could be it's not a case of "warm-up" or break-in, maybe it's a case of "excuse makin' (sing that last line and it sounds like a Country song!). Hmmmmm.....I say yet again.    

I am not aware of a single instance in which a manufacturer questioned a competitor's product's degree of warm-up or break-in when THEIR product comes out on top in a head-to head test.  They merely assume or imply superiority.

Anyway, I don't pretend to be an expert in this or any area. The one thing I seem to learn more as I get older is how few "experts" there really are. It's hard to find the real ones because they seem to be less likely to portray themselves as such...they seem to leave that to the phonies, fakes, shucksters and the charlatains/marketers. I'll stick with the low key guys who just make great products without all of the confusing and often misleading "marketing" that is all too often associated with audio gear...AND without the excuses that usually follow whenever one of their products is outperformed. I guess I'm just a simple guy who loves audio, music, musings and saying "Hmmmmm......"

Peace,


Jackman

[neilr11]

Jack,
Some very good points and a great topic. I believe in break of wire, speaker cones, and electrical parts, but I'm not sure what is breaking in, the actual equipment or just my ears getting used to the sound.  The sound does change though. I don't think a humans aural memory lasts too long so a change will always be preceived. I find it outlandish that some manufactures do state that it takes months to break things in. Probably enough time to get passed the return time!!   yet people fall for it.  Obviously speaker cones need to loosen up, some faster than others and electrical parts like caps need burn in, but it doesnt take months!!  

I also find it really hard to believe that a manufacturer would go to a major audio show with units that are not broken in. They painstakingly try to get those crappy rooms to sound good, everything from blu-taking the ceiling tiles to using conditioners and acoustic panels. I agree, sounds like an excuse when their product doesn't sound good. A manufacturer has one goal, to sell as many products as possible so they can make as much money as possible, that's why they a lot of these smaller companies want to be your best friend. A course they will spend time with you and answer your questions, sales is a game of trust and perception. You will buy something from someone you like, be it a car, insurance or audio.  They must make their product stand out, be different, and perform better than the next guys. Preception of all these features are key.  I always found it humorous when people get really enamored when they talk to the manufacturer and say he's a great guy, or she spent all this time with me, duh, they are trying to sell you something.

Regarding warm up, when stereophile tests the equipment they are reviewing, Atkinson warms them up for an hour. I believe that I read somewhere in the mag a while ago that the measurements didn't change once a unit reached opperating temps. Amps are biased when they are warm, thats why they sound better at that point.

[Brian Cheney]

I have been doing CES shows since 1977 and come well prepared.  Our 2003 Alexis Park room (12x18') featured 128 sq feet of 3" thick Sonex plus numerous Room Tunes and Tube Traps.  Most exhibit rooms I visited in that hotel had some ficus plants and sounded accordingly.

As for breakin, this CES we had virtually none on our new speakers, as they emerged from the paintshop with just enough time to be assembled and briefly tested (3 hours total use).  This is not how we would want it.  As it turned out the speakers required considerable tuning and placement changes, plus breakin, in order to sound their best by Saturday for the "Best of CES" judges.  For the second year in a row our room (speakers and electronics) took the trophy.

My experience with Shows, CES and otherwise, is that exhibitors are clueless as to how to present their products optimally.  For this reason most run a tightly controlled demo with their limited source material repeated over and over ("There are five records for any speaker ever made", Michael Elliot once told me).  We, on the other hand, play almost exlusively material visitors bring themselves, and in many cases burn copies of the best tracks for later hearing.  I filled 10 CD's with new material that way at 2002 CES, and six more at the 2003 show.

[jackman]

Brian, thanks for the feedback.  I have never heard any negative feedback regarding any of your speakers and their performance at shows.  Quite the contrary, they keep winning awards.  Your comments are appreciated.  I like the fact that you don't have a "set" list of songs to play on your stuff.  I wonder if this practice is common with most manufacturers?  If not, it should be!

J

[nathanm]

I often laugh because it seems that when a person posts a positive review about a product everyone likes, comparing it to a more expensive commercial unit, no one questions the scientific procedures employed by the tester. They never say things about "break-in" or "warm-up", system "synergy" or question the cables, music or the hearing (or sanity ) or the tester. They just agree and go about their business, feeling secure in their purchase decision. Manufacturers are equally guilty of this, however, some like to do things that irritate me even more.

Well of course, those things only matter when it's an unfavorable review! A positive review gets held on a pillar and used as proof of the product's nobility, negative review gets a bunch of guys in lab coats coming to your house to scold you for not using cable brand Z.

Components are probably going to sound better when they've warmed up and stabilized, but saying they are going to sound dramatically different two months from now, and don't judge them until then is a cop-out. How many other variables could have occured that would affect your perception of the sound in that time?  A lot I'd imagine.

What I think happens is that everytime you make a change you're psyching yourself up for hearing something exciting.  New stuff is always more impressive than old stuff.  It can work in the opposite direction.  If the new thing just sounds different you may interpret as being bad.  It's all relative!

I've never been to an audio show myself, but it wouldn't surprise me to read that they have problems getting the gear to sound good.  Doesn't that say a lot for issues of acoustics when you take a big expensive super speaker and stick in in a bare-walled hotel room and think, "Gee, it's good, but what's the big deal?".  I'd guess that amp "burn-in" is the least of your problems in such a situation!  It sounds like Brian took some logical steps to make the environment more condusive to good sound.  I've never thought an empty room sounded good, speakers in there or not.  If you're selling headphones it might be a different story, but speakers are influenced by where they are playing.

I think the "it's not burned in yet" line is a great way to buy some time and tell the person who isn't happy with what they hear that if they just let it play for a few weeks it will be better.  Then the person will eventually stop caring and start to realize, "hey maybe it's not so bad after all..."  Well, you sure as heck better not LISTEN to the speakers in that time frame cause then all that's happening is you are acclamating yourself to the sound.  This has happened to me with every piece of audio equipment I've ever owned.  Sometimes it works positively, other times negatively.  I think this is the only reason people continue to buy new stuff.

How often have we had a chance to A\B compare a brand new vs. amp with X hours of burn in?  Unless we buy two amps and stick one in the closet while the other one plays pink noise until the cows come home I don't think it's a real easy thing to measure.  And who wants to spend big bucks and not listen to the thing?  That's like telling a kid on Christmas day you can open the presents now, but only play with them at Easter!

[Juan R]

When I  got my speakers (vmps rm-40), I was not impress  with them, but after few weeks I noted  a big difference in sound quality that anyone can hear, but with the amps was a difference story. The sales person told me about  the breakin of at least 2 weeks and the difference in sound, but to be honest they sound the same as the first day( I am happy with them), but I did not see a change. I know they sound better, basically the mid after about 2 hrs. But I dont know is there are the speakers or the amps(ampzilla 2000) who need to warm up. With cables I dont know, to me they sound the same(in the same quality), of course if you compare a radio shack vs a good copper with connector yes. But I dont understand when peoples  audition two cables and said " more romantic" etc. Maybe I am stupid  or dont have any music ear.

[Andrew Lamb]

Even more so then your ears becoming accustomed to something, I think a big factor is what you are listening to in reference to the product in question.

If you've never heard a terrible stereo before, how do you know yours is any good? Personally I wish I'd never heard a good stereo, then I'd probably be content with a cheap-o department store bookshelf system.

I suppose this is the same as 'how happy is happy'? If you're never sad, then are you really sure you're happy? If you listen to the same harsh tweeter for 6 months, you'll think it's sounding fine by month 3 without having anything for comparison.

[nathanm]

But I dont understand when peoples  audition two cables and said " more romantic" etc. Maybe I am stupid  or dont have any music ear.

There's nothing 'romantic' about a signal passing through copper wire.  No, you are probably not stupid nor lack a musical ear but that's what some people would have you believe if you question their flowery claims, however cleverly it may be disguised.  It's one thing to use colorful words to describe sound, (they are better used to describe music though) it's quite another to use these terms to describe effects that cannot be measured or explained scientifically.  If you don't hear what they say you're supposed to, well step right up son, we've got more gear for you to buy right over here!

Andrew's got a great point about relativity.  I know I thought very ill of my old Fischer speakers when I first heard my Mackie HR-824 monitors.  I hooked them up a few months back and the tonality was so much different.  I thought they sounded pretty bad!  Apparently 15 years of "burn-in" is too much!

[JohnR]

Perhaps you've had an experience where a piece of equipment that you know "performs" extremely well, gets put into a different system and it just doesn't. You might ask yourself why...

JohnR

[audiojerry]

I don't think you guys give yourself enough credit at being able to hear differences, and try to much to explain it away because of other factors like getting used to the sound. I have a very recent personal example. I am keeping a friend's pair of Odyssey Stratos monoblocks. They are fully broken in, and I have been using them frequently enough. I recently got his stereo version of the Stratos from Klaus. I set it up and compared it to the sound of the mono's. It did not fare well at all. the mono's were much better in every way. Over time (weeks and hundreds of hours later) they have gradually gotten better. Now, a difference between the two still exists, but not nearly as great. I don't think this can be explained away by saying I just got used to the sound, because I had the mono's as a steady reference point.  

Nathan, I don't know how long those old speakers went unused, but if it was months or years, yes they would sound bad after hooking them back up. Caps get old, driver surrounds get brittle, voice coils and crossover parts must be re-burned in. That old speaker has lots of factors working against it. Hard way to judge if that speaker might have sounded better originally.

Jack, that was a very thoughtful post. Nice work.

[nathanm]

No, they were used continually the majority of that time.  They only sat unused for like 4-5 months or so.  They were something I bought at a flea market in high school.  Very cheap drivers, 1/2" thick particle board cabinet and no stuffing inside whatsoever.  Pretty low end.  But they did the trick for their time and I thanked them for their years of service as I disassembled them and turned them into an ill-conceived Fostex project.

[MaxCast]

Hey everyone...is nathanm really Eyespy?  

[nathanm]

Hmm, ya lost me on that one.  Who's eyespy?

[Marbles]

Hey everyone...is nathanm really Eyespy?  

If so then Dan B is Mrtycrafts.........

[eric the red]

Well, then Pez=CE    

[MaxCast]

  The good ole days.

These three personalities were from Audioreview when it was a pretty good web site.  Lots of good times and memories.  Pogue and Bone were the bartenders of a great on line bar which never seemed to stop serving up good food and drink.

[JoshK]

I just saw an ad for a 3" jar of rocks on audiogon selling for > $100 marketed as a wonder tweak.  Who buys this crap?

[kendrid]

Mrtycrafts is still at audioreview..I dropped in a few weeks ago and he was saying the same things he was 5 years ago...

[eric the red]

Well how about a Purist Audio Design Revision B burn-in disc for 105.00?? www.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/cl.pl?accstwek&1052277809&class&3&4&. I'll bet the Revision A sounds better... Do you have a link for the rocks on Agon

[JoshK]

here it is

I should start marketing a bucket of dirt for $75 + shipping.  I can sell it by suggesting that one should put it under their power cord yielding better "earthing" or "grounding".  Adds depth and naturalness to your system!