Break-In Necessary on New CD Player?

I think its a way for electronics manufacturers to reduce returns, a bunch of BS.

 

Some of the flat-earthers here might want to try arguing with Nelson Pass, who will tell you that his Class A designs sound better (though maybe not by a lot) after being left on for an hour or so and reaching operating temperature.

It's a similar thing with break-in. I can tell you that from experience with Morrow cables and e-stat speakers for example (where an e-stat diaphragm is basically a capacitor), among many other components over the last few decades.

There was a time when we believed the Sun revolved around the Earth, and witches were burned at the stake. Thankfully some of us have moved on from there.

 

Rather than dogmatically and somewhat harshly (e.g., "have no clue") insisting that this is unquestionably true, it would be reasonable to acknowledge that this is a controversial issue with possible alternative explanations.

 

Im not sure running a player for weeks straight would reduce returns. I think a good initial workout may more likely flesh out any glaring quality control issues versus a player that plays once in a while over the first year or two.

 

Why sound "Better" versus "different" .
That would imply everything was out of tolerance when new, then magically came into tolerance after burning in.

 

You would not asked if you knew a bit about how things works. First; there will be a lot of static loads in evey new component. And second; most components performs best after they`ve reached a certain temperature, not only tubes.
That`s one of the reasons to give any system something like an hour of warm-up. The other is the human ear, same way as our eyes needs some time to adjust to darkness our ears (or more exactly this thing we have between our ears) needs some time to clean out stress from our short-time memory before we become able to relax, open up and start listening to the music.

 

Im with mr pass on this one. After the juice has been running for a while, things warm up a bit and the molecules start to allign. After a few minutes minimum many of the amps for instance will actually measure way different as far as dc offset compared to when they were initially powered on. CD players dont have that much juice, and caps and general crap going on so not maybe as big of a deal.
But in general not all things heard can be measured and not all things measured can be heard. Trust in synergy. Its a constant variable. Like a living thing, if you keep it in the basement it will hate you.

 

For one thing you know nothing about me to assume I do not understand the concept. I guess what I said you cannot open your mind too. Try to put some thought into what I wrote as it was in the spirit of the original post. The original post talks about electronics sounding better and I said why not just different. Why not In someway worse? So all the circuits get magically better? Maybe a resistor or two got worse after some heat cycles? Different yes, everything magically better is ridiculous.

 

I've got a NIB Sony CDP338esd, only opened to take the batteries out of the instruction manual bag (in case they leaked)- never played in 26 years. I have another that has done thousands of hours. I could easily analyse the signal each puts out or record the signal, play it 100hours on the NIB unit and then record the signal again, invert one recording with respect to the other and any difference is as a result of burn in. Maybe I'll get it out this weekend replace the obligatory belts and test it.

The same situation recently occurred with a CDPX7esd- I recently got the unit I had stored since new out of its box after 25+ years. Of course it needed two loading belts and some dried lube cleaning and replacing, but the two machines sound exactly the same as each other. The other X7esd has been in operation for 25 years. Both these machines were Sony's TOTL at the time.

'Burn in' in CD players, amplifiers, preamplifiers is utter BS IMO.

Soak testing however is very valid to weed out early onset failures etc.

 

Exactly, new means never used, when I used to work for two differnt manufactures of lasers we ran units to check for any early component failures before being sent off to the customer. We didn't waste this time because they worked better after 48 hrs or so of running, we checked it for failing new components/circuts.

 

How can you tell it sounds better? You would need to compare a brand new player to one that is "broken in". I believe that most of break in is just getting used to the new sound and equipment.

 

If I were one who "did not" use my tone controls (which I do all the time) and someone came in every couple a days turned one of the tone knobs .10, I am pretty certain it would take a little while for me to figure out I am hearing something different and by then it would be drastically different.

 

Not just BS, but there are no facts anywhere to prove otherwise. There is only personal testimony and that ain't science.

 

Components warming up and reaching their design parameters and performance at a given operating temperature, and returning to their "cold" performance levels after cooling down, is well-known in electronics.

That's very different from the usual descriptions of "burn-in", in which a component supposedly changes permanently in some unspecified fashion after running for a while -- particularly when it's speaker wires and interconnects. That is not a known effect in electronics, aside from long un-used electrolytic capacitors that "re-form" (increase in capacity from low capacitance to their nominal value) as they're used.

 

I would expect and have observed some serious improvements in sound quality with NEW phono cartridge stylus and speakers due to their mechanical nature. Break in periods of 30 - 100 hrs are often recommend by the manufacturer. Not so with CD players. Your hearing will adjust to the new sound however.

I believe pretty much any new CD players should sound fine out of the box. If you don't like the sound after perhaps 10 hours for your hearing to adjust, It's unlikely you ever will. Their may be exceptions, But I seriously doubt the Onkyo is one of them.

I have used a cheap Apex DVD player, Denon CD and DVD players, and a CD transport with Bryson DAC. Every one of them worked fine out of the box. Of those 4 players the CD Transport and DAC had significantly better sound, which isn't surprising considering the price difference. The other 3 sounded close to each other.

That Onkyo CD player ought to sound really good. I have an An AVR from Onkyo that I am impressed with. A friend of mine has an older CD player from them that also sounds really good.

 

Oh come on Voorhis, aren`t you able to see that this is just about that, the "warm up" procedure that comes on top of the "burn in" process. Did you read my posting With the intention to understand what I said or just to find something to pick on?

 

This thread is about hypothetical and controversial burn-in, not well-known and well-established warm-up. Making the distinction clear was, and is, warranted.

 

Its all psychological training. breaking in electronics is you listening and becoming accustomed to the new sound. And yesI guess products made with substandard mechanical parts can change sound over a short period. Well made products will be constructed of products that hold up well under adverse treatment. other wise people with critical ears would shun the items as there performance changed with time. Its one reason I'm not a tube fan.

Answer this question. Depending on your life style and and daily life experiences a recording can sound the same one day a different the next and return to the same another day or month or after a few hours. Why? Its not the equipment, its you. me, us. Change the volume from one day to the next and with our non linear hearing the experience changes, too. If the humidity and temp changes, the sound can change do to atmospheric and mechanical changes is some of the less sophisticated drivers.

 

At least not in the generic electronics world.

Ask audio engineers who use a teflon dielectric with either coupling caps or cabling like those from Audio Research, Conrad-Johnson, VTL, etc. and you'll find a different answer.

It's certainly not something to obsess over. If you haven't experienced that phenomena, why worry?

 

We "moved on from there" because we had scientific evidence to do so. I assume you have the same for "universal break-in theory"?