Break/Burn in. Is it Real?

[davewantsmoore]

44 minutes ago, muon* said:

Interesting that where Rawl is just sharing his experience, others it appears are ....

 

1 hour ago, davewantsmoore said:

What I have found is that ...

 

[davewantsmoore]

45 minutes ago, muon* said:

Interesting that where Rawl is just sharing his experience

My experince is that I often hear things .... which when tested more deeply aren't actually audible.

 

What I have been shown is that (and why) it's really really really hard to test things.

[TerryO]

6 hours ago, bob_m_54 said:

All this wire burn in has got me worrying about the missile and weapons guidance systems I used to work on.. Surely after only a very short time they would be so far out of whack that the pilots could end up vaporising the wrong target.

 

Surely you accept there is a difference between a systems failure, which you are alluding to, and a difference in sq, which Rawl is talking about. 
 

That is the problem with these threads, people who offer their experiences keep getting rubbished and mocked by those who think they know better even though they have not shared the same experience.  
 

You guys, who I sometimes refer to as Osciliscope watchers,  might be surprised to hear that I often get PM’s from members who have had similar experiences but can’t be bothered speaking up as they know you lot will just rubbish them. Tell me this, how is that good for either the forum or open discussion?

 

regards,

Terry
 

 

Edited September 20, 2020 by TerryO

[MLXXX]

4 hours ago, rawl99 said:

We needed to move a speaker cable for reasons I do not remember .  The opus mm2 has a giant cockroach in the middle of the cable.  We moved the cockroach a foot or so sideways to do what we had to do and then moved it back.  The system dropped its guts and took about a week to come back on song.  This system was utterly superb playing original master vinyl pressings.  The cartridge on the TT was worth more than most folks systems

Everything degraded.  Soundstage, sense of real-ness of classical instruments and voices, transient attack and harmonic decay.   
Yes a non-audiophile individual would have picked it in 2 seconds.  The degradation was that dramatic.

In retrospect it would have been good to have set up a pair of condenser microphones near the listening chair and to have made a recording immediately before and immediately after moving the speaker cable.

 

The dramatic degradation could then have been shared with people here by uploading the two recordings. (Or, alternatively, keeping an open mind, if the recordings sounded the same, that could have led to head scratching: "Why is the difference I heard not revealed in the recordings?". )

 

I note that the usual explanation provided for not making an audio recording of a change to an audiophile set-up is that the change would be too too subtle to be captured that way. However in your example, "a non-audiophile individual would have picked it in 2 seconds".  So presumably it would have been possible to hear some difference in a recording of the sound near the listening chair even, even if the recording were made with only semi-professional equipment (e.g. with microphones in the hundreds of dollars range, and an audio interface (with XLR mic inputs and say 96kHz 24 bit output) costing a few hundred dollars.

The example here is rather different to a "classic" burn-in scenario of listening to equipment after many hours of use (and possibly after a number of weeks have gone by) and comparing that with one's memory of the sound when the device was brand new and first switched on. However it would still be possible to record the different sounds of the classic scenario with microphones at the beginning and after a period of use. It would be important though that the microphones were not moved. Also, ideally, the air temperature and humidity would be the same for both recording sessions.

[muon*]

@TerryO People will sometimes pump things up with sarcasm to bolster their case, in the hope someone will be swayed by it......sadly this seems to work on some

Edited September 20, 2020 by muon*

[t_mike]

11 minutes ago, TerryO said:

Surely you accept there is a difference between a systems failure, which you are alluding to, and a difference in sq, which Rawl is talking about. 

 

Would this be a complete systems failure, or a signal variance down a piece of wire we supposedly don't fully understand, directing a missile away from a bomb factory and into a school?

 

15 minutes ago, TerryO said:

That is the problem with these threads, people who offer their experiences keep getting rubbished and mocked by those who think they know better even though they have not shared the same experience.  

 

Is it really mocking and rubbishing if someone gives opposing views, and their reasons why? Could those with opposing views also claim they are being mocked and rubbished by people who are in disagreement, for simply being contrarian? This is a circular argument that doesn't stand up for either point of view.

[davewantsmoore]

33 minutes ago, TerryO said:

from members who have had similar experiences

I am not surprised in the least to hear that..... because that's what science says should happen.

33 minutes ago, TerryO said:

but can’t be bothered speaking up as they know you lot will just rubbish them. Tell me this, how is that good for either the forum or open discussion?

Sometimes people are unkind.... but everyone needs to look past that.   I once heard an expression about drinking a cup of concrete.

 

I often get rubbished for the same.    Whatever.

[muon*]

Drawing a parallel between a change is sound in an audio system and with a system failure in a missile system of any consequence is a very long bow to draw, crazy long bow!

[davewantsmoore]

25 minutes ago, MLXXX said:

I note that the usual explanation provided for not making an audio recording of a change to an audiophile set-up is that the change would be too too subtle to be captured that way.

That can sometimes be true  (although not for "day/night differences).

 

It would be better to record the output of the amplifier or DAC, or whatever.....  much less factors which can lead to errors.

[davewantsmoore]

3 minutes ago, muon* said:

Drawing a parallel between a change is sound in an audio system and with a system failure in a missile system of any consequence is a very long bow to draw, crazy long bow!

Yes... but it gave me a chuckle.

 

 

... and it does go to something quite relevant / true ..... If many of these effects promoted by audiophile companies had merit .... then they would be known in other areas and applications of science where they would have immense effect.   Audio is a very basic field of science compared to many many others.

[allthumbs]

3 minutes ago, muon* said:

Drawing a parallel between a change is sound in an audio system and with a system failure in a missile system of any consequence is a very long bow to draw, crazy long bow!

 

But apparently not such a long bow when concerning a comparison between SQ of an audio system and Einstein's theory of "local realism"  and quantum optics.

 

And so it goes.

[sir sanders zingmore]

47 minutes ago, TerryO said:

That is the problem with these threads, people who offer their experiences keep getting rubbished and mocked by those who think they know better even though they have not shared the same experience.  

we do indeed Terry, we do

[bob_m_54]

1 hour ago, TerryO said:

Surely you accept there is a difference between a systems failure, which you are alluding to, and a difference in sq, which Rawl is talking about. 
 

That is the problem with these threads, people who offer their experiences keep getting rubbished and mocked by those who think they know better even though they have not shared the same experience.  
 

You guys, who I sometimes refer to as Osciliscope watchers,  might be surprised to hear that I often get PM’s from members who have had similar experiences but can’t be bothered speaking up as they know you lot will just rubbish them. Tell me this, how is that good for either the forum or open discussion?

 

regards,

Terry
 

 

No, i'm talking about signal processing being affected by variations caused by systems being out of alignment.

 

And, to be clear, I am not rubbishing anyone. I am merely suggesting that there are more likely other influences causing people to hear these differences. Having a bit of technical knowledge tends to make people look for all the reasons that may cause perceived differences, rather than being blinkered and focusing only on the item in question, rather than that item in relation to the system as a whole. ie, when you move a cable, is it the cable that has changed, or is it a change in relationship with other things in the locality, such as proximity or alignment with other nearby cables, just as an example.

 

I don't understand why people who do experience (to them) such noticeable changes don't explore all possibilities and causes, and question whether it should be an expected outcome.

 

And btw, the technical term is "Scope Dope" not Oscilloscope watcher

Edited September 20, 2020 by bob_m_54

[bob_m_54]

51 minutes ago, muon* said:

Drawing a parallel between a change is sound in an audio system and with a system failure in a missile system of any consequence is a very long bow to draw, crazy long bow!

It isn't if you believe that signals, travelling through a cable, can be so drastically altered after a short time in service..

[davewantsmoore]

32 minutes ago, bob_m_54 said:

I don't understand why people who do experience (to them) such noticeable changes don't explore all possibilities and causes, and question whether it should be an expected outcome.

Meh.....   I think it's human nature not to care, unless there is a driving reason.... most people don't have much reason.

[muon*]

I'll leave this thread to the purveyors of the fantasy that this can correlate to a missile system failure

[rantan]

4 minutes ago, muon* said:

I'll leave this thread to the purveyors of the fantasy that this can correlate to a missile system failure

Probably a good idea. 
 

[bob_m_54]

18 hours ago, muon* said:

I'll leave this thread to the purveyors of the fantasy that this can correlate to a missile system failure

My example was a bit tongue in cheek. But the point I was making is that if the phenomenon of wire "burn in" is actual, then it would affect all types of electronics equipment, not just audio gear.

[rawl99]

On 20/09/2020 at 11:47 AM, sir sanders zingmore said:

Presumably they take equally long to settle in to the system into which you moved them....doesn’t that make demo-ing difficult?

Absolutely what you say is true.

This is why I strongly suggest to people when I am doing a demo that we put the cables in and have a quick listen and then leave the system to run for an hour or two whilst we play social creatures (pre-covid days anyways) and then come back and have another listen.

People are happy to do that and invariably are stunned at the difference between first listen and second listen.

I have enlightened an interesting number of unbelievers (in cable settling) who have observed dramatic improvement after an hour or two of settling....  

‘So their expectation bias is that they will hear absolutely no change after this modicum of settling time.

 

Fortunately the cables I am demoing are typically a big step up from what they had so the improvements are observable from the get-go.

 

Thank for raising a very salient point/question.

 

ps you run the Sanders Magtech Amps with Maggie’s, yes?

[rawl99]

On 20/09/2020 at 6:57 AM, sir sanders zingmore said:

Open enough to consider the possibility that the explanation for burn in might possibly have nothing to do with the amp itself?

 

Oh absolutely.

Which is why if you look at any of my posts where I have written about the burn-in process I will always test periodically with a known datum.

That way the comparison is between known datum (placebo if you wish) and DUT ie device under test.

The comparison time period is then a few hours (to allow for cable settling and device warm-up) and the ear/brain does not ‘adapt’ to the new sound.

As I mentioned earlier I seem to be blessed with a pretty good long-term audio memory.

Or perhaps I should say I used to have, and I am not too sure how good it is now.

I have mentioned elsewhere that a couple of years ago I was a rather sick little puppy and spent a couple of months ‘relaxing’ (trying not to die) in hospital.

That experience has done some unpleasant things to my long-term memory unfortunately.

So I shall need to test out my long-term music memory again and see how it rates these days.

It is a wee bit challenging to have that ability compromised - understatement for the year (decade......?)

 

Cheers boss

Rawl

[rawl99]

On 20/09/2020 at 7:12 AM, allthumbs said:

It's kinda amazing how science is often co-opted on the basis of its ignorance and shortfalls of the undiscovered, the not yet found, the remaining unknown factors and the unprocessed new information that comes to light as science itself advances day by day,  to bolster a case for the purely subjectivist case.  Their is no lack of irony there. But why not hey?

 

But the ignoring of the proven science, the well travelled, well documented well real world proven science as being "dogma" is a stretch to say the least.  If electricity is not understood and remains a mystery how can anybody with any surety switch on a light, fly in an aeroplane, undergo an operation in a hospital for let's say a heart pacemaker? for instance, where these simple acts become acts of faith due to the simple and known existence of the quantum world?

 

The manufacturers of much of the snake oil product in Hi-Fi deny both conclusions in regards to both mind bending scenarios, for they claim despite the mystery of electronics their products make an observable difference and that their products can manipulate  particles that communicate in such a manner that you can definitely observe (hear) and influence.

 

 

 

 

 

 

To answer your question, What PRECISELY is gravity?

We have planes that fly so we therefore must know EXACTLY what gravity is, yes?

So please enlighten me.

 

Are you suggesting that you know exactly how electricity works?

Are you suggesting you know exactly what makes a conductor conduct?

Are you suggesting that you know exactly how a dielectric functions?

 

I think you interpret too much into what I say in an incredibly defensive way.

The pursuit of science has given us an amazing plethora of devices, knowledge and creature comforts.

BUT, to suggest that we know as much as you seem to suggest is curbing the avenues for further study and research.

If you look back in 50 years at what you wrote above........

 

cheers

[rawl99]

On 20/09/2020 at 7:26 AM, bob_m_54 said:

Obviously, any wire that is being adversely affected to the point that it's physical characteristics are dramatically changed by excessive heat, is too small for the job. No matter what is running through it.

That s a cop-out!

You have a truck-ton (technical term) of experience so please give me a specific gauge of wire where such thermal effects will harm the wire.

Current as related to resistivity as related to thermal heating such that it is detrimental- so awg please

[sir sanders zingmore]

48 minutes ago, rawl99 said:

 

ps you run the Sanders Magtech Amps with Maggie’s, yes?

No, that would be too sensible a match

I run it with Avantgarde horns 

[Ittaku]

1 hour ago, rawl99 said:

That s a cop-out!

You have a truck-ton (technical term) of experience so please give me a specific gauge of wire where such thermal effects will harm the wire.

Current as related to resistivity as related to thermal heating such that it is detrimental- so awg please

https://www.powerstream.com/Wire_Size.htm

[allthumbs]

1 hour ago, rawl99 said:

o answer your question, What PRECISELY is gravity?

We have planes that fly so we therefore must know EXACTLY what gravity is, yes?

So please enlighten me.

 

Are you suggesting that you know exactly how electricity works?

Are you suggesting you know exactly what makes a conductor conduct?

Are you suggesting that you know exactly how a dielectric functions?

Well let's start with you pointing out precisely and exactly where I used the word "exactly" in regards to  what you say I claimed to know  and secondly where I suggested anything of the kind. 

 

I fail to see the point you are endeavouring to make.