Burn in - a myth?

It’s Rob Jim not Roy and sadly I don’t have a hot line to the great man :kissing_smiling_eyes:

However the silver Audio Note cables that I burned in whilst owning that system took an age to plateau. Rhodium similar to silver . In my experience gold is similar to copper in this respect .

Hi Rob

I know who you are! :grinning:

I copied Roy in on my email above (using the standard forum @name format) - as Roy has a Naim Staff account.

As far as I can see Roy has often looked at the forum, but never posted a reply.

It seems unlikely that he will join this discussion of the SQ effects of burn-in, fuses and different types of metal conductors - but you never know.

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We can only wish Jim :joy:

Burn in must be a vexing issue for Hi-Fi manufacturers - because they know that many of their potential customers are convinced it’s impossible (!) - but they also know from designing products using repeated listening tests that it’s a real effect in good systems.

So manufacturers are likely to shy away from discussing it openly so as not to alienate the nay-sayers, but they need to discuss it because then customers can expect their systems to improve over the first days, weeks and months after purchase.

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I recently visited SW1X Audio Design to have my DAC upgraded to the latest caps and component feet changed.

It’s always a pleasure speaking the Slawa (owner). While I was there Slawa mentioned that he had my DAC on a soak test for about 3 days to ensure there isn’t any potential failures.

He also mentioned he not only does soak tests but also burns in his capacitors before he installs them into components. This led to a brief conversation about the burn in phenomena. My take is, it’s real, its demonstrable but it isn’t measurable with the available tools.

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As far as I am concerned, I know that ‘burn in’ is real. I’ve heard it with both cables, speakers and electronics. Absolutley no question whatsoever.

There is little point in trying to convince those who claim that ‘it’s all in the imagination’. Curiously I’ve never had anyone explain to me why I should imagine that the sound of a new cable changes over time when I don’t ever imagine anything else.

Rather like those who claim that ‘all cables sound the same because they are just pieces of wire’.

These people do not use their ears to make judgements because of course such judgements would be unreliable and imagined. Rather they just ‘know’.

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Hi, interestingly, I found the opposite true, the Hydra sounded better. But it’s also very true that my set up meant the Power-line leads were not hanging freely which probably compromised their design. Best wishes Amer

Perhaps coz they are engineers, and actually know what they are talking about?

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Or perhaps more likely because they are engineers and therefore they think they know what they are talking about. When in reality they lack the scientific knowledge and insight that would allow them to accept that such an effect may well be possible.

Or perhaps they are not engineers at all. Maybe they are grocers, or delivery drivers, or bank managers…

Ah, man-in-the-pub “expert” vs. Chartered Electrical Engineer?

An interesting concept.

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The man in the pub has the same biological hearing system as any Engineer, chartered or otherwise.

Mark (Chartered Physicist, as it happens, not that I think it plays any important part in my appreciation of hifi!)

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I have no idea if these people are Chartered Electrical Engineers or not. Perhaps you could explain how you know? Likewise you know nothing of me or my qualifications.

But as Ebor points out above - one doesn’t need any qualifications. All one needs to do is use one’s ears.

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Whilst I agree 100% with this sentiment, the forum would be like a ghost town if people did.

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The problem is, neither could talk with any authority when it comes to burning in and cable directionality.

Both involve passing electricity through MATERIALS. A chartered Electrical Engineer probably knows very little about materials. I’m thinking somebody with the intellect of Einstein who specialised in materials and has an interest in electronics might, just might be able to explain it all. :grinning:

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To me this is the key statement - and the sound benefit likely due to that and nothing to do with plating of parts. The fact that they are plated with rhodium, as opposed to gold, or any other metal plating, is unlikely in itself to have a major effect on the sound. Ideally what is wanted with contacts is like metals on contact - so gold plated plugs in gold plated sockets, rhodiun in rhodium, silver in silver, etc.

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These cables have a limited burn in time and unlike a lot hi fi myths it’s very easy to see the effects.

IMG_3326

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I think there are basically two types of people in hi-fi. The sort that trust and use their ears to evaluate things and the sort that distrust their ears and instead make judgements and pronouncements based on half-facts that they don’t properly understand anyway.

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There are also those who trust their ears for whether the sound suits their taste and sounds good to them, but distrust marketing claims and also have awareness of human susceptibility to psychological influences, taking steps to verify reality.

And there are those (who may or nay not be the same as the above group as they are not mutually exclusive) who trust science, including scientific measurement, whilst accepting that current scientific knowledge may not be complete and measurement ability might be limited, so they keep an open mind as to possibilities but a healthy scepticism where claims are made that are not verified.

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All marketing claims should be taken with a pinch of salt. But that doesn’t mean that all manufacturers are liars who are trying to con us out of our money - as some would have you believe.

Speaking personally I don’t take any steps to verify reality in either my hi-fi involvement or any other area of my life. I’ve never been prone to imagining things that are not happening. If I try a new mains cable and it sounds better to me then I acccept that. I don’t start thinking - ‘this sounds better but maybe I’m just imagining it’. Why should I imagine it? I don’t imagine anything else.

Yes absolutely. The problem is those people who trust science but either have a woefully incomplete knowledge or cannot conceive of any phenomena that may exist but are not yet fully understood and so dismiss such things as imagination and nonsense. It is fools like this who have hindered progress throughout history.

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I am not a psychologist, but I am aware that there are well-known psychological effects that can make someone believe something is better when it is not, and it is dangerous (to one’s wallet) to believe one is immune to them - yet many people do think that way. And burn-in is one area where manufacturers can persuade people that something worse is in fact better because it will improve over time, whereas the manufacturer knows that ears/brain will become accustomed over time and accept the new sound if the individual believes. That is not saying nothing burns or runs in, just that not everything ascribed to burn in is necessarily, or even likely, to be due to such a change. The first thing in any scientific assessment is to verify observation - yet with alleged cable burn-in it seems no-one has done that, simply believing the cable has changed due to the signal passing through.