Burning In

In the English dictionary there is a difference in these two words.
In this thread subject we are talking only about anecdotal

anecdotal
adjective
(of an account) not necessarily true or reliable, because based on personal accounts rather than facts or research.

anecdote
noun
a short amusing or interesting story about a real incident or person.

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No, just saying that those particular proposed mechanisms don’t stand up to scrutiny.
Disproving any one possibility has no effect on any other possibility.

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Larousse, main french dictionary.

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DÉFINITIONS

  • FAIT DE CARACTÈRE MARGINAL, RELATIF À UNE OU À DES PERSONNES, INÉDIT OU PEU CONNU, AUQUEL ON PEUT ATTACHER UNE SIGNIFICATION, MAIS QUI RESTE ACCESSOIRE PAR RAPPORT À L’ESSENTIEL : RÉCIT HISTORIQUE QUI SE PERD DANS L’ANECDOTE.

Marginal, inédit, peu connu : marginal, unheard, unique, not well known.

Larousse Gastronomique: the most important of the French dictionaries! :ok_hand: :smiley:

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No you were right Barefoot wine is hideous and should be avoided at all costs.

English Anecdotal translates as Anecdotique

Qui contient des anecdotes.
Qui constitue une anecdote, ne presente pas d’interet general.
Detail purement anecdotique.

This is much like a cable thread, somewhat pointless & going nowhere.
Case Closed

After all these anecdotic posts, perhaps the OP could ask this anecdotic thread on not anecdotic phenomenon to be closed?

Do you have your own ‘real life’ analogue photo, taken from yourself, to prove to us all that the world is indeed round?

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There were some interesting points, about rationalizing or the converse, the validity of ‘burning in’
my point is this: if there is empirical evidence (in this case meaning ‘observed’) evidence of burning in, then rationalizing against it is itself irrational.

The number of people who believe something does not make it not anecdotal. Look at how many people believe in God. Or Vishnu. Or Brahman. Or whatever. They can’t all be true - and probably none of them are.
Now look at the various blind listening tests that have been conducted, e.g., in no particular order:





etc.

Personally I suspect that the time taken to burn in or have a component come on song has to do with two properties:

  1. The values of electrical or mechanical components changing with temperature as they warm up after switch on. For most equipment that’s 30mins ish.
  2. The listener becoming accustomed to a sound or particular presentation and growing to like it/accept it and normalise it.

The first is measurable on a test bench, the second is well documented in psychological textbooks. The exception is mechanical components like woofer surrounds or tweeters or turntable bearings and they clearly may take time to loosen up with use.

Jonathan

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Indeed!..there is much that we value in our music which cannot be reliably measured
musicality, PR&T for examples
but many, myself included, find them to be most obviously apparent.

I suspect there is a lot of truth in that. It’s one of the reasons I have no faith in observations from people who swap cables in and out for only a few minutes and then pronounce on which is best. In my experience it takes a good while to determine if something is better or simply different. People can use Tune Dem or claim Magic Ears but it’s still guesswork.

I agree completely
it can take some time to decide whether something that sounds different does actually sound better. This, I think, is particularly the case with ancillaries
a new major component is frequently a very obvious improvement though.

Yes, I can sort out amplifiers and streamers in a few minutes. But wires are much harder. And as for speakers, total nightmare scenario.

I have come to be skeptical about most tweaks and upgrades. Naim pre/pwr/psu upgrades have been mostly obvious right away as I’ve climbed through the classic range from 202/250 to 252/300. With other things like cables etc, I’ll try something for a week or two – without doing any back to back A/B comparisons – and then remove it again. If I don’t miss it, then it’s not better (or not better enough) IMO and I move on. I’ve experienced isolation products making bigger differences for me than any cables in that regard.

Is PRAT a fact or not for you? I will say you think it’s not, because you can’t mesure it.

How do you know it isn’t measurable?

I don’t know. I guess. Am I wrong ?

We might not know yet how to measure it, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it isn’t. Assuming PRaT is real, it might stand to reason that there is something in the audio waveforms to identify it, and just needs someone to isolate and figure out what that is. I don’t have an answer, but think it could be an interesting problem.