Of course, but when the missing proof is not caused by unwillingness/laziness/deception but intrinsic impossibility, what can you do. The only valid possibility is to say “there is no proof”, and this (edit: this alone) does not logically mean that it is impossible
True, and a great analogy.
I guess I was mainly addressing those who strongly assert it is “proven” to be not true by the lack of a measurement. Not proven true is not the same as proven untrue.
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Maybe it’s not entirely impossible? Has anyone done spectographic measurements before and after burning in speaker cables for instance? Perhaps there is some actual data available that we could use to analyse this? If the difference is visible and significant in the measurements that would be interesting to know. Although the word significant is difficult to quantify ofcourse…
Burn in may mirror quantum physics. Particles behave differently when being observed to when being measured. A wise man said,
Wigner (1961) feels that consciousness or the mind, plays a more directly physical role, adding an extra term to the mathematical equations and hence, selecting one particular branch of the wave function and one particular result for the experiment, thus producing the effect that von Neumann called collapse .
There you have it. Burn in may or may not exist.
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It’s a good question and I don’t know if it is doable or if it has been done. Certainly not seen anything reliable (aside from the usual balance armband claims)
NNNooooo!
Apologies for borrowing a forum member’s Avatar to demonstrate my reaction to this possibility.
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An interesting idea here is that people who do hear minute differences in perceived sound, may do so because their subconscious expectations and observations are actively influencing the wave function collapse on a quantum level. 
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One could argue that all religions are man made, this would answer a lot of questions, but the spirituality and God exists. So with HiFi components there is no definite measurable proof that a particular Speaker requires 200 hrs of Burn In, but the sound has realistically changed according to professional reviewers. Or is it just the all in the mind…
Soak testing to test integrity is not the same as “burn-in” for audible improvements. If burn-in exists, the two things are related, though. A soak test would possibly be a form of burn in.
This assertion is absolute and utter nonsense. For most of human civilization, and even now, at a fundamental level, people can’t fully explain gravity. But those that deny its existence have left the gene pool.
In the case of burn-in (an improvement in perceived sound quality due to physical changes in electronic components and and cables through use), it is easy to prove it is a real phenomenon, even of we don’t understand the mechanism in the slightest. We can show it exists, even of we can’t measure and changes with our instruments. Because, by definition, it is an effect that can be perceived.
But, to eliminate the very real issue of placebo effects, the only reliable test will be a double blind test.
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So if it is an effect that can be perceived it can be proved. So eg the miracles at Lourdes are effects that can be perceived, so they can be proved, but we don’t know how to date…
all I can add from my experience - most recent upgrade - same system LP12, 300DR, SC & NDX - took up graded from 282 to NEW 252 - first thought what I have done, 7 days a lot better 1 month WOW
simlar to DR upgrade on my 300, pluging in straight from DR - flat as the… few hours - yes I can hear it - 7 days - lot’s of angelo Saxon
myth? fairy dust? nope none of that just MORE MUSIC… and a very big smile
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A problem here i think is the word ‘improvement’, as @Suedkiez mentioned before the probability for improvement or detereoration should be statistically equal. When most people report an improvement over time that is a possible indicator of physical changes but not necessarily. It’s not proven that the perceived improvement is related to the burn-in process itself, since that should result in an equal number of people reporting a deteoration.
Yeah, it’s not 100% clear to me why burn-in type changes should necessarily be a “good” thing. But a proper experiment, producing statistically significant results would answer that question.
But if all people are fed food, there will be no one saying I am starving?
If you serve people the same hamburger every day and tell them “Just wait, the more you eat them the better they will taste”, there is a good chance that they will confirm just that. 
So the power of suggestion is so persuasive that it even fools most of the professional reviewers around the world?
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My guess would be yes, in some instances at least. They would be going against the accepted norm to report that nothing at all has changed, so they are more likely to report that something has.
Also note that no professional reviewers ever report the sound having deteriorated after a burn in period, they always report an improvement, which is statistically and physically impossible. Do you know any examples of professional reviews saying “It really sounded a bit worse after 50 hours”?
But you are at this stage only assuming the sound gets worse, you have not got the full data, measurements and pertinent information about the process of burn in…
What i meant is that the perceived quality of sound is determined by the balance between all the frequencies. When a physical burn in does occur and it changes the balance of the sound spectrum, then there is by definition a 50% chance that the balance improves (subjectively) and a 50% chance that it deteriorates.
If for instance the 2Khz range becomes more prominent after burn in, that can either be a subjective improvement or not in the overall spectrum. This means that it’s impossible that 100% of the reviews report an improvement after a burn in period, since that would mean that in all cases the exact right spectral shift takes place to subjectively improve sound quality. That is statistically impossible.