highdudgeon;157847 Wrote:
If you get trained musicians to do it, specifically, it would get very
interesting. Why? Because these are people with far more ear training
than any non-musician, and that includes audiophiles
I seem to recall that some years back it was noted that many
Completely agree.
cliveb;157992 Wrote:
I seem to recall that some years back it was noted that many
professional (classical) musicians in fact owned pretty low-end stereo
systems, and seemed perfectly happy with them. The hypothesis was that
these people's training meant that they could
cliveb;157992 Wrote:
I seem to recall that some years back it was noted that many
professional (classical) musicians in fact owned pretty low-end stereo
systems, and seemed perfectly happy with them. The hypothesis was that
these people's training meant that they could mentally fill in the
Sounds reasonable to me. Still, though, being a guitarist like yourself
(and violinist), I think I'm perhaps more aware of some fine points of
instrument reproduction -- as opposed to audiophile stuff -- AND the
slight business of mic set up, etc., than others. I couldn't say the
same for the
highdudgeon;158105 Wrote:
Sounds reasonable to me. Still, though, being a guitarist like yourself
(and violinist), I think I'm perhaps more aware of some fine points of
instrument reproduction -- as opposed to audiophile stuff -- AND the
slight business of mic set up, etc., than others. I
cliveb;157992 Wrote:
I seem to recall that some years back it was noted that many
professional (classical) musicians in fact owned pretty low-end stereo
systems, and seemed perfectly happy with them. The hypothesis was that
these people's training meant that they could mentally fill in the
Actually, Robert Greene (the reviewer) did this test -- he is an
accomplished violinist -- with himself as the subject playing between a
set of Dali Megalines. The result: uncanny. An observer, including
himself, could barely tell the one from the other.
This just says so much about speakers
highdudgeon;158137 Wrote:
Actually, Robert Greene (the reviewer) did this test -- he is an
accomplished violinist -- with himself as the subject playing between a
set of Dali Megalines. The result: uncanny. An observer, including
himself, could barely tell the one from the other.
This
That's really cool, Tom!
tomjtx;158168 Wrote:
highdudgeon;158137 Wrote:
Actually, Robert Greene (the reviewer) did this test -- he is an
accomplished violinist -- with himself as the subject playing between a
set of Dali Megalines. The result: uncanny. An observer, including
tomsi42;157220 Wrote:
Now, that is a test I can relate to. Unfortunately, the only whiskey I
have at the moment is a cheap Irish one that is barely usable in an
Irish coffee!
What a coincidence, I just got a Jameson for the Irish coffee. I did
not like the Bacardi Gold with my rum cake and
chinablues;157150 Wrote:
The real question is, does the drinking and savouring of 18 year old
double distilled malt whisky versus the common or garden 12 year old,
make a subtle difference to my perception of the sound? It should make
me more mellow I'd assume. Why else would I pay for
SoftwireEngineer;157743 Wrote:
What a coincidence, I just got a Jameson for the Irish coffee. I did not
like the Bacardi Gold with my rum cake and did not like it. So I thought
a few bucks more for the Jameson is worth it. I did not try the stuff
directly. But my sniff test and the irish
rajacat;157808 Wrote:
I suspect that many people couldn't identify the various scotches in
your test. Indeed, the same could be said for the tasting of fine
wines, if fact, many prefer a cheap sweet wine to the best dry
Cabernet's.
It follows that the appreciation of high end audio gear
tomsi42;157804 Wrote:
Lucky Guy ;) If I remember correctly, it is Jameson that is the
recommended Whiskey for Irish Coffee. And it is quite drinkable on its
own as well. My personal favorite Irish whiskey is Bushmills Malt -
straight.
Yes, I got the Jameson as it is the recommended one for
Actually, I'm kind of into wine (it helps that my father-in-law runs a
highly regarded winery) and definitely into single malts. In my
experience, while novices couldn't identify specifically what it was
that they *liked* about a particular drink, they could always pick out
the better one from
highdudgeon;157847 Wrote:
Of course, there is the UC Davis oenology department black cup
test...where in, yes, double-blind tests experienced tasters scored 50%
in distinguishing reds from whites. In another experiment, cheap and
expensive wines were poured into different bottles. In a
Agree there is a lot of sand in the air in Beijing, and doubtless some
gets into my ears. I guess my perspective differs from yours we have
to agree to disagree. But with current flowing at close to the speed of
light in cables (3x 10^8 m/sec) and sound at around 343m/sec (at 20C) I
always come
chinablues;157143 Wrote:
Surface corrosion of copper cables would effectively make the cable
slightly thinner...with the current now flowing in this thinner cable.
This would make little difference until the cable got exceedingly thin.
That's not exactly my point - if the surface is
I guess in terms of the corrosive layer, I was thinking of this as a
much higher resistance layer than the underlying copper. So much so
that the current would preferentially flow in the low resistance
copper, than in the higher resistance outer layer, even given the skin
effect. Also, the gist
chinablues;157150 Wrote:
The real question is, does the drinking and savouring of 18 year old
double distilled malt whisky versus the common or garden 12 year old,
make a subtle difference to my perception of the sound? It should make
me more mellow I'd assume. Why else would I pay for
perhaps its the sand in the ears
--
Jenks
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opaqueice;156682 Wrote:
And don't forget we're talking about, say, a 10-gauge speaker wire
carrying a current of around an amp. Not exactly a major stress.
I don't think we're talking about cables wearing out as such, but there
is degradation due to corrosion and UV light on insulators for
CardinalFang;156895 Wrote:
I don't think we're talking about cables wearing out as such, but there
is degradation due to corrosion and UV light on insulators for example.
The question is, is this a positive or negative effect? If you are
carrying AC power to a motor, it really doesn't matter
chinablues;156618 Wrote:
photon impingement on P-N junctions from outer space
You mean space aliens are making my hi-fi sound worse? Bummer!
--
adamslim
SB3 and Shanling CDT-100, Rotel RT-990BX, Esoteric Audio Research 859,
Living Voice Auditorium IIs, Nordost cables
adamslim;156631 Wrote:
You mean space aliens are making my hi-fi sound worse? Bummer!
Too many years ago, an EE Professor at Strathclyde Univ where I was
studying Electrical Engineering, used to wire himself up to some sort
of electronic counter count the number of photons that would hit him
chinablues;156646 Wrote:
Too many years ago, an EE Professor at Strathclyde Univ where I was
studying Electrical Engineering, used to wire himself up to some sort
of electronic counter count the number of photons that would hit him
as he drank his cuppa.
You sure this was photons? Wouldn't
cliveb;156655 Wrote:
You sure this was photons? Wouldn't there be trillions of them (unless
he drank his cuppa in a darkroom)? If you're talking about particles
from outer space (cosmic rays), it'd be things like muons that you'd
want to count.
Who knows, a lot of water under the bridge (
Break in time is the time that it takes for your brain to replace the
old sound with the new sound as its standard. If you switched back to
your old setup after breaking in the new, you would have to adjust to
that all over again, but you would not think of it as break in.
Switching back to the
chinablues;156618 Wrote:
I am an instrumentation control systems engineer (EE) in the
petrochemical business. We have many electronic systems still working
today that were installed in the 60's 70's when electronics replaced
pneumatic instrumentation. Power supply electrolytic
opaqueice;156682 Wrote:
And don't forget we're talking about, say, a 10-gauge speaker wire
carrying a current of around an amp. Not exactly a major stress.
I find your responses on cables to be quite excellent, marrying as they
do, an element of physics with an elequence of writing. Then
chinablues;156694 Wrote:
I find your responses on cables to be quite excellent, marrying as they
do, an element of physics with an elequence of writing. Then again,
I've never been into the crystalline nature of copper. R, L and C I
can understand. But I'll be the first to admit, my ears
Burn-in and 'break-in' are two entirely separate concepts with respect
to electronic systems. One has an engineering or scientific basis
while the other would appear to me to be marketing hype. As mentioned
in posts above, burn-in is an established procedure for almost any
system, be it
I am not hoping for or expecting anyone to believe in burn in - the
issue is not a religious one. But I hope there is enough here to
caution about making hasty judgements about the sound of any component
- regardless of what it is that burns in. That's all...
--
Jenks
Jenks;152190 Wrote:
I am not hoping for or expecting anyone to believe in burn in - the
issue is not a religious one. But I hope there is enough here to
caution about making hasty judgements about the sound of any component
- regardless of what it is that burns in. That's all...
I don't
You won't believe this one either, but if you disturb any burned in
cable it will go through a very quick version of burn in. The effect is
small but repeatable in tests I have done - removing the cable, coiling
it up, uncoiling it and plugging it back in. I don't profess to
understand it, but
Jenks,
it sounds like you spend quite a lot of time doing experiments with
cables. You may not care about this, but no one (outside the
audiophile world at least) will take your results seriously unless they
are properly controlled - meaning blind and randomized. So it might be
worth trying.
Jenks;151824 Wrote:
You won't believe this one either, but if you disturb any burned in
cable it will go through a very quick version of burn in. The effect is
small but repeatable in tests I have done - removing the cable, coiling
it up, uncoiling it and plugging it back in.
You are
This has been an interesting thread I must say! The more I was reading the for and against arguments, the more I was thinking this was a thread about religion. I'm almost curious how it translates to what the people believe :-) I'd say:
- atheists don't believe in burn-in - no prove!- agnostics
jan van mourik;152114 Wrote:
This has been an interesting thread I must say! The more I was reading
the
for and against arguments, the more I was thinking this was a thread
about
religion. I'm almost curious how it translates to what the people
believe
:-) I'd say:
- atheists don't
tomjtx;152120 Wrote:
Maybe the answer lies in something I saw written on a wall in a
bathroom:
to be is to do , Descarte
to do is to be, Neitche
do be do be do Sinatra
Doh! Homer Simpson
--
Jetlag
OK, here goes again. Brain burn in does not remotely explain it to me.
If I put a new component in place and it sounds hideous and unmusical
for a week or two, how come when I go to an audiophile mate's place and
listen to his (burned in) system it sounds great? How come my brain
doesn't need
opaqueice;151460 Wrote:
Whether something sounds good could depend on what you ate for
breakfast, whether the sun is shining, if the Republicans won the
election, if there is some wax in your left ear it's not about
brain burn in (although there are well-known adpatation effects in
opaqueice;151490 Wrote:
Suppose we put a bunch of audiophiles in a room and played two systems
for them after explaining that one was much better than the other -
because it had fancy cables, power conditioners, a nice amp, or
whatever. We might make the systems look different externally,
tomjtx;151496 Wrote:
Should you qualify the above by saying subtle differences , or somewhat
subtle differences?
Might the question be: At what level of difference does the ear/mind
begin to fail us in distinguishing differences? An extreme example
would be a transistor radio (remember
Jenks;151437 Wrote:
OK, here goes again. Brain burn in does not remotely explain it to me.
If I put a new component in place and it sounds hideous and unmusical
for a week or two, how come when I go to an audiophile mate's place and
listen to his (burned in) system it sounds great? How
opaqueice;151514 Wrote:
I wonder if there's a skill there - probably psychologists would call
it metacognition - of learning to recognize when things really are
there versus when they might be your brain fooling you. If you've ever
messed around with, say, foobar with the ABXY plugin, at
tyler_durden;151519 Wrote:
Human minds are easy to fool- ever see slight-of-hand magic performed?
If it is so easy for someone else to fool us, imagine how much easier
it is to fool ourselves.
Just for my own interest - optical illusions are commonplace, is there
such a thing as an audio
CardinalFang;151522 Wrote:
BTW, this is my faveourite optical illusion - square A *is* the same
colour as square B. You need to download it into a paint package to
verify the colour is the same no matter what your eyes are telling you!
That's a very good one - thanks!
--
opaqueice
CardinalFang;151522 Wrote:
Just for my own interest - optical illusions are commonplace, is there
such a thing as an audio illusion? EDIT yes there is!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audio_illusion
fascinating link, thanks for that
--
tomjtx
CardinalFang;151561 Wrote:
Following the links on Wikipedia led to this short piece from the German
Magazine AUDIO that is very revealing:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/printthread.php?t=676404
Oh - here's the link to a page to help you determine what type of
response to music you
Some great posts and links here, thanks to all.
I'm now looking forward to going to my audio dealer and being given an
audio test before they'll recommend anything!
Ceejay
--
ceejay
ceejay's Profile:
When I said brains burn in, what I meant was that over time you can
become accustomed to almost anythingto the point where it ceases to
be as obvious or intrusive as it was when you first noticed it. The
human brain is fantastically good at adaptive filtering (especially on
sight and sound).
None of your explanations fit my experiences. I don't intend to
document them here because I don't have to prove anything to you. What
I am more interested in is your closed minds. Primarily this is a forum
for people to express their experiences, not a forum for scientific
proof, so won't
tomjtx;151570 Wrote:
I guess this would be a nature versus nurture debate.I would have to agree -
I like a lot of what I grew up listening to -
Motown, 60's pop and glam as well as a lot of acoustic and rock. In
fact I have a bit of everything in my collection, but I do like things
that my
CardinalFang;151561 Wrote:
Following the links on Wikipedia led to this short piece from the German
Magazine AUDIO that is very revealing:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/printthread.php?t=676404
Oh - here's the link to a page to help you determine what type of
response to music you
Totally agree that people hear things differently. The brain is
designed to decode sound to make sense of it - part of both our hunter
and survivor skills - and a lot of that work is done in the time or
phase domian. I do a lot of my experimentation (nearly 100 documented
experiments on
Well yes that's cool...
dielectrics do degrade over time...through oxidation etc
--
Phil Leigh
Phil Leigh's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=85
View this thread:
CardinalFang;151561 Wrote:
Following the links on Wikipedia led to this short piece from the German
Magazine AUDIO that is very revealing:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/printthread.php?t=676404
Oh - here's the link to a page to help you determine what type of
response to music you
so what does it mean when you get 6 of 12 like I just did?
--
EFP
EFP's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=6651
View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=29025
Well yes that's cool...
dielectrics do degrade over time...through oxidation etc
Is that intended to be a put down or did you just misread my post? The
military wanted to degrade the dielectric before use?
Since you are so dogmatic about it Phil, how many controlled
experiments on burn in have
Like it!! Did you need to vomit on the Transporter to get it to sound
better? Sounds more like a soak test than burn in, but certainly novel
and something I have not tried.
--
Jenks
Jenks's Profile:
There will be a double blind test of the stomach flu/TP sound on the
next SouthPark episode
--
tomjtx
tomjtx's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=7449
View this thread:
I am stunned to hear any experienced audiophile say they doubt burn in.
Every time I buy a new component it is more than obvious. Perhaps the
effects are a form of phase distortion some peoples' brains decode
better than others.. The burn in process is not always the same, but I
often find the
Jenks;151197 Wrote:
I am stunned to hear any experienced audiophile say they doubt burn in.
Every time I buy a new component it is more than obvious. Perhaps the
effects are a form of phase distortion some peoples' brains decode
better than others.. The burn in process is not always the
IMHO, some warm up time is necessary for electronic components to be at
their best, and I'm willing to believe (although I havn't seen any
tests) that capacitors may improve in performance slightly with some
use. However, after that they are likely to slowly degrade (especially
electrolytics).
Jenks;151197 Wrote:
I am stunned to hear any experienced audiophile say they doubt burn in.
Every time I buy a new component it is more than obvious. Perhaps the
effects are a form of phase distortion some peoples' brains decode
better than others.. The burn in process is not always the
opaqueice;151350 Wrote:
Look at it this way - we know a tremendous amount about cables. (FYI
there is no such thing as a dialectric - if you mean dielectric, that
is the opposite of a conductor, and if it formed in your interconnects
or speaker cables it would have a rather drastic and
opaqueice;151350 Wrote:
Look at it this way - we know a tremendous amount about cables. (FYI
there is no such thing as a dialectric - if you mean dielectric, that
is the opposite of a conductor, and if it formed in your interconnects
or speaker cables it would have a rather drastic and
Jenks;151197 Wrote:
I am stunned to hear any experienced audiophile say they doubt burn in.
I'm not at all convinced about burn-in for cables, but I do accept that
they will degrade/change over time as oxydation and corrosion set in.
The surface changes may have some effect on the electrical
CardinalFang;151379 Wrote:
Burn-in is the brain acclimatising to the new sound in my view, but
hey, it's just a viewpoint.
IMHO it's right on the money, Monsieur Fang. We'd just love to trash a
couple of hundred years of well-researched science wouldn't we ;o)
Anyone who has actually
P Floding;151366 Wrote:
What do you mean by dielectric forming?
It is there, all right.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dielectric
I don't understand your post. Are you asking me a question? I was
quoting Jenks:
Jenks Wrote:
...
I think the main reason is dialectrics in cables and
Just be certain that you have a very clear understanding of what is
meant by the term Burn-in.
This is what happened to my new Stewart Firehawk screen back when I was
a HT n00b and attempted my first screen burn-in.
Ooops!
+---+
PhilNYC;149894 Wrote:
I thought out of the box, the Transporter had more detail, soundstage,
imaging, et al than the DAC2, but that the DAC2 overall was more
musical. But it definitely changed over time, and after about 2 weeks,
I found the Transporter to be much much better...
It took
hirsch;151070 Wrote:
It took about 72 hours of constant play before the Transporter got to a
level of detail and musicality that I liked, and may not be all the way
there yet. However, as the Transporter has burned in, I've become
seriously impressed with the sound, which just wasn't there
Pale Blue Ego;149788 Wrote:
(actually, the ultimate burn-in music has to be Muslimgauze. If your
system can survive that without shredding or melting, you're good to
go. Maybe I'll see if I can peel the titanium off the new tweeters
with a few well-chosen tracks)
I guess you've not met
I remember burning in my new IC, and that went thought some changes, one
evening I had to turn it down as it sounded terible all scritchy top,
not a lot of bottom - it almost went back to the shop! After a couple
of days it filled lowered and smoothed - lovely - but it did have me
worried for a
hirsch;149804 Wrote:
At this stage of things, I'd rate the Transporter as a better sound than
my Ack! dAck!, but not up to the Bel Canto DAC2 yet. Nowhere close to
any of my other sources (VPI Scoutmaster, Ariston RD11s, Meridian G08,
Exemplar Denon 2900, Wadia 301). However, it's still
someone mentioned burn-in and satellites?
you might find this interesting...I did:
http://lhc-workshop-2005.web.cern.ch/lhc-workshop-2005/PlenarySessions/4-Stokstad.pdf
These circuits have to be completely stable for 10 years! (after
burn-in) - of course it helps (I think) that they are sitting
Mark Lanctot;149625 Wrote:
I see what you mean about amps - one day I'd like to go for Bryston
amps, and they do adhere to the burn-in idea:
http://www.bryston.ca/14bsst_m.html
At least they admit it's for weeding out failures, which I agree is
useful. As to maturing components, ?
OK, does this question belong in audio la la land?
--
tomjtx
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Which is more likely to be breaking-in, the device or your mind? My
money is on YOU.
TD
--
tyler_durden
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tyler_durden;149611 Wrote:
Which is more likely to be breaking-in, the device or your mind? My
money is on YOU.
TD
That is a good point, and one of the reasons I like the sanity of this
forum.
There is a break in time for fine classical guitars and spruce tops
take much longer than cedar
tomjtx;149614 Wrote:
An electronic component ,cold, out of the box seems to change within
the 1st hour.
Some claim that it will change in the 1st several 100 hours.
Is there science behind that belief or only subjective and highly
susceptible opinion?
While IANAEE, I seriously doubt any
tomjtx wrote:
tyler_durden;149611 Wrote:
Which is more likely to be breaking-in, the device or your mind?
My money is on YOU.
There is a break in time for fine classical guitars and spruce tops
take much longer than cedar tops to break inat least a year or
more. Speakers also clearly
opaqueice;149617 Wrote:
In fact if break-in existed it would be well known to researchers - in
physics people all the time build *extremely* sensitive electronic
devices, and if these changed over time it would screw up tons of
measurements.
Exactly - think how expensive and critical a
Pat Farrell;149621 Wrote:
That a solid state
amplifier would sound significantly better after 100 hours of
operation
is hard for me to believe from an engineering view. And if it was
real,
an audiophile would reasonably expect that the manufacturer make 100
hours of playing music be part
Mark Lanctot wrote:
I see what you mean about amps - one day I'd like to go for Bryston
amps, and they do adhere to the burn-in idea:
I don't have a Bryston, the closest I got was that I considered one
before I bought my Classe
At least they admit it's for weeding out failures, which I agree
What about initial warmup of electronics? eg. amp , transporter etc are
disconnected from the outlet. If one perceives a hardness to the
sound for the 1st several minutes , 10 minutes or 30 minutes is there a
scientific explanation for this or do most of you think this is
psychological?
BTW, I
I didn't pay close attention to the exact amount of time, but I found my
Transporter did change after a week or two of time (about 18 hours per
day). Am pretty sure it wasn't my imagination, because every couple of
days I would do an A/B with my Oracle/Dodson setup as a reference point
for
tomjtx;149614 Wrote:
There is a break in time for fine classical guitars and spruce tops take
much longer than cedar tops to break inat least a year or more.
I thought I smelled a fellow guitar geek! :)
Nothing like that period of time when the top on a new guitar starts to
open up.
But
byKnight;149673 Wrote:
But if you perceive a change in how the audio being pumped out of your
Transporter sounds, the difference is much, much, much more likely to
be ocurring in one or more of the following:
1. Your ears
2. Your brain
3. Your room
How about measureable changes in
azinck3;149697 Wrote:
Just wanted to applaud your attitude towards the criticism -- I thought
this thread might go downhill quickly when I saw the first few
responses...
As for the issue at hand: I must say that based on my own experience
and my amateur knowledge of electrical
PhilNYC;149691 Wrote:
How about measureable changes in capacitors? Or measureable changes in
the oscillator clocks?
What about them? I'm talking about what's audible.
--
byKnight
Really, it was like that when I got here.
Not sure about burn-in time for amps. But I had a Pioneer Amp that
sounded dull and unengaging when just turned on, improving after one or
two hours. I noticed this every day when coming home from work. Leaving
the amp on and it was OK (ish).
Not sure why, but I favourite hypothesis is that it
azinck3;149713 Wrote:
Indeed...it would seem as though electronics should only drift further
out of spec over time (not talking about the initial warm-up/charge-up
time as things reach operating temperature/status).
Agreed - My Marshall sounds much better after 10 mins of valve
warming!
Very informative responses, thanks all
--
tomjtx
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byKnight;149705 Wrote:
What about them? I'm talking about what's audible.
.
I am afraid the term 'audible' is relative, Sir.
My SB3's digital out changed over a period of time. I thought it was
the linear power supply that I added that made the difference. I did an
A/B with the included
SoftwireEngineer;149739 Wrote:
I am afraid the term 'audible' is relative, Sir.
My SB3's digital out changed over a period of time. I thought it was
the linear power supply that I added that made the difference. I did an
A/B with the included power supply, the difference with the linear
New active crossover boards always sound like hell to me, and get better
over about a minute.
--
mazurek
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Phil Leigh;149742 Wrote:
I find it odd that nothing ever sounds worse after time...
I've found some components to get worse before they get better during
their burn-in period, particularly balanced amps. I generally assume
that amp designers/manufacturers do most of their testing after the
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