CD Player - burn in

I have heard it mentioned that the Naim CD5i & Rega Saturn benefit from a ' burn in period '.

Has anyone who have used these units experienced this for themselves. Did they sound better after a period of use or is this just not true ?.

 

recently on another forum there was a guy who claimed 400-500 hours burn in for a cd player

 

Its bollox I'm afraid.

For starters both companies soak test at the factory, so your shiny new machine has already had many hours use.

Some amplifiers benefit from warmup but that's 10-15 minutes max to allow the currents in the output stage to settle. Even this can be avoided though, and shows dated design IMO.

This is another one of those things you really shouldn't worry about.
If your system isn't sounding great within a few minutes of switch-on, it is a poor system and you should replace it with something that works properly.

FWIW I have used a CD5i.

 

Nine months for a Naim DAC over at you know where!


However do they design these things?

 

Without recourse to the laws of physics.

 

There is a case for arguing that anything with moving parts needs time and operating cyles to guarantee smooth operation and eliminate that portion of any equipment that will fail in early life. I would also argue that some electronics components, especially electrolytic capacitors benefit from being used, and can deteriorate with lack of use. That might eliminate the benefits of soak testing, especially if sat in stock rooms for months. I also personally experienced some changes in behaviour over a period of time attributed to components used in a modified DVD player using an unmodded one as a reference.

If you accept the principle of running in/burning in etc then consider that 200 hours is around 8 days, well within the period most places will take kit back without argument (return policies accepted) so IMO it doesn't hurt to do that before doing any critical listening and forming any sort of judgement.

 

I would have said that its all a load of rubbish, and it works as it should within a few minutes or it does not. Then I bought a saturn, and I was really surprised at how the sound changed over a few days use. It's a while ago now, I therefore can not remember all the bits, but it appeared to fill out in terms of sound stage and tone. I may have imagined it but I dont think so.

I don't leave it, or anything else, switched on when not in use, and would say that from cold at switch on within a album track or so everything sounds as it should, but something changed from new out of the box.
________
Problems with nexium

 

there's hell of a difference from a few days to 500 hours
leave it on repeat for 21 days at 24/7 ?

 

I don't know about timing 'burn in', but the strongest examples of it I have heard have been the two occasions when I bought new Beresford DACs - I did actually leave them on repeat 24/7 for a week - both with a CD player & a Sky+ box. The changes were very pronounced (& therefore very surprising) indeed.

 

there are far to many examples expressed by people who are genuine for it to be "bolox" as suggested ....


let just look at one component the humble capacitor ....anyone who has ever used a blackgate has experienced the fact that the first time this is powered up the perceived performance is not as good as the hundredth .....

are you saying that if you have a new engine that its performance is the same at zero miles as it is at 10,000 ....commonly refereed to as the run in period ? why should another mechanical device be any different.

This also suggested that you don't think that a warm up period exist either as often one is associated fairly closely with the other.

That said some gear seems more prone to the effect than others ......another aspect of course is that some people seem unable/unwilling hear small nuances ie cables , burn in warm up etc

the fact they can't doesn't mean they don't exist it just means they can't hear them .....

there is no right or wrong position ....but I'd suggest a blanket "bollox" is at best short sighted

of course this is only my opinion of my own experience ......and in the case of warm up, its something I experienced each time I turn my gear on ....

for the record .....things that have required a burn in period ...

mfa10
ruark broadswords
martin logan aerius i's [six months]
philips cdp [circa '83]
arcam alpha cdp
most cables [from minutes to several days ]

not requiring burn in ....[or burnt in before delivery ?]
quad 66 cdp
quad 77 cdp
quad 99 cdp
quad 909
opera consonance cyber 800 mono power amps
and to prove the exception to the rule a vaxhall meriva replacment reconditioned /rebuilt engine ...to replace one that could not breath under water !


I would suggest though that if your gear is not sound right after a week's constant use ...a quick call to the maker might be a good idea as theres likely to be fault issue .

 

Speakers run in the surrounds continue to soften over their lifetime, the fibres in the spiders breakdown slowly but surely in a very controlled fashion.

Optics and motors in cd players wear out with. They are heading towards failure from day one just like your car is. Cars do t run in, they just start wearing out like anything else does.

Capacitors likewise have finite lifespan and are getting worse from day one. There's a lot myth behind blackgate caps but no measurement to prove any change In function.

Gear warms up, no doubt about that, but you would think if there was an improved state, that electronics could reach it would be a well known science fact and not just Hifi fiction

 

I can take the same amplifier board and put a 30va power supply on it and it will be up in a couple of hours. I can fit a 300va power supply and it will take days to come up to full potential. I can split the board and power the stages seperately with mulitple large supplies and it will take weeks to reach full potential - same board!

The effect also is not linear, it is logarithmic with most benefit in the first hour and lessening over time. To the point I have come to the conclusion that it is still happening in the small amps but at a level of resolution where it is no longer audible as the improvement is not large enough.

I did this as a deliberate experiment in the late 80's to establish for my own benefit as to why this happens, and Zanazh is right a lot is in the caps, but bizarrely I then kept the same caps and even just increasing transformer va showed the effect, in fact more than anything else, and torroids far more than frames.

AND for the loony specers, no there was no change in any measurement during that time.

 

I assume you meant 'cars do not run in'. If so, you are kind of at odds with pretty much every automotive engineer around. Of course, there's every likelihood that they are 100% wrong. I mean, you can't expect someone who spends their working life working with car engines to have the same level of understanding as some guy on a forum, can you?

Running in a car has become less important as cars have become better designed. It hasn't gone away.

 

Performance, economy and reliability of a car is lower at the start of its life. However with a modern car the need to be gentle is much reduced so the process of running in is no longer generally observed.

 

Many billions of people believe in God but that doesn't prove he's sitting up there on his cloud.

 

I know some CDP's cost the same or are more expensive than some cars

so correct me if I'm wrong but

Cars are different to a CD player ... yes ... no ?

 

Definitely. I've seen the Fs on a SEAS driver fall by 10hz after extended drive.

The electronic circuits inside a CD player are a different question entirely. Some audiophiles want to hear differences that the great unwashed seemingly cannot.

 

Oi--I'm unwashed most days, (phoar). and still heard it..

 

LOL - the fact remains most listeners give this stuff the attention it deserves.

 

Actually, it's mostly the great unwashed that observe and report the effect of warm-up or break-in. It's the objectivists that refuse to hear it since it doesn't fit in with scientific expectation.

I believe the effect exists in the realm of possibilty. Otherwise, Pluto didn't exist prior to its discovery on that magical day in 1930 when it suddenly "poofed" into existence only because it was documented with accepted scientific methodology. By the same token, if you only believe in what science can currently measure, I suppose life elsewhere in the universe is impossible since we've found no direct evidence until it "poofs" into our existence....unless you consider the realm of possibility.