Breaking in new effects &/or capacitors - real or mojo vapor?

[ayayay!]

Caps that are too fresh to be "ready", or whose chemical properties can change with heat, makes perfect sense to me.  A distortion pedal that must be played for a certain period of time to attain its character does not.  Ultimately, one is looking for an effect or change that is replicable and predictable.  One also needs to distinguish between incomplete or mistaken interpretations of a real phenomenon that might inadvertently suggest mojo, and mojo explanations of a non-real but perceived phenomenon.

+1! 

[aron]

>However, if you take the same cap and slowly increase the voltage, it can eventually return to full functionality.  It has something to do with the electrolyte being re-polarized.  If you try to do it too fast, bad things can happen.

I remember reading about forming caps and I used to be concerned about it when I fooled around with amps. Of course I also read about polarity of caps, types of caps, etc..... So many things, but my Sencore does have a reform function so reforming must be something to take into consideration.

I would suspect taking new caps and "reforming" them  while measuring capacitance could show some insight.

[flo]

So what is the following about, BS or something interesting:
Boot Camp for Capacitors-in-Training
http://www.geocities.com/rjm003.geo/rjmaudio/diy_rack.html

[frank_p]

Some say we even have to break-in our cables ! 
http://www.morrowaudio.com/breakin.htm

I need homeworks to fully understand caps:
http://web.archive.org/web/20030807122631/http://capacitors.com/picking_capacitors/pickcap.htm

Do we need an electrochemist to answer our questions?
http://electrochem.cwru.edu/ed/dict.htm

[earthtonesaudio]

Some say we even have to break-in our cables ! 
http://www.morrowaudio.com/breakin.htm

I must say, anyone who will listen-test an audio cable for 400 hours is certifiable in my book.



With regard to break-in time to form the electrolyte in guitar effect capacitors, there's a quick experiment you can do (that won't require 400 hours of listening to white noise while staring at a capacitance meter).

On the breadboard, build yourself a nice and simple guitar effect, maybe a Fuzz Face or a LPB.  Supply power with a 9V battery.  Put on a 100uF, 16V polarized electrolytic capacitor between +9V and ground (NOT tantalum).

Apply power, and play the intro to "Stairway to Heaven."

With power still connected, take the 100uF cap out and put it back in, but backwards (connect + to ground, - to the positive voltage supply).

Play a couple notes...

Then turn the cap back around to the correct way.  If your caps are anything like mine (16-50V aluminum electrolytic) you will notice that turning around the power supply cap causes nifty little pops and crescendos of noise.  It seems to me that you can hear the electrolyte re-forming when you put it back on the right way.

-I could just be convincing myself that this is what it is, and maybe it's just the cap charging and discharging... but I do notice that larger value caps take longer to do their thing.

P.S. Do NOT try this with a tantalum cap.  It will explode and possibly cause damage to eyes and things.  Not to mention scare the crap out of you.

[R.G.]

I can't count the number of times I've typed in what happens with electrolytic caps when they're formed left un-polarized and aging on the shelf, drying out from use and reformed.

Here's the bottom line: anything that can be shown by repeatable third-party measurements to change a little under use will show a "breaking in" behaviour. Anything that cannot be shown by repeatable third-party measurements to do such an initial change does not and cannot have a break-in effect.

Do speakers break in? Absolutely - and measurably! - yes.

Do tires break in? Do guitar strings? Do guitars? Yes. One can concoct a measurement setup which will measure the changes as these things get used.

Do resistors break in? Not if they're properly made. Do resistors AGE? Measurably, yes. Is aging "breaking in"? Only if you're selling wine or boutique effects.

Do electrolytic capacitors break in?
(1) if they're just off the manufacturer's line, maybe. They're formed up to their max withstand voltage plus the surge voltage. The capacitance is therefore lower and the ESR is lower from good conditions in the electrolyte.
(2) If they've been on a shelf for a few years, maybe and maybe not. The oxide thins on the shelf and if this happens to match the sustaining level that YOUR circuit holds the oxide at through the working life, no. If it's not quite the same, maybe, because the oxide thins or forms thicker under use.

In all cases what is changing is the capacitance and the ESR. It's not because the electricity is wearing grooves in the plates or flexing the insulators like breaking in a baseball glove, it's that an electrochemical device is adjusting to its working conditions.

"Breaking in" is a great concept to sell something for high prices to uninformed people. Sometimes it can even be true.

As an intelligent enthusiast in an technical vein, whenever ANYBODY tells you ANYTHING that does not correspond to the simple theoretical model of how things work, your response should be "Kewl! So can you tell/show/demonstrate/provide lab reports/etc. to show me how that works? I'd really like to learn about that phenomena and what's really going and being broken in/improved/aged/etc." To the extent that they cannot tell you that, and more especially if they say that it's a secret, you can write the phenomena off as interesting if true, but probably just advertising. It is possible, and these are the sad cases, that the semi-technical person preaching this may believe it without having the basis to prove it to themselves.

[frank_p]

OK for electrolytics caps, but the other kind of caps do they get "stiff" and "old" (to use non measurable and wrong metaphoric laguage).  Do they get "adjusted by their working condition" if they workout and do some "pushups"?
I mean do they deteriarate with shelf life and then can be reconditionned after?

[ayayay!]

As an intelligent enthusiast in an technical vein, whenever ANYBODY tells you ANYTHING that does not correspond to the simple theoretical model of how things work, your response should be "Kewl! So can you tell/show/demonstrate/provide lab reports/etc. to show me how that works? I'd really like to learn about that phenomena and what's really going and being broken in/improved/aged/etc." To the extent that they cannot tell you that, and more especially if they say that it's a secret, you can write the phenomena off as interesting if true, but probably just advertising. It is possible, and these are the sad cases, that the semi-technical person preaching this may believe it without having the basis to prove it to themselves.

Exactly R. G.!  You write more eloquently than I.  In all my ramblings above, I could have summed it up best as this:  Prove it with bona-fide audible results!

[frank_p]

Exactly R. G.!  You write more eloquently than I.  In all my ramblings above, I could have summed it up best as this:  Prove it with bona-fide audible results!

Scientific you mean ?

[ayayay!]

Exactly R. G.!  You write more eloquently than I.  In all my ramblings above, I could have summed it up best as this:  Prove it with bona-fide audible results!


Scientific you mean ?

No, I mean audible.  Scientific proof is easy, and I doubt anyone here would dispute that.  It's like I can prove my car tires have contracted by .0000001 times Pi if the air temperature has dropped 1 degree with the proper whosakawhatziz-o-meter, but who cares?  Performance wise if I can't tell the difference, then there isn't one.  Hell, we all wake up 1/4 inch taller each day than when we go to sleep, but does that mean my shoes need to re-break in every day? 

Again, the comment that gets me is that they "sound best" after X amount of hours, where X is an undefined variable, with an impossibly immeasurable amount of subvariables, which are all prone to what we do or don't like to hear.  It's too subjective.  How can someone bank on breaking in will make it sound better, when there is a 50% chance it could actually make it sound worse?  Think about it.   

[Mark Hammer]

Ah, the difference between a statistically reliable outcome and a meaningful outcome.

[ayayay!]

Ah, the difference between a statistically reliable outcome and a meaningful outcome.

Hahaha!  Yes, that's right.     

[BubbaKahuna]

I'd think the variance from one component to the next would be greater than the change in one from 'breaking in' would ever be.
Caps are commonly in a 20% value range from spec, resistors usually less.

I wouldn't think using it for a few hours would line everything up one way or the other more than 20% from spec.
If it does alter the component but less than what's normal variance that everyone accepts as normal, what's the point?
And more importanatly, what's the hurry? Can't waste all the time to 'break in' your own stombox?


Take your new BooTeekStompy out of the box, plug your ipod into it and let it run over night.
There you go Buck-a-roony - it's 'broken in'. 

[R.G.]

Ah, the difference between a statistically reliable outcome and a meaningful outcome.

You guys are making too hard on the marketeers... 

I was trying to un-earn my old lab nickname (Sweet Old Bob, or just the initials for short) by letting Purveyors of Fine Mojo off with just showing a reliably measurable difference to instrument, going along with the idea that if there is a real, measurable difference, the human ear, aided by the currently-unmatched signal processing in the brain, could be reasonably assumed to be able to find a difference if there really is one.

As you point out, meaningful results are much more stringent than measurable or reliable results.

We used to have a standing joke done in a thousand different ways about how final system test for our high end multiprocessor systems consisted of ... weighing... them to ensure that they all weighed the right amount. 

[frank_p]

So these are the steps:
The sound.
Audible results.
Statistical reliable outcome.
Meaningful outcome.
Meaningful outcoume out of statistical reliable results.
Semantics of math models.
Replication of scientific method results, by a hearing third party that understand the meaningful audible matter without words and numbers ?
The oneness of the heard matter and the one who hear ?
The incommunicability of True-Knowledge-of-Sound ?
Eternal life of capacitors in the electrical AC karma cycle.
Sudden Illumination when you connect the cap. in the "wrong" way.
Are we getting into metaphysics ?

[Ed G.]

I'm not sold on any of this 'breaking-in' business, but I'll tell you what I believe:
I believe that if Dave Barber says it, he believes it. I don't think he would say anything he didn't believe just to sell a pedal.
While tinkering around with a breadboard, I've fooled my ears before, thinking I changed a component and expecting to hear a change, guess what? I heard a change. Then I look at the breadboard, and what did I have? The unchanged component.
And maybe I did hear a change because I stood up then sat back down maybe a few inches from where I was sitting before, and maybe my head was turned at a different angle. Sound is so directional.

[frank_p]

Do you think that he use NOS electrolytics and that is why you have to "break" it ?

[jonathansuhr]

Hell, we all wake up 1/4 inch taller each day than when we go to sleep

Oh geez, I certainly don't..   

[frank_p]

Hell, we all wake up 1/4 inch taller each day than when we go to sleep

Oh geez, I certainly don't..   

Well,I wake-up 1/4in shorter in vintage electronics...

[frank_p]

OK for electrolytics caps, but the other kind of caps do they get "stiff" and "old" (to use non measurable and wrong metaphoric laguage).  Do they get "adjusted by their working condition" if they workout and do some "pushups"?
I mean do they deteriarate with shelf life and then can be reconditionned after?

Thanks Amulancevoice, now I understand !

http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/Flux_Capacitor

Talk about a reliable and meaningful source.