Home Theater Hacks

Hack #25. The Mythical Burn-In Period

Running your components and cables for some arbitrary length of time when they are first purchased isn't helpful, but letting them power on and sit for a few minutes before watching movies or performing calibration is.

With even simple home theater systems now needing universal remotes [Hack #84] and calibration to perform well, a lot of well-meaning folks have passed around some home theater myths, or at best, misunderstandings. One of these is that you need to burn-in your equipment. Burn-in is a term used to refer to running your gear for some arbitrary length of time, usually several hours, to help it perform properly. You'll most commonly hear about burn-in when talking about speakers, which often can benefit from this sort of treatment.

Warm Your Components Up, Don't Burn Them In

Some well-intentioned folks have taken this idea and applied it to audio and video cables (discussed next), as well as audio components. In the case of cables, this is just an outright misunderstanding of electronics; in the case of components, it's more likely a misunderstanding; a confusion between burn-in and warm-up. Warming up a component is just what it sounds like—turning on a piece of equipment and letting it run for a while. Electronics need warm-up time, not burn-in time. Most modern electronics warm up in 1 to 5 minutes. In this time picture tubes and lamps begin to operate consistently, transistors perform as they should, and your system generally ...