Hi-fi existed before the digital age. I recall a friend who digitally re-mastered a Roy Buchanan album. Claimed to have gotten all of the "noise" out of it and couldn't wait to play it for us. Well, anyone who had followed Roy Buchanan, would have noticed the "noise" that was filtered out, was Roy's signature sound, with some rather crude treatments he used to inflict on his amplifiers. It was like the elevator music equivalent of Roy when he got done with his butcher job. lol
The lengths people will go to in which to fix, what is likely a path of too much fix'n in the first place just blows my mind.
If someone is hearing audible improvements with "burn-in," and cabling, I cannot imagine a cure, other than prescribing either a long (a decade should do) hiatus from audio entirely, or, force yourself to live with some really crappy speakers for a year and then start over.
