In the Stereophile K50 review Mark stated the K50 requires 2 months for break-in. However, total hours were not specified.
How many hours have you determined are required before the K50 opened up, settled in and stopped changing sonically?
Approximately 200 hours
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I am burning in a new K50. I have it set to play music on repeat from the locally stored music on its SSDs. We are just over three weeks (500hrs) into that process and it is beginning to change but is not yet there compared to a 6 month old K50 that I have set next to it. For me it is not so much an ‘opening up’ process and is more like what I experienced with my Sean Jacobs ARC6 power supply for the Dave where it initially sounded strident then calmed down into a lovely smooth and detailed sound.
I’m 2 weeks into burn in on the K30 and I’ve noticed the highs are becoming more defined. Could also be brain 
. 
I’ve also found that once a week it is beneficial to put all devices in standby and remove the supply cords (mscaler, tt2, not K30). Then reinsert and reboot. Opens up the sound.
The new K50 has now been running and processing music since 23 Dec. That is about 650 hrs. It is still a bit strident compared with the well run in 6 month old K50 sat next to it but it continues to get better. In particular the BNC output is coming on nicely (this is into an Mscaler + ARC6 Dave and playing Squeeze/Squeezelite - no Roon!). I wonder if BNC will end up being my favourite output on this one. Last night it was beating the USB and Optical outputs.
There is still a way to go but the change in the sound so far has been significant. Patience is a virtue and will reward those who wait, as they say.
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So, 3x longer than the 200 hrs Mark stated earlier in the thread.
I’m a firm believer in component break-in, having experienced it many times, but at some point I also believe there’s an aspect of a listener becoming accustomed to a unit’s presentation.
I will be interested to read your comments to come, and hopefully the stridency disappears.
Are you able to compare AES vs spdif?
1.) That is the advantage of having something sat next to it to act as a measure as to how things are progressing.
2.) There is no AES input on the Mscaler but I will try the AES input on the Dave so I will compare AES vs BNC vs optical vs USB direct to the Dave. I am at a possible disadvantage with AES in that I only have Oyaide FTVS-910 AES cables to try but I do have 0.6m, 1m and 1.5m if that makes any difference.
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Oyaide FTVS-910 is a very good silver cable. I’m also using a silver AES cable (Harmonic Tech Magic Digital UP-OCC Silver). My understanding is length of an AES cable does not matter, unlike spdif, which is optimal at 1.5 meter.
Yes the Oyaide is good quality. I was really just saying I don’t have any other options to try.
My experience is that the 1.5m length with BNC spdif is almost verging on an old wives tale in terms of having any real world effect (I manufacture the WAVE High Fidelity BNC cables and they are all 1m with zero advantage of going to 1.5m).
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Steve Nugent published a good article on this topic.
Given the option, I use 1.5m spdif. I’m unaware of a downside if cost isn’t prohibitive.
I understand why you say you may be at a disadvantage with the Oyaide AES cable since it doesn’t (presumably) have the same build, i.e. ferrites, as your WAVE spdif cable. Apples-to-oranges.