Everyone is entitled to their stupid opinion

My 6/05 Infinity Primus 360 pair continue to teach me things about Music and my ears. Perhaps they are learning a few things, as well. Perhaps not. Comfort and Joy: maybe I can't really understand them, but, that is OK ...

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If there is one subject that causes cries of derision from mainstream journalists, it is loudspeaker break-in, whereby audiophiles reports changes in a speaker's sound quality from new, reaching a plateau after what may as few as a couple of hours of playing music to over 100 hours.

When I was preparing Paul Messenger's report on this subject in the November issue (p.18), in which French researchers offer a mechanism for speaker break-in, therefore, I expected to receive a lot of feedback.

I haven't heard from anyone! So, do you all find speaker break-in to be real?

John Atkinson
Editor, Stereophile

Proposing a reasonable/possible mechanism is far from proving the mechanism is responsible for the observations which, imho, are unproven.

Kal

I have been using the same speakers for well over 7 years and thousands of hours and so I don't have a recent reference point and wouldn't have known to even attempt to distinguish a break-in period back then.

Where most people might be skeptical by default of these sorts of claims, I am almost the polar opposite and would lean toward believing the claim by default. (Anyone want to sell me some ocean front property in Arizona?)

I read the article you are referring to and found it entirely believable with regard to the elasticity of the rubber surrounds and the training or breaking-in of the movement requirements. I also believe that there are real things happening with the terminations and the binging posts that take time to mesh.

So, how do you prove all this? You can't prove to somebody that something sounds different without a way of measuring what has changed. In this instance, the change is at least measurable. Whether or not it is audible might take a highly trained ear listening to a particular speaker for a very, very long time. Even then, a lot of variables on that ear will be occuring as well.

I recall reading about such a study conducted by Paul S. Barton of PSB Loudspeakers. He found measureable differences but could not detect audible differences in blind tests. Perhaps we can ask Paul for a report.

Kal

No, what's unbelieveable is cable break-in. Speaker break-in makes sense.

I think it is way past time that cable break-in skepticism should be put to rest. It makes a huge difference. Once properly cooked, cables can become your tone controls. Yes, i'm saying they can make that much difference.

Dismiss this truism at your own expense.

When I first listened to my Infinity kappa-400 Loudspeakers at home I thought I had made a huge mistake. It took probably over 50 hours of playing Chicago and the like at moderately loud levels to make the music enjoyable. I did not think the tweeter would ever break-in.Now I would not trade them for anything I have heard. I don,t know about measurements, but the ears sure discern the difference. Perhaps we cannot fully measure what we hear.

The break-in on my speakers was very very real.

By the way, I think it's great that the editor takes the time to communicate with the readers on the forum.

Since my last post, I received a pair of MB Quart QLC 304 CC and piled them on top of the Primus. This morning they are much better than yesterday. Must be the barometric pressure or something ... these speakers are labelled Made in Germany. Even the shipping cartons were labelled Made in Germany. Sound very good, so far

My point was not that there is no such thing as cable break-in. It was that it doesn't seem logical. It's more logical that speakers have a break-in period since they involve a moving cone.

Which begs the questions, do horn speakers have to be broken-in? Electrostats?

Hi Folks,

Interesting thread! I'm joining a bit late, so permit me to comment going back to the original post.

1.) "Do you find speaker break-in to be real?" Absolutely. I've been designing speakers for about three decades, the last decade of which has been for one of the world's largest loudspeaker manufacturers. We have mountains of data that prove its existence. In fact, when I saw Paul Messenger's article, my first thought was, "hey - we knew about this stuff more than 30 years ago!" If you were to raise the question of the veracity of speaker break-in with a mechanical engineer or a materials scientist, you would be answered in the affirmative with just as much conviction as if you were to ask whether the sky is blue.

2.) Kal raises a very valid point. We know transducer break-in is very real, and we can measure/quantify it, but does it result in verifiable, statistically-significant changes in perceived sonic performance? Within our company, we have in fact proven it with double-blind tests with certain transducers, in certain systems, and with certain program material. So the general answer is "yes," but we must qualify that answer with "but audibility in any given circumstance is subject to a very wide variety of factors."

3.) Anonymous raised some helpful questions.

a.) "Do loudspeaker designers keep around a pile of matched broken-in drivers?" Yes, we do, and we measure/test them under controlled conditions of temperature and humidity - even so much as to track the time derivatives of these metrics in the few hours leading up to measurement/testing.

b.) "Do they do their cabinet calculations... based on these changes [paraphrased]?" Yes, of course.

c.) "After a driver breaks in, how long until its characteristics change to a point [of relative stasis]?" The changes tend to be logarithmic over time, and so are characterizable by a time constant, or - as in the case of spider break-in - actually two dominant time constants that reflect different dominant break-in mechanisms. So yes, factors characterizable by linear, first-order ODE's or PDE's are at root.

d.) "How many hours of break-in are used [paraphrase]?" It depends on the source material and the extent of life-test acceleration used in the test. These are all based on statistics and known/presumed break-in behavior over time.

Best,

MAP

I certainly do think speakers tend to improve with age - up to a point. Over forty years, I've never had a pair that didn't. Apparently, so do the folks at Sonus Faber - the makers of my current speakers. Following is a direct quotation from their owners manual. "Sound will improve with age thanks to proper running in of the moving parts (diaphragms, suspensions) and the acoustic chamber will respond better and better the more it is used: just the same principles as apply to stringed instruments."

The only problem I have is that as my speakers, cables, etc. age, so do my ears. I'm sure my ears aren't getting better.

My ears are not getting better, just happier

Hi Folks,

I presume I can write here at a higher engineering level than at other fora. With this in mind, it's interesting to consider the nearly universal belief that speakers improve as they break-in. In the LF limit of the system's bandwidth, this should be true, since break-in relates almost exclusively to how the suspension's compliance (more precisely, Cms(x), where x is displacement) changes as the suspension is exercised over time. Unless the speaker's design is actively adaptive, the designer must design the enclosure based on a stationary set of parameters that represent a linear approximation of the speaker's behavior. And since the designer will, or at least should, optimize the enclosure design around the driver's broken-in state, then by definition, LF system performance should improve over time as the driver breaks-in.

But there are other factors to consider. First, Cms(x) becomes more non-linear as the driver breaks in, and second, the overall mechanical lossiness of the driver's soft parts declines with break-in as well. The primary result of the first phenomenon is an increase in large-signal distortion, and the primary result of the second is an increase of frequency-response roughness in the driver's breakup region, which applies in both the small and large-signal domains.

Both of these latter factors portend a decrease in speaker performance with break-in which is rarely cited in the literature.

On edit: the increase in frequency-response roughness (associated with the reduction of dampening and therefore the increase of Q of the various resonant modes that characterize breakup,) is usually most readily seen in primary breakup, where the node of this mode is located radially at or very close to the cone OD/surround ID junction. At this point, there is a concentration of bending stress in a radial cross-sectional sense, which is most likely to exceed the material's linear stress/strain range with a large-signal excitation. If we therefore enter the material's plastic range, or certainly if we exceed the material's yield strength at the outer bounding surfaces, then we are very likely to see a permanent reduction in overall stiffness as well as overall loss factor in this area. The results are a.) primary breakup translates to a lower frequency, and b.) the Q of that resonance increases. With one speaker, we typically see a 6dB (!) increase in the amplitude variation of far-field SPL going through primary breakup, after the transducer is run-in.

Best,

Mark

This seems reasonable, though I think in absolute terms, any perceived degredation in the lower bandwidth is probably perceptively offset by increased performance from the remaining electro-mechanical devices that benefit from continual current flow.

Quote:
If there is one subject that causes cries of derision from mainstream journalists, it is loudspeaker break-in, whereby audiophiles reports changes in a speaker's sound quality from new, reaching a plateau after what may as few as a couple of hours of playing music to over 100 hours.

When I was preparing Paul Messenger's report on this subject in the November issue (p.18), in which French researchers offer a mechanism for speaker break-in, therefore, I expected to receive a lot of feedback.

I haven't heard from anyone! So, do you all find speaker break-in to be real?

John Atkinson
Editor, Stereophile

I suppose the question is: is it the speaker that is changing significantly enough to be heard, or is it the listener who is becoming acclimated to a new sound? I think that in many cases it is both. The type of hysteresis measurement shown in the Stereophile article has been historically used for measuring a large number of mechanical processes. When significant changes occur, if they do not converge to a steady state, then it can be a fatigue (failure) mechanism over time. If it does stabilize, then it is just a "break-in" process. I would speculate that the "break-in" process is highly variable between speaker drivers, and that in some cases the changes are perceptible to the listener, and in other cases they are not. Only the manufacturer is likely to have both "broken-in" and new examples of the same product for side-by-side testing, and certainly I have not had that opportunity. I do think I have both become used to the different sound of new speakers and detected speaker changes over time, but it is too subjective for me to prove.

Hi Devon,

The matter of acoustical memory figures strongly in the matter of perception. I'm not close to the data nor the methodology of how we characterize the perception of break-in, but I know we can pre-process by DSP methods an input to a reference loudspeaker, so a listener can quickly A/B a simulation of a speaker in its "fresh" and "broken-in" states. Obviously, when the comparison can be made nearly instantaneously, the difference is often readily identifiable. But when the time lapse between A and B states grows to days, weeks, and months, the reliability of the perception gets increasingly degraded.

"The type of hysteresis measurement shown in the "Stereophile" article has been historically used for measuring a large number of mechanical processes." Definitely. The closed-loop integral around a cycle of F/D exercise amounts to the work done per cycle, and therefore the energy, dissipated per cycle. This relates to the material's loss factor, which arises from non-conservative mechanisms. If the cycle doesn't quite restore to its starting point at the end, then we usually have an indication of creep.

"I would speculate that the "break-in" process is highly variable between speaker drivers...". It's not clear whether you're referring to different samples of the same driver, or different drivers altogether. If the former, then I can tell you that break-in behavior tends to be fairly consistent.

Best,

Mark

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Hi Devon,

The matter of acoustical memory figures strongly in the matter of perception. I'm not close to the data nor the methodology of how we characterize the perception of break-in, but I know we can pre-process by DSP methods an input to a reference loudspeaker, so a listener can quickly A/B a simulation of a speaker in its "fresh" and "broken-in" states. Obviously, when the comparison can be made nearly instantaneously, the difference is often readily identifiable. But when the time lapse between A and B states grows to days, weeks, and months, the reliability of the perception gets increasingly degraded.

"The type of hysteresis measurement shown in the "Stereophile" article has been historically used for measuring a large number of mechanical processes." Definitely. The closed-loop integral around a cycle of F/D exercise amounts to the work done per cycle, and therefore the energy, dissipated per cycle. This relates to the material's loss factor, which arises from non-conservative mechanisms. If the cycle doesn't quite restore to its starting point at the end, then we usually have an indication of creep.

"I would speculate that the "break-in" process is highly variable between speaker drivers...". It's not clear whether you're referring to different samples of the same driver, or different drivers altogether. If the former, then I can tell you that break-in behavior tends to be fairly consistent.

Best,
Mark

Thanks, Mark.

DSP is at best only a partial solution, since the reference speaker has characteristics that cannot be fully compensated (otherwise, we would just use a "perfect" DSP + reference speaker, and we would be done!). I am limiting my comments to very high quality drivers that may rival or exceed the performance of the "reference" being used with DSP. I think it would be preferable to simply purchase two identical sets of speakers for the test, then break-in only one set before making the comparison. Obviously consumers cannot afford this method, but neither can they afford the DSP + reference speakers just for the sake of determining if they hear break-in or not.

I am referring to the wide differences between different speaker driver models, not variation within a production run of identical models. The original topic is whether or not we can hear a speaker break in. It may be that break-in for some driver models can be heard, and that for others it cannot be heard.

Cheers,
Devon

Hi Devon,

I was referring to our DSP techniques only as an internal diagnostic/demonstration/evaluation tool, and not as part of an external, saleable product. We do market something, however, that applies corrective EQ based on a DSP platform that "reads" the room and the system.

About different driver models, yes, the break-in effects can range from virtually non-existent to horrific.

Best,
Mark

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Paul Barton, I believe, said that the speakers didn't change. He said it was the brain that adjusted to the speaker sound. That would also be my belief.

IIRC, he found that there were small physical changes that he could measure but that blind auditions failed to distinguish them.

Kal

Some things take awhile to register in your brain and become familiar. There are numerous tweaks that don't immediately reveal themselves, but over time become apparent.

How many of us have left the tone control engaged, even in the neutral position and realize 30 minutes later that something just didn't sound right? I think this sort of thing happens all the time and isn't something that an A/B comparison can capture over a short period of time.

If speaker break-in was real, then I would expect the following to happen:

1. There should be at least one speaker out there that began to sound worse after the break-in period. I can accept that as you use a speaker the component parts begin to settle in. I can't believe that this is a universally beneficial effect.

2. There would be at least one speaker manufacturer that used this as a marketing ploy. Many speakers (and other audio components, for that matter) have been released in "special" and "hot rod" editions. Why not release a pre-broken-in version of a speaker and charge extra for the time and electricity spent running the speakers in?

(And for those of you who think that I'm only being tongue in cheek about this, you can buy "pre-aged" electric guitars these days from Fender and Gibson.)

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(And for those of you who think that I'm only being tongue in cheek about this, you can buy "pre-aged" electric guitars these days from Fender and Gibson.)

I like your argument, and am curious to see how others respond - I don't have a strong opinion one way or the other, as I haven't lived with a pair of speakers long enough to judge.

However, I can say that I don't think Fender or Gibson are marketing thier new lines of "worn" guitars as sounding similar to vintage gear. It struck me as a thing more about the appearance. I own a Gibson Flying-V, in their worn cherry finish.

The 403 have convinced me to order the 404, the bigger brother model. I am not evangelical about burn-in, but, I wonder about the folks who seem to think I must be crazy to think I can hear anything change, ever ... Do they really think we must all follow the same perceptual path? "My way or 'you lie' way?" Sigh, way.

At my advanced age I was somewhat skeptical about this issue brought up by "Phile", but I am now a believer. I am concerned about this quality "curve" good to better (after breakin) to what? When I finally re-foamed my AR 58 woofers I certainly "improved" them, but to who knows at what performance level to the original. I still enjoy them as they are now my part of my computer sound system, but I am too old to remember how they sounded new from the late 70's?

I just got a new, replacement U2 IPod from Apple for my unit that did not make it to its first birthday. Through my Grados it sound awfully bright and harsh, but after about 20+ hours it is getting much better "setting in" I guess. I was afraid that maybe this newer model was not an improvement and I would regret my older model breaking.

Buy a pair of Triangles and you will believe in break-in. After they are it is very, very magical. I do believe. I am trying to listen "harder" these days and find it holds true in electronics as well.

While the notion of speaker break-in is fine by me, the more I think about it the harder it becomes to seperate that from "listener break-in."

I'm in between Jndean's opinion and the others.

I see so many things that strike me a certain way at first blush - a certain wine, a person, a book, etc - but then after a certain period of time, I become accustomed to them and change my initial interpretation or they lose their impact. I'm sure this happens with hi-fi gear to an extent that is greater than many would admit.

Just like in dating ( ), I bet a big part of break-in is based on what the characteristics of the equipment were that we were listening to immediately before the new item was inserted into the playback chain.

For instance, if one were listening to a speaker with a tilted down top end and then changed to a more "lively" speaker in that range, the immediate subjective impact would be large and be interpreted differently than after we had listened for a few weeks. I would naturally expect the magnitude of this "new" sound would diminish as we accomodated the new sound into our listening routine over time.

I could see this experience being overlooked and a listener saying that the treble was too 'zippy' at first, but after "break-in" it became less intrusive.

Not meaning to be argumentative, just thinking that this "break-in" of equipment is a multifaceted phenomenon.

To Scrooge: Why do you doubt your senses?

Because," said Scrooge, "a little thing affects them. A slight disorder of the stomach makes them cheats. You may be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of an underdone potato. There's more of gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are!"

Maybe we do become accustomed to the sound, but everything changes with age and use. Unfortunately so have I.

Greetings,

About marketing speakers that are "pre broken-in," since I'm an engineer and not in marketing/sales, I would surmise that it's a question of value-added, whether real or perceived (conceding, however, that it's ultimately the perception that counts at the point of sale,) versus the cost to the company to accomplish the break-in. From the cost side, it's mainly time and space to accommodate units being broken-in, and potentially quite a lot of both, so the cost isn't trivial. The space, for example, devoted to break-in must be noise-isolated from the rest of the plant, because believe you me, the ruckus would be deafening. On the perceived value-added side, naturally, the appeal would be mostly to hi-end audiophiles.

About whether all speakers get better with break-in, I had commented earlier that not all break-in artifacts are positive ones, and so I would contend that the general answer is no.

And yes, since speaker break-in perception is always a two-sided phenomenon having both subjective and objective components, the debate will continue as to its significance. (What's that adage about if a tree falls in a forest and nobody hears it, does it make a sound?)

The only thing I can comment about with absolute certainty is the objective side, where, yes, all speakers do exhibit some measure of break-in change. In passing I would also add that the break-in change of components made of organic materials is usually at least an order of magnitude higher than those made of inorganic materials.

Best,

Mark

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The space, for example, devoted to break-in must be noise-isolated from the rest of the plant, because believe you me, the ruckus would be deafening.

Not necessarily. I visited Burmester a few years back and they had banks of unmounted drivers arrayed across shelves. They were being driven in alternating rows in opposite phase at low frequency and there was no sound apparent 3-4 feet from the rack.

Kal

Thanks for all the cool info, Mark!

As a consumer, I am a bit aghast that manufacturers would be sending out gear to hi-fi stores that would be demo'd in "not broken in" condition.

We need signs in demo rooms: "The sound you hear is not the final sound of this unit...trust us, it'll get better!"

This is a great argument for long return windows for home auditions or purchases.

Thanks again for the inside scoop!

Hi Kal,

Agreed not necessarily. But highly probably, yes. In general, 1.) the greater the number of speakers, 2.) the greater the phase coherency between units, 3.) the wider the bandwidth of excitation, and 4.) the higher the signal to each unit, the louder it will be.

If some of these are low, as I infer may be the case with Burmester, then OSHA or its equivalent can be kept at bay. In our case, we often exercise 20-100 units at a time with a broadband signal. (We've found that wide-bandwidth drivers require a wide-bandwidth signal to achieve proper break-in.) One cannot enter the chamber without noise-cancelling headphones. I've never measured the SPL there, but I'd estimate it's easily 115-120dB C-weighted averaged throughout the chamber, and OSHA or no, that won't fly without an isolation chamber.

Best,
Mark

Hi Buddha - looks like our posts crossed - sorry I missed it before I answered Kal; you're welcome, of course, about the "inside scoop," even if it only comes from a small corner of the universe. Best - Mark

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Hi Kal,

Agreed not necessarily. But highly probably, yes. In general, 1.) the greater the number of speakers, 2.) the greater the phase coherency between units, 3.) the wider the bandwidth of excitation, and 4.) the higher the signal to each unit, the louder it will be.

True but I calls 'em as I hears 'em. I suspect that Burmester was using sine or warble tones below the normal operating bandwidth of the (unloaded) drivers so that actual output was minimal.

Kal

Why are components so unstable, that this stuff changes so much, HOMIE don't think so.....If electrical componets "break in" that would indicate a mfg DEFECT, if they are so out of spec, and drift...not with todays materials, these ain't vacuum tubes. Teflon capacitors "breaking in", come on, the reason for modern polymers, and materials is for STABILTY in different enviorments, if they change so much, your amp is junk. Polypropelene, mnay plastics are STABLE, under varying enviormental conditions. If your pre amp is changing sound just by being on or off for a few hours, you have a design DEFECT in thereand crap components used to make it. check the specs of quality components used in quality equipment, very temp resistant, etc. NO DRIFT, NO BREAK IN. How do you change some insulation with about 5V across a pice of wire? I read the insulation of teh wire used in my speakers, I think it's like THHN, 600V wire, pretty tough stuff, no enviorment these speakers are in, is affecting anything, ever been in an industrial enviorment, where wire is in HARSH ADVERSE enviorments, the stuff keeps on going, the equipment ain't changing, it keeps on going. Your home enviroment is hardly a place where componets are goona be afected. Unless you have some real junk equipment. Of a DEFECTIVE part.

DUP - You give the impression that you dismiss things because of what you think you know, without trying them out firsthand. Have you ever compared/listened to wires with insulations that had very different dielectric constants?

Jeff, I know your question is serious, but have you ever heard 12 guage zip cord "break-in" or sound any different from the day you first installed it? I just think our efforts to urge DUP to experiment with different cables are futile.

RG

Break in of anything mechanical makes sense - especially speakers. Things move and stretch. I would imagine planars benefit most given their size and relative limited motion. This should all be measurable? Especially woofers. Seems to me they would move farther and easier over time given a certain wattage input.

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Jeff, I know your question is serious, but have you ever heard 12 guage zip cord "break-in" or sound any different from the day you first installed it? I just think our efforts to urge DUP to experiment with different cables are futile.

RG

RG, you're probably right. It's been ages since I've popped anything approximating zip cord in my system; the phase distortion due to the dielectric likely wouldn't allow me to hear any changes of burn-in (I feel "break-in" should be reserved for mechanical things) anyhow. Imagine my disappointment when I lugged 2 aftermarket power cords to DUP's place and we couldn't even put them in due to his using an extension cord running under the floorboards and (as I recall) the amps being hardwired. Oh well.

It was a non audiophile grade 12ga too. Not under teh floor, right out in the open to trip on...I've yet to run my extra ckt to power stuff, I am planning on getting that 3rd ckt in the room (closet) so I can eliminate the extension. The power supplies in the AVA rebuild amps are super. Same for the pre amp (Ultra
hybrid) and the 2 hybrid phase inverters there is no need for any thing other than a suitable line cord, that is rated for teh ampacity. Thus a 12 guage is fine, with the nice BRIGHT ORANGE wrap. When I was listening today, some nice vocals on Jimmie Robinson, the one line was peaking at sometime 16A on the Furman, this is the ckt on the extension cord, well within the capacity of a 12 ga cord. no vottage drop to worry about. The Furman shows me just what is going on 121V, when it's real hot out teh line can drop to 114 !!! quite a swing during the day, as the utility cuts back, and teh AC are running like crazy across the state, right now the AC line is 122, 121, 123. the 12 ga SoundKing speaker cords have been in use for over 9 years, no oxidation, flexible, they are under the floor, in the cellar going to the speakers. Works great, lasts a long time It would be an NEC violation to run an extension cord that way. i will get that 3rd outlet installed soon, on it's own non audiophile breaker, using non audiophile NM wire. The power supplies are regulated in teh AVA stuff, Frank has said many times, they are designed for real world use, thus it works very well under voltages from low to normal, AVA stuff is not finicky, it's designed for real use. the pre amp have several voltage regulators, for super stabilty under many contiions. So do the OmegaStar EX amp ckts. At audio fregs, the characteristics of teh speaker cord for inductance and capacitance are irrelavant, only teh DC resistance to affect damping, may matter, and that's when you are using lengths approaching hundreds of feet, it's all on teh legacy audio website, from teh man who built the speakers, no exotic wires needed. Current needs COPPER, proper guage for the current to the 4 OHM speakers, all is good. Same for the AC line cordds. think about it, why would ya want a line cord that is removeable, the IEC connection is just another point of resistance, to teh line voltage/current, so by NOT having it, and using hardwired cords, it's a better setup, less conenctions .....The line cords on teh P500 AVA Haflers are 14 gauge heavy duty line cords, the AC line transformers are much bigger than teh DH500 OmeggaStars EX thus less drop at teh transformer outputs, so they can do something in excess of 1200W RMS !! Each, the DH500 AVA OmegaStar EX are "only" 900 or so watts mono, thus a smaller line cord, with a smaller AC line transformer...they have the proper line cord for teh amapactiy , there is nothing going on but supplying AC to the transformer. It needs it's current, that's it, at proepr voltages..within a quite large range it can handle. Properly designed power supplys deal with real life situations, not picky, finicky or in need of magic cords. Really. I've seen 12ga line cords on Cd players, the CD player draw about 12 watts!!! come on now, there is no way, no way at all, this type of line cord is needed on a thing that uses such low power.

http://support.fluke.com/find-sales/download/asset/2548277_6001_eng_a_w.pdf

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http://support.fluke.com/find-sales/download/asset/2548277_6001_eng_a_w.pdf

You sound like an audioholics fan. Are you fronting for them?

I know a world class violinist who said after he purchased his used violin (100k), after sitting in a vault for a decade, it took about a year to fully breakin.

I have also seen data from a manufacturer demonstrating that the free air resonant frequency of their woofer dropped somewhere between 5 and 10% over the course of 50 or longer hours.

So I agree with dup that cabinets, drivers etc do change and breakin.

I believe in speaker break in to a degree. I believe quite firmly that the bass speaker in particular can take a few hours of driving before it settles in.

They are elctro-mechanical devices. My speakers have 10" woofers and when they were brand new, they certainly lacked mid a degreee of mid bass for up to 2 weeks or so. I had actually placed them closer to a rear wall for bass re-inforecement, and found every few days I kept moving them further and further away from the wall.

At about 3 weeks of owning them, (playing them about 14 hours a day) they ended up about 4 feet from a rear wall and sounded fine. Back in the place where all previous speakers have been placed in the same listening room.

I have no problems seeing why a large Bass driver would need a reasonable amount of break in. Huge Magnets, Huge thick Rubber surrounds etc etc. I know when I was purchasing a sub woofer for my car, the owner of the shop was telling me about a manufacturer of Car Subs who broke in his Woofers for the Car Subs in the Factory for 36 hours continous.

I see less reason why a conventual mid range or tweeter would as much break in, due to less restrictive surrounds.

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I believe in speaker break in to a degree. I believe quite firmly that the bass speaker in particular can take a few hours of driving before it settles in.

They are elctro-mechanical devices. My speakers have 10" woofers and when they were brand new, they certainly lacked mid a degreee of mid bass for up to 2 weeks or so. I had actually placed them closer to a rear wall for bass re-inforecement, and found every few days I kept moving them further and further away from the wall.

At about 3 weeks of owning them, (playing them about 14 hours a day) they ended up about 4 feet from a rear wall and sounded fine. Back in the place where all previous speakers have been placed in the same listening room.

I have no problems seeing why a large Bass driver would need a reasonable amount of break in. Huge Magnets, Huge thick Rubber surrounds etc etc. I know when I was purchasing a sub woofer for my car, the owner of the shop was telling me about a manufacturer of Car Subs who broke in his Woofers for the Car Subs in the Factory for 36 hours continous.

I see less reason why a conventual mid range or tweeter would as much break in, due to less restrictive surrounds.

You are probably right. Midrange and tweeter drivers work at higher frequencies, so more flexing in less time. That and most music is mid and highs.

John:
Although this post is coming onto being 2 years old, I recently came upon some new information that may shed some light on this controversial subject. Please read the following:

People often mention capacitor and speaker break-in,
here is what Paul Barton founder of PSB speakers has to say
about it.

"Break-in refers to running components for a long time (sometimes hundreds of hours) to the point where their components "settle" into their proper operating mode. Barton doesn

I see this is your first post.

This 'brain affect' has been mention dozens and dozens of times before on the forum. After awhile it gets kinda old.

Might want to check past posts or do a search to see how, despite brain breakin, parts do break in and is real.

Yes, this was indeed my first post. I post often on another site where this topic came up. Did some web searching and found the same topic was brought up here by John A.
I didn't see any evidence in the threads here of psycho-acoustical masking, which is why I wanted to contribute. Yes, it may be old, but it's also a REAL effect in addition to mechanical break which I also realize does occur to some degree. However, there is no real engineering evidence that electrical components (i.e. capacitors, resistors and wire) breaks in. Or, do you have any?

It has been gone over time and time again, and yes, evidence has been shown. Do a search. There are articles from PHds chemists and other PHds etc on other circles about what happens on a molecular level. So what, there is both brain breakin and actual changes to the speakers, drivers and cabinets.

People have made up their own minds here, so why start another forest fire?

Quote:
It has been gone over time and time again, and yes, evidence has been shown. Do a search. There are articles from PHds chemists and other PHds etc on other circles about what happens on a molecular level. So what, there is both brain breakin and actual changes to the speakers, drivers and cabinets.

People have made up their own minds here, so why start another forest fire?

While it has been scientifically demonstrated that there are changes at the micro and macro levels, where is the scientific evidence that these changes rise to the level of audibility?

Kal

Have you never done any experimenting on your own and checked?? Anyway, the evidence that PHDs, manufacturers, chemists, relate in their papers correlate to what is heard when we do our own checks. Almost forgot, a professional violin player as well. (Played once or twice with Itzhak Perlman.)

Why is it so important? If one wants to believe, it hurts nothing to take one's time. Nothing is lost, except a little time.

Answer is unresponsive. Is there any scientific evidence of the audibility of the changes?

Kal

I see you either sidestepped the issue of your own testing, or you are not capable of performing your own experiment.

In either case, why should anyone listen to you??