Do Audio Speakers Break-in?

[Bruce Morgen]

This guy is a loudspeaker design legend and begs to differ.

http://www.gr-research.com/burnin.htm

Danny is a solid designer, but he buys into a lot of audiophool b00|$hit, or perhaps pretends to for marketing reasons -- e.g. he swears his "tube connectors" will make even a cheap bookshelf speaker sound better compared its conventional factory binding posts.

Danny Richie's "Tube Connectors" @$59/pair

 

[Soniclife]

I think also there might be a altered state that is bought on when you purchase something new

I know I can get a bit weird about any expensive purchase for a bit, even if it wasn't a financial stretch, I think it's normal, but rarely admitted.

 

[Mojo Warrior]

If you you are breaking in your new speakers with 100+ hours of pink noise, don't forget to check the tightness of the screws holding your woofers in the cabinet.

If there is such a thing, breaking in a speaker should take less than 10 minutes using rock, hip hop, EDM or electronic music.

Maybe the break in some audiophools are hearing are loose woofers.

 

[Berwhale]

Danny is a solid designer, but he buys into a lot of audiophool b00|$hit, or perhaps pretends to for marketing reasons -- e.g. he swears his "tube connectors" will make even a cheap bookshelf speaker sound better compared its conventional factory binding posts.

Danny Richie's "Tube Connectors" @$59/pair

If you're going to all that effort, you might as well solder the cable straight to the cross-over and save yourself 60 bucks.

 

[gvl]

What I want to know are there speakers other than audio speakers and if they break in.

 

[Kvalsvoll]

Well then let's see those measurements then. Not drivers. But complete speakers. And how many hours it took to get them there.

Here is the T6-flat-A, where the difference is measurable after running a few seconds sine wave 10-20Hz at large excursion.

Not the best example, but that is what I could find now. This difference is not audible, but after running a few more minutes of this, or some loud music, the difference will be a little larger. Still, you would have to compare instantly, to be able to hear the difference, if at all possible. On the T6-Flat, there will be less than 0.5dB change.

Other speakers can show larger differences. On sealed subwoofers/speakers, there may not be any measurable difference in freq response, because the compliance in the cabinet volume is far stiffer than the suspension of the driver. In the T6-Flat there will be some change initially, then the response will not change any more even if the driver softens up more.

Differences caused by suspension compliance affect bass response around roll-off only. So you will not see it further up in frequency, it will not flatten the response.

Different drivers and cabinet designs will have different sensitivity to break-in. Generally, speakers should work fine out of the box, and any claim that extended break-in is necessary, should be seen as a fault.

Also note that measurable changes due to break-in/wear/extended use does not necessarily mean they improve. One example is small ribbon tweeter with non-corrugated membrane - if the membrane is tensioned, it will stretch permanently if heated (it will heat up if you play loud), and this changes the frequency response significantly, and most likely changes distortion.

 

[Kal Rubinson]

I have read reports of old electrostatic panels losing film rigidity over the years. Woofer surrounds have been known to deteriorate.

That's not break-in. That's break down.

 

[beefkabob]

What I want to know are there speakers other than audio speakers and if they break in.

TED speakers. I would like to shoot every single one of them in the head, though. Bastards. They're all trying to break into their respective industries and become famous.

 

[mansr]

Speaker break-in is when Nancy Pelosi forgets her keys and has to force the office door open.

 

[milosz]

I can picture that an old-school treated-folded-paper woofer surround in a reflex cabinet might exhibit some level of measurable "break in" change after heavy operation. Not sure this would always result in IMPROVED sound, though.

I think the woofer's spider could show more change after driving a woofer hard than the suspension might. Spiders seem to be pleated rings of fabric coated with some kind of glue or other stiffening agent, and it seems to me that after repeated heavy flexing you could develop a bunch of tiny cracks in this "glue" which would make the spider somewhat less stiff. This wouldn't change the overall compliance a whole lot, though; and in a sealed bass alignment, wouldn't change anything really as it is the air-spring inside the cabinet that acts as the major part of the driver compliance.

I think most of the purported speaker break effect in is actually listener training.

 

[jhwalker]

I love this topic and love to see some rigor put into testing for this effect.

I bought a pair of HE-500 headphones a few years back. Straight out of the box, they had NO bass - I mean, NONE ... to the point I was seriously concerned they were broken.

Before sending them back, though, I decided to "break them in" using frequency sweeps, played on a loop over the weekend when I was out of town.

When I returned, the headphones sounded COMPLETELY different, with bounteous bass. They never sounded any different after that initial change.

So while Amir's test appears to show there was no change WITH THESE SPECIFIC SPEAKERS, I know what I heard. There was no chance for my ears to "get used to" the sound (as I was out of town), and the headphones went from literally no bass at all to clear and present bass.

Will continue to follow this topic with great interest

 

[Xyrium]

Yeah, that, and keeping an eye on cooling costs and efficiency.

Here's the obsessive part, if there is one. Estimate of daily baseline kWhr (blue) with stacked AC/HeatPump kWhr (red) since June 2016, monitored more or less weekly:

View attachment 53030

...and I thought I was bad for checking my UPS logs once a week for power quality anomalies. LOL

 

[andymok]

Instruments strings do run-in as well. If you play one you'll know.

I guess you'll have to get a fresh new one right down from the line to test, to avoid burn-in testing from the factory.

 

[trl]

What break-in tells me is , audiophiles are more often than not coping with disappointment wrt new purchases . They literally have to convince themselves things are getting better after the initial truth. I think also there might be a altered state that is bought on when you purchase something new, you start focusing on all sorts of things previously unnoticed. This can be a very uncertain period that's quite destabilising ime. You come up with all sorts of ideas as to why you hear what you think you hear.

After time you get back to normal but alas it was all worth it.. well it has to be , your invested in so many ways it's rather hard to think or allow yourself to think otherwise.

Not to worry the internet is there to reassure you , just don't goto ASR .. they are not music lovers over there


I can't believe more people don't consider it's them who are the variable in the audio chain. It seems if not obvious at least worth considering before you delve into things being beyond science.

We need to probe audiophiles, deeply. Any volunteers?

While Audioholics and others were showing some small changes in measurement results over time and I'm sure that some tiny and perhaps measurable differences might exist between pre break-in vs. post break-in, it happened to me for several times when I purchased audio equipment to completely dislike their output sound (no matter it was brand new or second-hand audio equipment). I had this feeling with amplifiers, headphones and speakers as well and.

Funny thing, when I purchased last year a second-hand LCD2F from a friend I felt a lack of bass that, funny thing, improved over time by simply leaving the headphones on desk, disconnected from the amplifier and without additional break-in. And this is what I did with my last amplifier purchased: I didn't liked the sound after the first few minutes of playing and I simply powered it off for couple of weeks, then I listened to it again and VOILA...bass was fuller and soundstage better with same music playing.

Our own expectations about how the newly purchased devices should sound, out of the box, are un-biasing our opinion about "how does it sounds", although I've seen measurements proving that Thiele/Small parameters are improving a bit after 100 of hours or more.

 

[DualTriode]

Just because I have Confirmation Bias does not prove that I am wrong. Or is that an Appeal to Ignorance?

 

[Deleted member 2944]

What a silly, pedantic topic this is.

Even assuming speaker break-in is real, what are you going to do about it??
Redesign the box and/or crossover network to accommodate it after the fact?
Return speakers to the manufacturer because they broke in? Or didn't break in?

"Break in", in this context, is simply an excuse given to customers to explain/mitigate disappointments in subjective evaluations.

Good golly.

Dave.

 

[Juhazi]

https://www.businessinsider.com/sc/why-we-like-expensive-things-2018-12?r=US&IR=T
https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20171006-the-psychology-behind-spending-big

Applies to new things too! This is important psycological phenomenom that keeps us wanting to work harder, be polite and earn more (be it materia, money, love, status etc.) This is what makes us humans different from animals!

 

[raif71]

The break-in period is just to make Sure you don’t buy based on what you heard at the shop!
Note that many times they need 30 days break-in with a 30 days return period.... How convenient!

Well .... you break it, you buy it !!

 

[KSTR]

IME "break-in" is real but effectively irrelevant for today's modern HiFi drivers. With large and thin paper-cone PA/MI type of drivers having stiff suspensions it can be quite relevant, though. T/S-parameters do shift and cone breakup patterns do change.

 

[napilopez]

I love this topic and love to see some rigor put into testing for this effect.

I bought a pair of HE-500 headphones a few years back. Straight out of the box, they had NO bass - I mean, NONE ... to the point I was seriously concerned they were broken.

Before sending them back, though, I decided to "break them in" using frequency sweeps, played on a loop over the weekend when I was out of town.

When I returned, the headphones sounded COMPLETELY different, with bounteous bass. They never sounded any different at that initial change.

So while Amir's test appears to show there was no change WITH THESE SPECIFIC SPEAKERS, I know what I heard. There was no chance for my ears to "get used to" the sound (as I was out of town), and the headphones went from literally no bass at all to clear and present bass.

Will continue to follow this topic with great interest

I was once break-in/burn-in curious, like you, having gone through a similar situation with many a headphone. I don't mean to negate your experience, but I'd ask you to reconsider your notion that the you were able to break them in over the weekend. There are so many variables that can make a pair of headphones sound different after some time - yes, even if you haven't been listening to them for a while.

Here's one fun anecdote. The biggest case of headphone "break-in" I ever experienced was actually with a pair of high end noise cancelling headphones. Except it wasn't break in at all that had changed the sound.

When I first tried them, they had almost no bass with noise cancelling off, and sometimes showed distortion with noise cancelling on when playing loud. I'd been into headphones for about a decade ago that point, so I knew how important seal was, but as far as I could tell, everything was fine in that regard. Mind you, at this point I was already quite skeptical of burn in.

The headphones sounded 'resolving' or whatever but lacking 'body' and 'oomph' (fun words I used often back in the day). I was ready to write them off as being headphones only for people who like bright headphones, and to complain they couldn't play loud without distorting with ANC on

Then I put them away for a few days and left them plugged into my computer to burn in, just in case.

Miraculously, they sounded better next time I tried them. I was almost ready to start believing in burn in again. The bass was there even with ANC off, and the distortion was gone! Surely the answer was burn-in? No.

The answer, I soon realized, was that I'd gotten a haircut.

See, I have pretty poofy hair, and at the time, my hair was extra poofed up. I had never really noticed any headphone-related problems because of my hair before, but my hair was bigger than usual and it turns these headphones were particularly sensitive to a good seal, so even when I thought I had that, I did not.

The hair-induced gaps in the seal were enough to cause all the low bass to leak out. When using them in passive mode. When using them with ANC on, it turns out that the DSP uses the microphones to regulate bass, and that had some funny interactions. The headphones 'work harder' to maintain the right bas level with a poor seal. The distortion was gone after my haircut, but I could easily make it come back by simply loosening the fit on my head a bit.

Unsurprisingly, as my hair grew poofier again, the headphones started to sound worse, like those first few days.

This particular anecdote aside, I'm willing to bet that earpads softening up and improving seal has a bigger effect on a headphone's sound than anything going on with the drivers.