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Do Audio Speakers Break-in?

HuubFranssen

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Hi BDWoody, thanks for your reply. Why do you call it a ‘claim’? You just read 3 personal experiences from different countries, that’s all. I think it is interesting that in all 3 situations the speakers had to be replaced, causing an immediate change. Some subjective things are more reliable than others.
 

Sir Sanders Zingmore

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Hi DSJR, thanks for the reply. The crucial part of my post is the change to new speakers of exactly the same brand, type and colour. Of course people could think that the audio-memory is capable of rolling back to a specific time point. Also people could think it is just a lie. That‘s (forum-) life. ;)

Have you ruled out this possible alternative: you heard your original speakers break-in over time so quite possibly you were expecting the replacements to do exactly the same?

Expectation bias can be a very slippery trickster
 

MarkWinston

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Break ins do not exist they say. Break ins are inaudible they say. Here is a better one, ALL amplifiers sound the same. I LOLed hard.
 

VintageFlanker

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Break ins do not exist they say. Break ins are inaudible they say. Here is a better one, ALL amplifiers sound the same. I LOLed hard.
:facepalm:
Typical confusion between "Something doesn't exist" and "if it does exist, it has to be demonstrated by something else than anecdotes."
 

BDWoody

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:facepalm:
Typical confusion between "Something doesn't exist" and "if it does exist, it has to be demonstrated by something else than anecdotes."

That whole 'evidence' thing does seem to be a stumbling block.
 

MarkWinston

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:facepalm:
Typical confusion between "Something doesn't exist" and "if it does exist, it has to be demonstrated by something else than anecdotes."

I see no reason why such blanket statements are so rampant on this forum when everything has not been thoroughly checked out. Just based on FR charts alone people can start preaching like break ins really do not happen and blame it on the listener's brain? Based on what an amp SHOULD do people are shouting that all amps WILL sound the same? That isnt science, thats just believing that all are things are equal, which they are not.
 

Sir Sanders Zingmore

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Its not hard to find this exact statement on many threads in this forum. Let me qoute "all amps will sound the same under clipping levels when volume matched". You have not read such statements here in this forum?
I have, but that's very different from what you said
 

MarkWinston

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I have, but that's very different from what you said

Just proven my point. NOT all amps sound the same under clipping levels when volume matched. They SHOULD, but they dont. A better statement would be ALL GOOD amps would sound the same under clipping levels when volume matched. But where do we draw the 'good' line? Just because they should, doesnt mean they will. But thats for another thread, not here.
 

Sir Sanders Zingmore

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So do you agree or dont agree that ALL amplifiers will sound the same under clipping levels when volume matched?
Don’t throw this back at me.
You are the one who claimed that people say “ALL amplifiers sound the same”.

I was questioning whether people actually say that. Do they?
 

Triliza

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How the heck can such a simple thing still be debatable is a mystery to me. What's so difficult to make some measurements (if the one on the first page are not enough), blind tests or whatever is needed to come to a conclusion about if speakers break-in is a thing or not?

Or just check with woofer/tweeter manufacturers (the big ones) and the data they provide. Are they doing any break-in, at least with their top of the line products? If not, just forget it, they would had automated the process already if that was a thing. No manufacturer would sell speakers costing some thousand of dollars that would be terrible for the first 200 hours and then get better, if they suck from the beginning, they will be the same after 200 hours or two years. We just get used to how they sound because we want to hear the music they are playing and enjoy it.

Is Genelec, Neumann, Harman companies, or for that matter any company that is doing some research on the field recommending break-in? Especially for studio speakers, they would either break-in them beforehand or at least warn the users about this. Proffesionals don't have 200 hours to spend on break-in, time is money.

Until someone comes up with solid data that break-in is happening in a way that changes music reproduction substantially so we can perceive it, people would best keep in mind that if a speaker sounds terrible when they first listen to it, it's time to return it and go for something else.
 

HuubFranssen

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Have you ruled out this possible alternative: you heard your original speakers break-in over time so quite possibly you were expecting the replacements to do exactly the same?

Expectation bias can be a very slippery trickster

Slippery, yes. But a sudden roll back to a point exactly 3 months ago no. Sometimes you have to accept that subjective findings can be useful too. When you don’t, there will be serious trouble finding decent food, searching for a good place to live, choose the right dog, voting for a political party and 30.000 other things.
 

MarkWinston

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Start with the general excepted hearing thresholds for things like frequency respons, distortion, bandwidth and channel imbalances, and design criteria like output impedance.
So in this case, only well measured amps will be good amps and the rest of the unmeasured ones are unknown. This does not make blanket statements like "all amps will sound the same under clipping levels when volume matched".
 
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