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Amir's subjective speaker rankings

Frgirard

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saying that drivers wont change over time is ingoring physics.
now it's very depend on the material, quality and other factors. if a driver changes significantly after a "break-in" procedure, it probably never will be broken-in, since it will always change....and then aventualy break. It would basicly have a Half-Life. I can imagine that drivers in the 70ies and 80ies behaved like this, and that the initial changes were pretty noticable.
The problem with your change is his reversibility.
 

BDWoody

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If this is true, why do manufacturers state that a small burn in time is recommended?
With nothing to gain from it, who do I believe, the manufacturer or people on this forum?

Why do you feel they have nothing to gain? They know the longer it sits in your house, the less likely you are to return it.

The people on the forum are the ones with nothing to gain. Do you ever feel skepticism of ANY claims?
 

Paolo

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saying that drivers wont change over time is ingoring physics.
The break-in is a moot concept not because materials aren’t subject to the law of physics, but because those laws have nothing to do with the perceived quality of your gear.

Barring damaged units, whatever has been tested here will not be acoustically affected by burn-in periods. Sure, the absolute worst speakers may use materials whom are prone to lose elasticity over extended periods. For instance, certain kinds of rubber starts to deteriorate even if you’re not using them, but again, we’re not talking about durability and quality control. An aging product may need repairs or to be entirely replaced, so what?

We’re talking about the audiophile lore about products needing break-in to reach their maximum performances. This is the false belief.

• The kind of change happening to your gear with break-in is inaudible.
• To assume that, even conceding a measurable change, it would be beneficial, is just superstitious nonsense. Especially ridiculous if you care to include thermodynamic in your argument. If products changes after break-in, how come it’s always for the better?

Intuitively break-in make sense to the audio community, many comes from a tinkerers perspective and background, almost all males, the same people who may mod or repair their cars by themselves. And now you’ve found something that actually need break-in, it makes so much intuitive sense to associate that with all our favourite gear… too bad it’s not that simple.
 

dasdoing

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The break-in is a moot concept not because materials aren’t subject to the law of physics, but because those laws have nothing to do with the perceived quality of your gear.

Barring damaged units, whatever has been tested here will not be acoustically affected by burn-in periods. Sure, the absolute worst speakers may use materials whom are prone to lose elasticity over extended periods. For instance, certain kinds of rubber starts to deteriorate even if you’re not using them, but again, we’re not talking about durability and quality control. An aging product may need repairs or to be entirely replaced, so what?

We’re talking about the audiophile lore about products needing break-in to reach their maximum performances. This is the false belief.

• The kind of change happening to your gear with break-in is inaudible.
• To assume that, even conceding a measurable change, it would be beneficial, is just superstitious nonsense. Especially ridiculous if you care to include thermodynamic in your argument. If products changes after break-in, how come it’s always for the better?

Intuitively break-in make sense to the audio community, many comes from a tinkerers perspective and background, almost all males, the same people who may mod or repair their cars by themselves. And now you’ve found something that actually need break-in, it makes so much intuitive sense to associate that with all our favourite gear… too bad it’s not that simple.

well, you kind of cherry-picked my post. I said that it possibly could have made a diference with classical paper drivers, not that it is necessary nowadays. with materials that have big change over time a break-in makes sense, since the initial change will be the most significant.

the topic is actualy something that needs a study, as you simply can not transfer data/experience from one product/material to the other
 

30 Ounce

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Speaker break in does happen and it has been documented. Even Amir has had erroneous measurements due to a cold room where he does measurements. So even temperature can affect speakers.
Here is clear evidence of speaker break in.
 

dfuller

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Speaker break in does happen and it has been documented. Even Amir has had erroneous measurements due to a cold room where he does measurements. So even temperature can affect speakers.
Here is clear evidence of speaker break in.
The cold room measurement discrepancies are not "burn in". That's temperature related.
 

Paolo

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well, you kind of cherry-picked my post. I said that it possibly could have made a diference with classical paper drivers, not that it is necessary nowadays. with materials that have big change over time a break-in makes sense, since the initial change will be the most significant.

the topic is actualy something that needs a study, as you simply can not transfer data/experience from one product/material to the other
I was pointing at what you are implying, if I’ve misinterpreted and your comment was not relevant to the discussion, but only made to be more technically exact, then why bring it up in a thread where a user is asking if what manufacturers say about break-in is true? It will only cloud the discussion.

The argument about physics is often made to imply that maybe there’s some truth in the audiophile break-in myth, and we know for a fact that this isn’t the case.
It’s just a the same approach to the deterministic case, where people, even physicists, needs to bring up the uncertainty principle to justify their belief in free will, even if the Copenhagen interpretation has nothing to do with the macro processes of our brain and on how we make decisions.
 

Frgirard

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I was pointing at what you are implying, if I’ve misinterpreted and your comment was not relevant to the discussion, but only made to be more technically exact, then why bring it up in a thread where a user is asking if what manufacturers say about break-in is true? It will only cloud the discussion.

The argument about physics is often made to imply that maybe there’s some truth in the audiophile break-in myth, and we know for a fact that this isn’t the case.
It’s just a the same approach to the deterministic case, where people, even physicists, needs to bring up the uncertainty principle to justify their belief in free will, even if the Copenhagen interpretation has nothing to do with the macro processes of our brain and on how we make decisions.
I was going to like but Copenhagen appearing completely irrelevant, I withdraw my like.
 

escape2

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If this is true, why do manufacturers state that a small burn in time is recommended?
With nothing to gain from it, who do I believe, the manufacturer or people on this forum?
Nothing to gain? They have lots to gain from this. They want you to spend more time with the speakers. The more time you spend, the more you get used to their sound, and the less likely you are to return them.
 

Everett T

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saying that drivers wont change over time is ingoring physics.
now it's very depend on the material, quality and other factors. if a driver changes significantly after a "break-in" procedure, it probably never will be broken-in, since it will always change....and then aventualy break. It would basicly have a Half-Life. I can imagine that drivers in the 70ies and 80ies behaved like this, and that the initial changes were pretty noticable.
Talk to any competent speaker designer and they will tell you that what ever changes, it is slight and inaudible. This has been proven with measurements again and again. Do you think Scanspeak other manufacturers want their TS parameters changing after usage?
 

Everett T

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Nothing to gain? They have lots to gain from this. They want you to spend more time with the speakers. The more time you spend, the more you get used to their sound, and the less likely you are to return them.
Exactly! You bring home a pair of B&W 6 series and keep them because they have to sound better after break in, because B&W can't make a speaker that is murder on my ears.
 

DSJR

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Just remember the 'hundreds of hours' needed to 'break in' a speaker can be over a season or two and massive temperature and humidity changes. I did see some research done as to the performance of rubbery driver surrounds and how they change with 10 degrees of temperature. It's quite a bit, or at least was when I read it around ten years or so ago.

The makers of cone drivers I've spoken to seem to feel the units will settle in the first few oscillations of the cone (the treatments on the spider need to 'form' once the unit is assembled I gather and maybe a rubber surround needs to be 'flexed' for a short while) but this happens quickly and that should be that for many many years of sensible use. Foam surrounds tended to fail within twenty years unless modern techniques have extended the life of said surrounds.
 

Everett T

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Just remember the 'hundreds of hours' needed to 'break in' a speaker can be over a season or two and massive temperature and humidity changes. I did see some research done as to the performance of rubbery driver surrounds and how they change with 10 degrees of temperature. It's quite a bit, or at least was when I read it around ten years or so ago.

The makers of cone drivers I've spoken to seem to feel the units will settle in the first few oscillations of the cone (the treatments on the spider need to 'form' once the unit is assembled I gather and maybe a rubber surround needs to be 'flexed' for a short while) but this happens quickly and that should be that for many many years of sensible use. Foam surrounds tended to fail within twenty years unless modern techniques have extended the life of said surrounds.
Agreed,.things like humidity and relative to sea level can effect the driver, but that isn't speaker break in, it's environmental.
 

sergeauckland

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My rating of Amir as a reviewer (and I question my qualifications for so doing) is that Amir's reviews pay more attention to the measurements rather than audibility. For example a SINAD of -60dB is quite adequate for transparency, -80dB far more so, yet devices that do less than -100dB get marked down. I personally don't care about anything being SOTA, just adequate for transparency. I'm much more interested in the breakdown, looking at build quality and serviceability. Through-hole components rate much higher than the now ubiquitous surface mount components. Unfortunately, we don't get breakdowns of every review, understandable as they're members' own property.

Similarly with loudspeakers. It's unfortunate, but understandable that Amir rarely measures large loudspeakers, but small standmounts are nothing I have any interest in. Ditto headphones and their amplifiers. Necessary at times, but not anything I could care less about.

Overall, this site is a wonderful resource, and FAR FAR better than any commercial site, but its necessary and understandable limitations are frustrating.

S.
 
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Paolo

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I was going to like but Copenhagen appearing completely irrelevant, I withdraw my like.
Fair enough. But I’m specifically talking about free will and the correlation with the interpretation. Definitely OT, so I will stop here with the physics.
 

Paolo

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Just remember the 'hundreds of hours' needed to 'break in' a speaker can be over a season or two and massive temperature and humidity changes.
If, and it is a huge IF, we had data showing that nasty peak at 7kHz disappearing after 3 months of white noise reproduction, then we could start to take the argument seriously. People convinced to remember exactly what they heard 150 hours ago, are either cyborgs or full of psychoacoustic.
 
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