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Danny Richie Audio Myths on “Electrical Burn In”

pozz

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Let me explain. There is science but science is not only physics. So if we can measure in the physics departmen a change, it's fore shure real. What impact this has on our perception is not physics. I dont know maybe neuroscience or somthing like that.
Psychophysics, the psychoacoustic branch specifically, part of which includes neuroscience and ear-brain anatomy.
 

Midwest Blade

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I think he is using the term "flat earthers" wrong from a historical perspective. "Flat Earthers" did not believe in the science of the physical world as they hysterically believed if you sailed over the horizon you would fall off, not very scientific and quite ignorant even for the middle ages. I find the same sort of hysteria of belief in the audio world with people hearing all the sorts of things they describe with the speakers, electronics and accessories that make up the industry.

Loudspeakers being an electrical/mechanical device no doubt have the potential to change over time, anyone ever blow a speaker or a tweeter, no doubt they have some variability based on use (abuse) and time.

I wonder at all the Audio shows - do companies break in their speakers and electronics before the show? Maybe we need to start asking, how many hours do they have on the displayed equipment....oh no, that really started my head spinning...:rolleyes:
 

amirm

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The idea of break-in has been studied. Here is Dr. Toole on it:

index.php


I saw the measurements in a private meeting at Harman. Yes, the driver itself shows noticeable change. But put it in a box that the difference shrinks to almost nothing. As noted above, listening tests were performed to confirm the same.

As to his car analogies, if you take a bolt and heat and cool it, it will show a difference in length. Put it in an engine fastening something, and you won't see that result. He talks about suspension of a car. How come that car doesn't ride softer after "break in?"

If the difference is real, then he should build two identical speakers, test them blind with people listening to music and confirm they can't tell the difference. Then break one in and test again. If the results are positive this time, then we know there can be a difference. He makes speakers so he should have no trouble doing this test.

Now, tell people there is an effect, and they will hear it. They run the speakers for N number of hours, then listen more attentively and they will hear more detail, air, etc. and consider the speaker more broken in. In reality the sound hardly changed, what changed was how they were analyzing sound. That, we know changes a ton.
 
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May I humbly suggest the topic of Danny Richie (and YT New Record Day) no longer be pointed to on ASR? He's boring, his video's are boring, and there's nothing of real speaker design interest in any of it. It's largely rhetorical in nature and aimed at a beginner audience that consumes nearly everything he says without question.

Dave.
 

Crazy_Nate

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I don't know why it is so hard to believe that a dynamic driver's properties will shift slightly in time? How many mechanical systems can you guys name that don't change properties with use? But, like most things, you may only notice a difference in application (putting the driver in a box) if all of the other variables can be precisely controlled due to the very slight changes involved.

He has measurements on driver breakin on his website. I don't doubt he has the background to do this since he has to evaluate lots of drivers for integrating into speakers. He's fairly transparent about his measurements (except maybe putting up phase angles on his impedance curves for his speaker designs...). But, you'll probably have to ignore the stuff about interconnects or the jacketing on internal wiring of speakers. With a grain of salt, as they say.
 

amirm

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I don't know why it is so hard to believe that a dynamic driver's properties will shift slightly in time?
We are not disputing that. But no audiophile is listening to bare drivers. He is using the change in bare driver to say that audiophiles listening to full speaker must be right. And based on science no less. Yes, showing driver measurements is science. It just isn't related. I am pretty sure my driveway pavement getting harder with lower temps all the time but I don't notice a thing driving on it with my car. Should I think my suspension has changed the first thought would not be, "oh must be because the pavement temp has gone down 10 degrees." :)

He is giving a reason to audiophiles to stay confused. That is not right.
 

Hayabusa

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The idea of break-in has been studied. Here is Dr. Toole on it:

index.php


I saw the measurements in a private meeting at Harman. Yes, the driver itself shows noticeable change. But put it in a box that the difference shrinks to almost nothing. As noted above, listening tests were performed to confirm the same.

As to his car analogies, if you take a bolt and heat and cool it, it will show a difference in length. Put it in an engine fastening something, and you won't see that result. He talks about suspension of a car. How come that car doesn't ride softer after "break in?"

If the difference is real, then he should build two identical speakers, test them blind with people listening to music and confirm they can't tell the difference. Then break one in and test again. If the results are positive this time, then we know there can be a difference. He makes speakers so he should have no trouble doing this test.

Now, tell people there is an effect, and they will hear it. They run the speakers for N number of hours, then listen more attentively and they will hear more detail, air, etc. and consider the speaker more broken in. In reality the sound hardly changed, what changed was how they were analyzing sound. That, we know changes a ton.

And some have also done some real measurements of burn-in:

Burn-in Measurements

[Edit: looks like this is done by the guy from the video :) ]
 
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amirm

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And some have also done some real measurements of burn-in:

Burn-in Measurements

[Edit: looks like this is done by the guy from the video :) ]
It is and is making the mistake that I explained, showing driver changes (calling them "speakers") where in reality everyone is talking about a finished loudspeaker.
 

Crazy_Nate

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We are not disputing that. But no audiophile is listening to bare drivers. He is using the change in bare driver to say that audiophiles listening to full speaker must be right. And based on science no less. Yes, showing driver measurements is science. It just isn't related. I am pretty sure my driveway pavement getting harder with lower temps all the time but I don't notice a thing driving on it with my car. Should I think my suspension has changed the first thought would not be, "oh must be because the pavement temp has gone down 10 degrees." :)

He is giving a reason to audiophiles to stay confused. That is not right.

Ha. Audiophiles will always be confused. We can't measure every perceivable characteristic and have things black and white. There will always be some mystery about the difficult or impossible to quantify characteristics. I do heavily appreciate your efforts to review objectively, though :)

FWIW, Danny likes open baffle speakers. At least one of the drivers he used for the "testing" he sells for that application. Now, if you take a driver in an application where it isn't in an acoustic suspension (closed box), might one argue that you're listening more to a driver directly. Audible? Not sure, but I'd probably believe if it I saw measurements that did say it got a little different response. As with any mechanical test the boundary conditions can heavily influence the results.

In other news, I've heard (anecdotally) that some headphone manufacturers will 'break in' their headphones with pink noise. Some might argue this is to get better response, others might argue that a reliability curve is bathtub shaped (or is it?). Perhaps we should just enjoy our gear for what it is, a flawed reproduction, and appreciate that if it make us happy, that's the important bit.
 

DonH56

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Most drivers are broken in after a few seconds and the difference is rarely if ever audible. I did find my old Maggies did take a few hours of break-in before the panels "loosened" and the frequency response dropped a few Hz as claimed. I was unable to verify (measure) any change in tweeter break-in as had been claimed by some listeners. That was decades ago.

Some audio marketeers, and in other areas, prey on consumer's doubt by using a little bit of science, often true but misapplied or irrelevant, to sell their wares. One of the early more blatant examples was the interconnect cable advert showing much greater bandwidth in a plot without noting the scale (fractions of a dB vertical, MHz horizontal) that would have shown it was way (WAY) beyond audibility.

FWIWFM - Don
 

g29

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We are not disputing that. But no audiophile is listening to bare drivers. ...

@amirm , FWIW, many of his speaker designs are OB, no box (no closed or ported air spring behind the drivers).
 
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amirm

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@amirm , FWIW, many of his speaker designs are OB, no box.
Where did he says his comments are limited to his open baffle speakers? He didn't. He says he is busting myths in general. Not in the narrow case of open baffle.

Even there, he admitted that there wouldn't be any frequency response differences. Said there would be some in CSD but didn't show any. Why not?
 

g29

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Where did he says his comments are limited to his open baffle speakers? He didn't. He says he is busting myths in general. Not in the narrow case of open baffle.

Even there, he admitted that there wouldn't be any frequency response differences. Said there would be some in CSD but didn't show any. Why not?

I didn't watch the whole thing, so I don't know if he limited it to OB or not and I didn't imply he did. I was responding to your comment about no audiophile listens to bare drivers.

Kryon Audio in Australia sells $100K+ OB speakers, some models are pretty much bare drivers. Don't know if that constitutes audiophile speakers or not.

Kyron-Gaia4_large@2x.jpg
 

JJB70

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Not everything that is measurable is audible or of much relevance. Clearly physical properties of materials change subject to a whole range of parameters. The question is not whether you will be able to measure such changes (it would be more remarkable to claim there are no changes) but whether such changes make any difference to performance.
 

Hayabusa

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It is and is making the mistake that I explained, showing driver changes (calling them "speakers") where in reality everyone is talking about a finished loudspeaker.
At least its a measurement showing that break-in makes a measurable difference. Putting these changes into a speaker box simulator shows that 20% changes in some cases can make a few dB difference at the low end of the FR.
I think its audible..
And maybe its a good thing to break-in a speaker for at least 40-80 hours before you measure it..
 
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Wombat

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The manufacture variation in driver parameters is likely to be more significant than 'burn-in' change. Those who match drivers for speaker projects will be aware of this.
 

Sgt. Ear Ache

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At least its a measurement showing that break-in makes a measurable difference. Putting these changes into a speaker box simulator shows that 20% changes in some cases can make a few dB difference at the low end of the FR.
I think its audible..
And maybe its a good thing to break-in a speaker for at least 40-80 hours before you measure it..

it's awesome that you think it's audible. Someone should prove it is sometime. And is there even any proof anywhere of anything even close to "a few decibels of difference" post-burn in? I don't think there's anything in the measurements this guy did that show decibels of change. More likely we're talking about .1 or .2dbs of change max...and over very tiny range of frequencies. The whole idea is laughable when even a tiny bit of logic is applied. Our audiophile brings a new speaker home and listens to it for a few minutes and then (using his 50 or 60 year old ears) makes some quick but deadly precise assessment of it's tonal characteristics - you know, "spaciousness," "clarity," "soundstage," "openness," all that good stuff - then throws it on for 100 hours of burn in and listens again and voila! Like magic, whatever aspect of the sound the golden-eared fellow had determined (imagined, read about) needing fixing is now so much better (compared to his perfect memory of what the speaker sounded like 4 or 5 days ago)! Why, it's like night and day! But take a measurement of the frequency spectrum and it hasn't changed a bit. Pushing a single slider up a single notch on an EQ would be a much larger actual change but if you A/B'd that you likely wouldn't hear it. And just how are these burn in times arrived at? If we agree that drivers change over time such that their sound is different, why does the process conveniently stop at exactly the right time for speaker perfection? Why does 100 hours of burn in make for a perfect speaker and then that's it for the speaker's life? Does it just stop changing once it realizes it's reached it's own degree of sonic nirvana? lol. How come golden-eared audiophiles never complain that their speaker after burn in was sounding soooooo much better but then after another 100 hours it was just all wrong again?

The point isn't that drivers don't change over time. The point is that they don't change in magical ways that solve specific issues and turn speaker sows into silk purses. There are audiophiles out there running around saying specific $10 chinese ear buds require (yes require) 200 hours of burn in before they become useable! I mean come on now!
 
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