Do Audio Speakers Break-in?

[Dimitri]

Notice that the "break-in" is not that many hours at all. And the 100 hour recommendation is in the fatigue area!

Started to forget what we are arguing about.
It started with "do they break-in?" It seems they answers is yes with a BIG BUT
...but it doesn't take as long
...but it doesn't make any audible difference and anyone who says otherwise is delusional

The graph does show A) aging exists and B) some age more graciously than others

" significant differences in the aging
characteristic as illustrated in Fig. 1 where speaker 1
showed a stronger break-in effect but a lower fatigue
than speaker 2."

Which unless I'm reading it wrong, after 100 hours you either have a speaker that starts going downhill rapidly or not.

And in the same paper:
"2.1. Previous Research
Although break-in and fatigue effects of loudspeaker
suspensions are well known phenomena reported in
many papers such as in [1] and [3], this issue has never
been investigated in greater detail by loudspeaker
research. In material science, however, there are plenty
of activities on the fatigue of metals, elastomers such as
rubber, impregnated glass fibers and other compounds
to investigate the nucleation and growth of cracks and to
predict the final break of the material [4-11]."

Audible break-in effects remind me of every claimed UFO picture of video. It's always too blurry to see any details other than a fast or hovering "thing".

With speakers it should be so much easier.*
New speaker out of the box. Play something. Record it. Measure it.
Politely "blast" some music for 50 hours. Play something. Record it. Measure it.
Politely "blast" some more music for another 50 hours. Play something. Record it. Measure it.
Compare. Publish. Done.


* Easier than a getting a clear shot of a UFO.

 

[Bear123]

The factual measurement data posted so far in this thread all point to little to no change in the sound of speakers with "break in" or "burn in". I have a feeling that, no matter how much proof is posted that the sound of a speaker does not change in any appreciable way with use, some folks will choose to believe that speakers need 100 hours to "burn in" and will drastically and undeniably change and improve sound. No amount of evidence will change their minds. We can hope that there are some intelligent, open minded folks who are willing to accept factual data and form a reasonable belief on the topic. This can apply to many other myths in the audiophile community. With enough factual data, open minds will be steered away from mystical 2 channel audiophile beliefs. For others, no amount of evidence will change their minds.

It's *very* hard to dispel myths and opinions that are long held and widely supported by the subjective audiophile community.

 

[Soniclife]

I believe the tires for professional teams are shipped to them already heat cycled and ready to race. Or, they heat cycle them by driving an easy lap, then going into the pits, lifting the car and letting the tires cool off. Either way, heat cycling is not a scam, and Tire Rack is not the only company that does it.

It's hard to know for sure with current F1, but the new tyres are super shiny when new, and go matt very quickly, and as much as possible they use new ones for qualifying and racing. They could still be heat cycling them with the tyre warmers in the garage though. A few years ago they were clearly scrubbing sets in and giving them heat cycles before the race, that seems to have changed.

 

[Dimitri]

some folks will choose to believe that speakers need 100 hours to "burn in" and will drastically and undeniably change and improve sound.

What I believe is that if it can be heard by a human ear, it should also be recordable, so it can be shared with the rest of the class

After all with all the digital transparency that exists today that shouldn't be all that hard.

 

[LTig]

Speaker break-in is very real and very measurable, but in most cases will still not be audible.

The magnitude of break-in effects depends on the construction of the speaker drivers. Some does not change much at all, others can show significant changes.

Bass drivers tend to soften up in the suspension after some heavy use, this can change bass roll-off slightly, after some use the q gets a little lower.

Yep, this is exactly what Markus Wolff, Chief designer at (back then) Klein & Hummel and now Neumann, has told me regarding the O300D: You can measure it but it is almost inaudible - a slight lowering of the woofer resonance frequency.

I had asked him about the PRO C28, the digital crossover one can connect to the O300D. He told me that K&H measures every single O300D before it leaves the house, and stores the individual parameters for the PRO C28 in a data base. When you later buy a PRO C28 you tell them the serial numbers of your speakers and K&H stores them into the PRO C28. When I asked him how this would be possibe at all since speakers change their behaviour during break in I got the answer cited above.

Since the PRO C28 was slightly more expensive than a pair of O300D, and to get the most out of this unit you had to invest an additional significant amount of money (~half the price of a PRO C28, 8h work time) to let an engineer from K&H setup the PRO-C28 according to your room (an early version of room eq) I refrained from making this deal.

 

[ROOSKIE]

[QUOTE="ROOSKIE, post: 345509, member: 13686"---
The big thing is why not just break them in before critically judging them? What is the loss? Play them non stop at fairly high volumes for 30 hours and them use them as intended. Simply can't hurt even if break in is bs.

Why not 33 1/3h or any other number?[/QUOTE]

30 or 33.5 either one works friend. I think you get my point.
To withhold final judgement on a speakers listening performance until it has had some reasonable chance to break in. For me that is 30 hours. A made up number that seems to fit the suggest range. If it was broken in in 1 min great, if it took 10 hours great, if it takes 200 hours then my estimate is short, great.
Of course it really takes me about that much time to get to know a speaker anyway. (30 hrs)I have deff had speakers both wax and wane and a good representative of long term listen value for me is 30ish hours of listening.
Anyway none if this is stone. Just compromised options for people reading this who want a plan of action from prescribed from the outside.

 

[bigjacko]

Klippel sells a measurement system to detect aging in speakers. Here is a slide from their presentation on that:

View attachment 53399

Notice that the "break-in" is not that many hours at all. And the 100 hour recommendation is in the fatigue area!

The break in part about this graph seems like the first stage of fatigue initiation stage to me. The first stage is fast and the crack just initiated. The fatigue part in this graph will then be second stage of fatigue propagation stage. In this stage the crack growth is slow and steady. When the crack grow bigger and bigger, the remaining material will be less and less, this means the K will keep on lowering until the material snaps and break into two. If the break in everyone talks about is fatigue, then the driver will keep changing until it blows.

 

[scotto541]

I have run similar tests with some headphones and also found no break-in.
At least no notable changes to speak of, so did Tyll and Rtings.

Still, it is possible some drivers do change in the first hour or so I can't rule that out based on the few measurements I have done.

As far as I remember Tyll Herstons DID believe in break in for headphones:
https://www.innerfidelity.com/content/testing-audibility-break-effects-page-2

 

[solderdude]

The problem I have with the test is that he uses 2 different headphones.
There is something like unit to unit variance which usually is larger than the small changes he measured.
So I do prefer his measurement efforts over the subjective differences between 2 headphones, even of the same make and model.

Having said this, before I started measuring I had bought a bunch of HD681's for modding (for Rock Grotto members) and had 1 that had audibly much less bass (I could compare directly). The bass slowly got to the proper level within a song.
Later on had another one that lacked bass all together and while it improved over some time (think hours of pounding it with loud music) it never reached the same level of bass.

I just have no hard proof. It is anecdotal. Later on I measured headphones (new ones) and then let them sit on the rig and blast music for 24 hours.
Not with HD681's though.

After a year or so Superlux brought out 3 different versions of the HD681 with different bass levels. My guess is that due to production spread (the darn things were 15 Euro retail) they had to ditch too many drivers and cleverly made 3 tiers and sold them as different types. (my theory).

I never could see any differences between the models and all had the same treble peak.

In the meantime Superlux headphones did change their sonic signature. The current ones have bass levels between the early HD681 and the 'neutral' HD681.

 

[MattHooper]

I think a lot of people don't know how to evaluate speakers properly and buy bad sounding speakers. It gets to their house and it doesn't produce good sound and they are disappointed. Then they listen for a while and get used to it and fall back in love with their content.

Get a great speaker and the moment you play anything into it, it sounds wonderful. If it does not, you have bought the wrong speaker....

Interesting.

As someone who is highly suspicious about burn in claims to the degree I read subjective speaker reviews I pay attention to the reviewers initial first impression comments.
If he writes “before break-in the speaker sounded lean in the bass and bright and brittle in the high frequencies” I take that as the more likely sound of the speaker. (Or at least the sound compared to whatever the reviewer had become used to previously). Then the reviews adapts to that sound.

 

[Kal Rubinson]

As someone who is highly suspicious about burn in claims to the degree I read subjective speaker reviews I pay attention to the reviewers initial first impression comments.

Sure. That first impression is close to an A/B comparison with whatever the reviewer listens to most of the time.

 

[MRC01]

...Get a great speaker and the moment you play anything into it, it sounds wonderful. If it does not, you have bought the wrong speaker....

Most of the time, yes. However, bad recordings should sound bad on a good system. We all have some that, based on listening with a variety of systems, we know are flawed in specific ways: too bright, too warm, or whatever. For example, many of the Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong recordings from the 1950s have too much emphasis in the upper mids / treble. This is annoying, and a speaker that doesn't reproduce this has a problem.

IME, the better and more transparent a speaker is, the more different recordings sound, because it reveals or un-masks more of what is in the recording. Conversely, lower quality speakers make all recordings sound similar.

 

[DualTriode]

This thread opened with Amir standing in the street calling out the likes of Klipsch.

“SHOW US THE DATA”



Amir posted from the Klipsch web site that Klipsch says that their speakers have at Break-In effect.

There was no question, is there a Break-In effect.



The request was, Klipsch show us the data.



Now 10 pages later there is an angry mob in the street with pitchforks and burning torches shouting,

Klipsch “SHOW US THE DATA”



I have the belief that speakers should sound good and test well straight out of the box. @Amir that is in the warm house and after a short warm up, not in the cold garage.



Thanks DT

 

[amirm]

@Amir that is in the warm house and after a short warm up, not in the cold garage.

That is how my listening tests are performed. Only measurements are in the garage.

 

[egellings]

I wonder if part of the break in idea is that it is the listener becoming accustomed to the sound of the speaker.

 

[Xulonn]

I wonder if part of the break in idea is that it is the listener becoming accustomed to the sound of the speaker.

Indeed - many intelligent and informed ASR members have asked the same question.

 

[Andreas007]

https://en-de.neumann.com/product_files/7942/download

Look at page 8 for Neumann statement.

 

[A800]

How'd that work out in math class?

No idea.

 

[A800]

Umm, that's not true at all.

Thank goodness for the objective data this site helps to provide.

Well yeah but what about devices that measure excellent but sound like crap?

 

[mansr]

Well yeah but what about devices that measure excellent but sound like crap?

Well yeah but what about the Easter Bunny?