Do Audio Speakers Break-in?

[Inner Space]

That's possible. I witnessed this on a demo of the Avantgarde Acoustic Trio in the 90's. Neither of the audiophile listeners nor the rep complained, but I did (sat in the sweet spot) and I was right (one of the drivers was wired in reverse).

I remember a very fancy demo of Tannoy Westminsters, by a high-end dealer in an expensive hotel ... the speakers were in phase, but L & R were reversed, with the double basses left of center and the violins right of center. I can't stand that kind of basic incompetence. Especially with people ooh-ing and aah-ing with praise ... have they never heard a real orchestra?

 

[LTig]

I remember a very fancy demo of Tannoy Westminsters, by a high-end dealer in an expensive hotel ... the speakers were in phase, but L & R were reversed, with the double basses left of center and the violins right of center. I can't stand that kind of basic incompetence. Especially with people ooh-ing and aah-ing with praise ... have they never heard a real orchestra?

At one of the live concerts I witnessed in our local opera the setting of violins and double basses was reversed. Afterwards I asked one of double bass players for the reason and he said that the composer wanted to have it this way. Can't remember just now who the composer was.

 

[Inner Space]

At one of the live concerts I witnessed in our local opera the setting of violins and double basses was reversed ...

Also, remember on old-time amps and receivers there would be a channel-reverse switch? The reason was (unbelievable now, I guess) that existing mono systems might have a decent speaker, but in "upgrading" to stereo, the owner might buy a non-matching and inferior speaker for the second channel, and it was an advantage to switch the basses to the better speaker.

 

[Lsc]

Perhaps but you are old enough to offer more than just a subjective observation to prove that you can.

I have no idea what you are saying.

Can you lift the veil off your comments?

@Lsc iv removed this exchange, I also see the post you deleted . Swapping that for passive aggressive insults did not work .

Consider this a friendly warning .

Thanks. I’ll be more careful - probably shouldn’t have even posted in a thread that I couldn’t care less about anyway. Please continue...and pardon the interruption.

 

[Kal Rubinson]

I have no idea what you are saying.
Can you lift the veil off your comments?

Sure. You have described your observation which I do not dispute. OTOH, you preceded it with " the sound changed" and that seems like a statement of fact. If so, I am asking if there is evidence, beyond your anecdotal observation, to support it. This gets to the crux of the issue in this thread.

 

[snurf]

If so, I am asking if there is evidence, beyond your anecdotal observation, to support it.

To prove that it doesn't exist might be too big a task. So it's existence or non existence is so far a subjective matter.

 

[Kal Rubinson]

To prove that it doesn't exist might be too big a task. So it's existence or non existence is so far a subjective matter.

Yes, proving non-existence is problematic but proving existence is not. That is why the burden on those who assert existence.

 

[GelbeMusik]

This gets to the crux of the issue in this thread.

Hype. Every thing always counts, they say relentlessly. It claims secret, superior knowledge on their side. The relevance of Your criticism is postponed until You give up or just forgot ( broken in ).

From simulation the suspension stiffness isn't much of a concern. It changes, fs changes, Qt etc change proportionally, which, in reasonable bounds, gives the same performance in the very same enclosure. Damping changes, but more due to sheer age. That was for bass.

If a midrange or even tweeter would be integrated with significant dependency on its suspensions stiffness, namely its resonance, that was an horribly incompetent design. Why should anybody care about "breaking in" such ugly crow for ages? Leave it to the lab for a revision.

I'm planning something anyway, so see the simulation: green or red is double the stiffness, resonance lifted from about 40Hz to 65Hz etc but same motor and very same enclosure. So, the difference barely hits the 1dB mark--in sub-bass. Ehm, and that is for the bigger part due to the exaggerated line resistance of 1 Ohms here ...

 

[snurf]

Yes, proving non-existence is problematic but proving existence is not. That is why the burden on those who assert existence.

No, the burden is shared, but I agree that it would be more convenient, if say a driver manufacturer made a double blind study.
Maybe this guy would do it: https://www.eminence.com/speaker-break-in/

I also wonder how one would design such a study. A sine wave sweep would probably not do well in this case.
Since the woofer's spider seems to need to be loosened up to sound right, an A-B listening test where you can switch source immediately would probably do well to identify 'break-in's existence or non existence. It's the dynamic part, where a drum should sound like a drum and not go boom-boom, that stood out the most with the two units I had that needed 'break-in'. Again, two of many, and full volume for a few minutes might had solved it.

 

[GelbeMusik]

... if say a driver manufacturer made a double blind study.

This doesn't sound reasonable to me. But I would do such just for You if You were the guy who greened the Sahara, promissed! Otherwise, c'mon. Science is not about pleasing individuals. There are other professions that focus on that, arts for instance.

anecdote 1: once I was customer in a hifi shop. Another guy was served by the clerk. He had bought, but not yet payed a set of supercables. While still talking with the clerk, rephrasing prayers from the magazines, he was so damn excited about his new step into audiostupidia, that he, unconsciously, bent the cables over and again, nearly twisting them around his sweaty fingers. The clerk feared a "dead on arrival" and gave note. "Break in" that was, right?

observation 2: a stiffy cone of Italian making was porous thin and doped with fibrous material, glas I think. While slightly bending it it made crackling noises. A PA midrange, 12 inch, and I wondered how this would do after several years in a smokers bar. Shlumbledd in, right?

 

[Lsc]

Sure. You have described your observation which I do not dispute. OTOH, you preceded it with " the sound changed" and that seems like a statement of fact. If so, I am asking if there is evidence, beyond your anecdotal observation, to support it. This gets to the crux of the issue in this thread.

It’s NOT a statement of fact. It’s my observation where I thought the sound “opened” up. It’s something that I’m not even 100% certain happened but my buddy who also bought the same speaker thought he observed something similar.
We don’t know know if there is such a thing as speaker break-in. What we both agreed on was how good our F208 sounded in 2013 (opinions by 2 people) when we first got them and a couple weeks later they sounded even better. Either way it’s all conjecture on our part.

But what’s odd is that there are reviews where speakers or amps or whatever are left to “break-in” for a period of time. As a reviewer for what 30+ years of your life (just a guess), why do you or your fellow reviewers do this? I’d like to know how all professional reviewers cannot agree on the myth of the speaker break-in. If it’s that black or white, then all reviewers should be either breaking in the speaker they are reviewing (assuming they got a brand new pair) or all reviewers should not.

I would think “professional” reviewers would know this answer one way or another. To be clear, if there is no such thing as speaker break-in, any reviewer who spends hours and hours letting a speaker break-in, it can be argued doesn’t know what he is doing. And the opposite case also holds true. I’ll pause here.

 

[amirm]

It’s NOT a statement of fact. It’s my observation where I thought the sound “opened” up. It’s something that I’m not even 100% certain happened but my buddy who also bought the same speaker thought he observed something similar.

This is your perception changing, not the equipment. All you have to do is pay attention to what you are hearing and you will hear more detail, more air, etc. Your brain normally throws out these things but when you decide to care, it renders it for you. It happens all the time for all of us.

 

[snurf]

This doesn't sound reasonable to me. But I would do such just for You if You were the guy who greened the Sahara, promissed! Otherwise, c'mon. Science is not about pleasing individuals. There are other professions that focus on that, arts for instance.

anecdote 1: once I was customer in a hifi shop. Another guy was served by the clerk. He had bought, but not yet payed a set of supercables. While still talking with the clerk, rephrasing prayers from the magazines, he was so damn excited about his new step into audiostupidia, that he, unconsciously, bent the cables over and again, nearly twisting them around his sweaty fingers. The clerk feared a "dead on arrival" and gave note. "Break in" that was, right?

observation 2: a stiffy cone of Italian making was porous thin and doped with fibrous material, glas I think. While slightly bending it it made crackling noises. A PA midrange, 12 inch, and I wondered how this would do after several years in a smokers bar. Shlumbledd in, right?

Well, it's about science and breaking myths, not pleasing individuals. Breaking the myth would be a good thing for consumers.

The guy from anecdote 1 was just testing them. Quote from one of the reviewers at Supercables homepage: “Another thing I really like about these cables is that you can actually re-tension them if you are not happy with the tension.” https://www.kinamed.com/products/orthopedic-products/supercable

 

[GelbeMusik]

It’s NOT a statement of ... observation where I thought the sound ... not even 100% certain ... my buddy ... something similar.
We don’t know know if ... we both agreed on ... all conjecture on our part.
...
I would think “professional” reviewers would know this answer one way or another. To be clear, if there is no such thing as speaker break-in, any reviewer who spends hours and hours letting a speaker break-in, it can be argued doesn’t know what he is doing. ... I’ll pause here.

All science starts with conjecture, speculations, gut feelings, philosophy. So far so good. Next step? If You're interested, what hinders You to investigate the case? I mean, science as a particular method to gain confidence in observations and conclusions is disclosed to the public. Say, Karl Popper, a 100 pages reading and You are empowered to do something halfway reasonable.

Where to start? One might buy 10 pairs, interchange them broken in against compare listening critical and so on.

A less costly pitch would ask for the original origin of the philosophy of 'break in'. Psychology is often misunderstood. Actually it is the science of thinking wrongly, whatever that is. For sure it is an oddball in science-land, because of its quite special topic. In this case, though, I would start right here.

My hypothesis: 'break in' is a convenience tool to manage the relation of people to things**, used unconsciously. It allows to cope with a big risk, namely to have lost the last chunk of dollars on something unknown, yet burdened with , mostly, ultimate expectations.

Please falsify. Where is it not so?

** Austrian: "Objektbeziehung"

I already showed that 'break in' of suspension isn't it.
- in bass never perceptable for humans
- in mids and heights it would indicate a faulty design, by contemporary standards
https://www.audiosciencereview.com/.../do-audio-speakers-break-in.11898/post-416118

 

[Lorenzo74]

There are a lot of "everybody knows" type of rules in audio with one of them being that audio gear in general, and speakers in the specific, benefit from "break-in." That is, their performance improves after some time. This is mostly touted by audiophiles but manufacturers also fuel this notion. See this from Klipsch's website:

View attachment 53019

Kind of strange that a company like Klipsch that knows how to measure speakers, doesn't provide a single bit of validation for this statement. You are just told to believe.

Why shouldn't we believe? I remember just about every new car I purchased said in the manual there was a break-in period and I read in auto magazine that after their long term test, mileage improved and so did power. In the case of speakers, they are made out of material that like any leather glove, can surely benefit from use to soften and fit like well, a glove. Are we supposed to all of a sudden throw out all this common sense and listen to a bunch of "objectivsts" telling us otherwise on some Internet forum? Surely not.

Heck, there are even measurements that show drivers like woofers change their characteristics after a few hours of "run in." Objective proof doesn't get better than this. Or does it?

Well, it is true that drivers change behavior after a bit of use but once you put them in a compliant box of a speaker, those differences become minimal. And certainly don't rise to the level of improvement people talk about. We could and usually stop here as the end of our argument but let's add some data, shall we?

Break-in Speaker Measurements
A couple of days ago I reviewed the Revel M16 speaker. Anxious to get quick results, I ran the test with 500 measurement points. For a 2-way speaker with clean implementation, that should be enough. When I compared the results of my measurements to Harman's anechoic measurements, I noticed that the high frequencies were rolled off in my test versus theirs. This can happen with my measurement system is the "expansion order" is too low. To increase that, I needed to measure the speaker again with higher number of points. So I doubled the measurement points to 1000 and ran the test again without touching the speaker or any other parameter.

The first 500 point measurement took about an hour and fifteen minutes. The second test took over 2 hours. If there is anything to break-in, then the second test should sow some improvement. Here is the comparison:

View attachment 53023

The two measurements are essentially identical. This, despite the fact that the 1000 point measurement has much higher order expansion so brings with it more accuracy and some variations. Yet, the response is still the response. No way anything regarding tonality of the speaker changed. The same bass, mids and highs are there.

Subjective Testing
While I did not listen to the speaker between runs, I did listen to it after the second test. At that point, there was 3 to 4 hours of run time on the speaker. I compared the M16 to my Revel Salon 2 which have played hundreds or thousands of hours of music. The M16 very closely resembled the sound of the Salon 2 sans out level capability and deep bass. So no way is anything broken about it right now to need to improve.

Conclusions
Objective analysis shows that there is no change to the frequency response and hence tonality of the speaker after a few hours of intensive running (full sweeps from 20 to 20 kHz). This completely mirrors research performed at Harman where they tested a new woofer and a "broken-in" one in a real speaker. While physical changes are occurring in the driver, they are at such low level that there is no hope of attaching them to audibility.

Of course our perception of audio is not just connected to sound our ears pick up. Many other factors come into play from our faulty long term memory to allergies and mood. These are responsible for variations we hear even when nothing of import has changed in the system.

Manufacturers either genuinely believe in the speaker break-in myth, repeating what they have falsely concluded like audiophiles. Or are hoping that if you don't like the speaker at first, you hang on to it longer to lose the motivation or option to return them later. Either way, there is no reason to listen to them unless they provide objective proof that sound changes with break-in. After all, this is no small difference so surely they can measure and provide proof.

------------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.

Now that I have saved you a ton of money from myth of speaker burn-in, how about donating some of that to me so I can run more of these tests using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/

I always find “engineering truth and good faith” in Andrew Jones Talks/Explanations.

“There is no doubt that drive units particularly bass drivers change with use”
“Can we define what use means”
A. J.

My opinion is something will change in the spider+sourround due to high deformations at the beginning then slowly settle to final conditions. This depens on many factors and could eventually led to some changes in T&S parameter. how much this is measurable and then audible , again, depends case by case.
It is true that if speakers are sold after a certain break in period the performance change must no be audible at all.

do break in, at the end, really matter?
moving speakers 10cm makes much more changes. I wonder how many can detect such changes in a “blind” test.
My Best
L.

 

[snurf]

...

Where to start? One might buy 10 pairs, interchange them broken in against compare listening critical and so on.
....
A less costly pitch would ask for the original origin of the philosophy of 'break in'. Psychology is often misunderstood. Actually it is the science of thinking wrongly, whatever that is. For sure it is an oddball in science-land, because of its quite special topic. In this case, though, I would start right here.

My hypothesis: 'break in' is a convenience tool to manage the relation of people to things**, used unconsciously. It allows to cope with a big risk, namely to have lost the last chunk of dollars on something unknown, yet burdened with , mostly, ultimate expectations.

Please falsify. Where is it not so?

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/.../do-audio-speakers-break-in.11898/post-416118

Well, your hypothesis is convenient for you. You turn to psychology and want proof in that field, instead of a simple A-B testing.
Two pair of speakers with multiple trials would suffice.

 

[GelbeMusik]

... could eventually led to some changes in T&S parameter. how much this is measurable and then audible , again, depends case by case.

See post #289 for a simulation. Even with vast changes never seen in practice there is no relevant difference to be expected. Don't see the grin in Mr. Jones' face when confronted with the layman questions, obviously driven by urban legend in audiophool township?

Well, your hypothesis is convenient for you. You turn to psychology and want proof in that field, instead of a simple A-B testing.
Two pair of speakers with multiple trials would suffice.

Not true. How would one maintain the not 'broken in' pair not 'broken in'? As soon as they are listened to, they start to 'break in'. Your attempt fails from A to B. And be assured, even the least sophisticated audiofolks would detect the flaw and render it a fail from A to Z.

I stated a simulation with post #289 to make a point, which was completely ignored by the experts in the field of 'break in'.

Obviously this very topic of 'break in' is alone about making people suspicious. To keep people dissatisfied, to keep them buying after "critical listening" to, You tell, the equipment, rather than program. And reiterated, the longer the claimed break in period, the higher the chance that the customer gets accustomed to a may-be-not-so-good product.

 

[snurf]

Not true. How would one maintain the not 'broken in' pair not 'broken in'? As soon as they are listened to, they start to 'break in'. Your attempt fails from A to B. And be assured, even the least sophisticated audiofolks would detect the flaw and render it a fail from A to Z.

I stated a simulation with post #289 to make a point, which was completely ignored by the experts in the field of 'break in'.

Obviously this very topic of 'break in' is alone about making people suspicious. To keep people dissatisfied, to keep them buying after "critical listening" to, You tell, the equipment, rather than program. And reiterated, the longer the claimed break in period, the higher the chance that the customer gets accustomed to a may-be-not-so-good product.

The arguments against break-in is that it always happens so fast, as quick as a few seconds, and to such a minor degree that it's not noticeable.
What about Klippel: https://www.klippel.de/fileadmin/_m...ynamic_Measurement_of_suspension_parts_01.pdf

'The dynamic measurement technique is also
convenient for the investigation of the break in and
other ageing effects of the suspension. '

'I stated a simulation with post #289 to make a point, which was completely ignored by the experts in the field of 'break in'.
Point taken. Even though I do consider myself to be a dumbass, I think that by using 'experts' in a derogative way you clearly include me. An investigation into the audible portion of break-in is warranted. But, as I've stated before, it's a non issue since it's self resolving.

Edit: I see now that I addressed it in post 290:
'I also wonder how one would design such a study. A sine wave sweep would probably not do well in this case.
Since the woofer's spider seems to need to be loosened up to sound right, an A-B listening test where you can switch source immediately would probably do well to identify 'break-in's existence or non existence.'

Edit 2: Music is dynamic. If the movement of a woofer cone is hindered by a rigid spider the bass will sound weak and will not be able to 'mask' the tweeter sufficiently. "The bass was weak and the tweeter somewhat harsh before 'break-in'" seems to be the most common description.

 

[Kal Rubinson]

But what’s odd is that there are reviews where speakers or amps or whatever are left to “break-in” for a period of time. As a reviewer for what 30+ years of your life (just a guess), why do you or your fellow reviewers do this?

I do not.

I’d like to know how all professional reviewers cannot agree on the myth of the speaker break-in.

Reviewers are as varied as are all audiophiles and there are no codified standards for being a professional reviewer than just being one.

To be clear, if there is no such thing as speaker break-in, any reviewer who spends hours and hours letting a speaker break-in, it can be argued doesn’t know what he is doing

One can make that argument but perhaps it is a conservative approach to do so if the individual even allows for the possibility that break-in is real. It does no harm and it allays the concerns of readers who do believe it exists.

 

[Objectivist01]

It’s just the time for our mind to adjust to the new sound. Nothing more . Total bullshit