Do Audio Speakers Break-in?

[Frgirard]

Break in implies that the designers have included in their calculations the modulus of elasticity of the materials and the changes that occur when the speaker has been used for some time. I highly doubt that is occurring.

We are talking about transducers working with an old principle of more than 150 years.
The burn in can not occurs with calibrated speakers as Neumann, Psi Audio, ATC or Dynaudio... STRANGE
The burn in or the moon...

 

[iMickey503]

Is the glue dry? Burn-in done.
Warm up & burn-in might be causing the confusion

I think this started around the time of Piezo & Metal dome tweeters being introduced to the market. The folklore behind it being the BMW Turbo F-1 cast iron engines and their own "Seasoning" process.

Metallurgy is proven. However, Annealing your speaker diaphragm in situ may cause some discomfort let alone provide meaningful improvements.

Unlike instruments where you have consumables like Reeds, Strings, etc. In order to get a material change, burn in would have to include ultrasonic program material. Or heat via the curie point of the material such as aluminum for example.

I don't recall anyone burning in their tuba or sax being a thing. String being in tension are a completely different animal, but may be the common confusion leading to the false hypothesis of burn-in for soft parts. The soft parts are not intended to change states in a transducer. Otherwise, they would be consumables as tires, reeds or underwear. None is a preferred property of a well-engineered transducer.

In summary, if speakers made 80 years ago still work and sound like they did back when (presumably) they were new on old radio cabinets, I find it hard to grasp how newer speakers have such a problem.

For reference, I have included these articles that are honestly beyond my reach of understanding, but they may be helpful to those that wish to look into any science behind the anomaly of burn in:


====================================================

[1] M. Prokic, M. Radmanovic, K. Hedrih – The change of Electrical and Mechanical resonant Characteristics under Conditions of Various Trans. Loads, GAMM, Dubrovnik, pp.1-24, 1985.

[2] M. Prokic – Multifrequency Ultrasonic Actuators with Special Application to Ultrasonic Cleaning in Liquid and Supercritical CO2. UIA Conference, Atlanta, 10-12 October 2001.

[3] M. Prokic, J. Tapson, B. Mortimer – The ultrasonic Hammer Transducer

MP Interconsulting, Le Locle, Switzerland

Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Cape Town, South Africa

======================================

I also want to include this link here as they have published books on the subject, however, I am unsure if they have been peer reviewed

https://www.mpi-ultrasonics.com/


Coupled Tensors of Piezoelectric Materials State
Dr. Ljubisa Peric, Author





SCIYO.COM
There is a similar publication that can be reviewed thanks to the Federal State Budgetary Institution of Science Institute of Solid State Physics named after Yu.A. Osipyan of the Russian Academy of Sciences (ISSP RAS)

With its link Here:
http://www.issp.ac.ru/ebooks/books/open/Piezoelectric_Ceramics.pdf


The only reference to burn-in I have been able to find, deals with Lead Based Piezoelectric transducers. Something that I don't believe has any merit to this particular discussion concerning common day loudspeakers.

 

[Ken1951]

n college I worked in a hi fi shop. We sold thousands of speakers mainly Original Large Advents, ESS and EPI. We never told customers about the myth of "break-in" and I cannot recall any customer returning a speaker unless it was a rare factory defect.

Right there with you on this. I worked in a HiFi company after college in the early-mid 70s. If we sold a pair of speakers off the floor and replaced them with new ones - no change, they sounded like they were supposed to sound. Advents, JBL, KEF, Bozak, IMF, ADS, you name it. It was never a thing, and you would have been laughed off the floor if you suggested such a thing.

 

[krabapple]

that's false equivalence. It's iike saying ppl are prone to cognitive bias, so everything that doesn't align with your belief must be cognitive bias.

Actually it's like saying: speaker break in has been tested and the evidence does not support the claims of speaker burn-in believers. Coupled with that, all the standard cognitive biases apply to 'sighted' reports of audible difference.

If i say water in wet, it must be cognitive bias because ppl are prone to bias. That doesn't seem like logic to me.

No, because the properties of water have actually been analyzed. Now, if you said one thing was 'wetter' than another without there being an a priori reason to think this could be true, then the bias explanation kicks in and blind testing becomes helpful.

Why do you think blind testing exists, anyway? Why do you think it's de rigeur in many fields of science -- certainly in fields related to audio -- and product testing? You think that's all a waste of time? Why not just use people who 'know' like you do, what they are hearing?

All I'm suggesting is that if a speaker manufacturer claims their speaker requires break-in, test them according to the manufacturer's instructions, give that a test before / after break in and see if their claims are bogus.

All I'm saying is do your research before you come here claiming 'no one knows'.

But by all means, if you need , do what Amir says: stick a brand new woofer in a box, send it to him, he'll 'break it in' and test it for you. For example, you can buy a build-it-yourself kit from Parts Express and Amir will front you $100 towards that. That will at least establish a parameter of measurable difference in one case (better still owld be to send him a dozen woofers-in-boxes, so we can measure what the new unit-to-unit variance is.)

The magnitude of the measured difference can be extrapolated to likelihood of being audible. If that doesn't convince you, a blind listening test of a new unit versus of 'broken in' unit is required.

 

[mhardy6647]

This pair of Altec 414 woofers is broken in

As is this 604E Duplex.

 

[DSJR]

I have first hand experience of at least two UK manufacturers who basically 'broke in' the bass units for a few minutes before final assembly into the speakers. On one occasion, one of these makers had a batch of small-magnet 15" bass drivers earmarked for a UK domestic manufacturer (peeps who know me will guess which makers I'm on about and the 'wardrobes' they'd be fitted to ). These bass drivers were being pummelled at 20Hz (apparently their resonant frequency) for twenty minutes, the reasoning being that if they could withstand that, they'd take anything the end user could give them, at least until the foam surrounds crumbled away...

The other small manufacturer was extremely popular thirty five years back and made their own bass driver (magnetic 'circuit' worked out with hands-on maths, rather than CAD). I damaged one of mine and the main man, whom I'd known for years, built and tested overnight (similar bass sinewave) a fresh pair of drivers, which sounded awful on receipt. They did recover though - and these drivers usually measured identically (pen width difference when plotted).

Today with the lucrative used market, I'd suggest that many tweeters, especially those using ferro-fluid, may be well off now as output drops...

 

[Sal1950]

This pair of Altec 414 woofers is broken in

OH MY, what a sad ending to a wonderful pair of drivers.

 

[dfuller]

I have first hand experience of at least two UK manufacturers who basically 'broke in' the bass units for a few minutes before final assembly into the speakers. On one occasion, one of these makers had a batch of small-magnet 15" bass drivers earmarked for a UK domestic manufacturer (peeps who know me will guess which makers I'm on about and the 'wardrobes' they'd be fitted to ). These bass drivers were being pummelled at 20Hz (apparently their resonant frequency) for twenty minutes, the reasoning being that if they could withstand that, they'd take anything the end user could give them, at least until the foam surrounds crumbled away...

The other small manufacturer was extremely popular thirty five years back and made their own bass driver (magnetic 'circuit' worked out with hands-on maths, rather than CAD). I damaged one of mine and the main man, whom I'd known for years, built and tested overnight (similar bass sinewave) a fresh pair of drivers, which sounded awful on receipt. They did recover though - and these drivers usually measured identically (pen width difference when plotted).

Today with the lucrative used market, I'd suggest that many tweeters, especially those using ferro-fluid, may be well off now as output drops...

I do seem to recall seeing one of those videos where one of the companies in question tests the drivers at just absolutely silly excursion levels.

 

[Trif]

Break in implies that the designers have included in their calculations the modulus of elasticity of the materials and the changes that occur when the speaker has been used for some time. I highly doubt that is occurring.

What doesn't is occur is unboxing a new driver for every test. By the time the design is done the drivers are closer to replacement than break-in.

 

[mhardy6647]

OH MY, what a sad ending to a wonderful pair of drivers.

A-men.

According to reports on another forum, that particular Duplex was purchased by someone (not me) for a good price and subsequently reanimated by GPA. The 414s, of course, were muerto.

 

[mhardy6647]

I do seem to recall seeing one of those videos where one of the companies in question tests the drivers at just absolutely silly excursion levels.

Umm... did I share this already in this thread?

 

[dfuller]

Umm... did I share this already in this thread?

View attachment 145290

Can't say I've seen it, but I certainly got a chuckle out of it.

Anyway, this was the video in question (I think)...

 

[izeek]

View attachment 53026

Audionote is saying if you dont use your speakers for a week, you need to burn them in again for 5-10 hours.

damn. if i go on vacation i have to run them in again? after every vacation.
what about 2-3 days?

 

[DSJR]

I do seem to recall seeing one of those videos where one of the companies in question tests the drivers at just absolutely silly excursion levels.

Not sure it was silly levels, but I'd say it was a thorough test and the cones were being used well, shall I say. Said company does have a reputation for overbuilt drivers which can be nigh-on unburstable unless an amp goes DC or some-such...

 

[DonH56]

Re. speaker break-in; I wonder why the doubters did not read Amir's results in the very first post that started this thread? It's got, like, measurements and stuff...

 

[Shanman]

But letting an amp sit for days to "cook" is real, right??

 

[DSJR]

But letting an amp sit for days to "cook" is real, right??

It is if it's a Naim amp... Other amp makes jumped on the bandwagon too.

 

[SIY]

Re. speaker break-in; I wonder why the doubters did not read Amir's results in the very first post that started this thread? It's got, like, measurements and stuff...

I've also seen measurable differences, in T-S parameters, mostly. But overall system response tends to be pretty constant since Vas goes up, Fs goes down, and Qts usually goes down. The asymptote is pretty rapid, though.

 

[omm0910]

... If the manufacturer says it requires 10 hours of break in, then give it 10 hours of break in. take the 1st measurement before and the 2nd set after and see if it there are any real differences. If the manufacturer said nothing, then don't. Eventually, we'll see if break in does apply to certain speakers or whether it applies to none at all. If ppl have been arguing about this for 50 years and there is no general consensus, then obviously the evidence from both sides are weak as F...time to put it to the test

Can we find on the internet speaker (or amp...) manufacturer FAQs or user manuals that say "of course, our equipment requires 100 hours of burn in to sound its best, please be sure to do this..." The manufacturers should know after all. Can the burn in believers provide links to any such info?

I would be fascinated to know which if any manufacturers are on board with the burn in theory.

 

[klatwork]

Actually it's like saying: speaker break in has been tested and the evidence does not support the claims of speaker burn-in believers. Coupled with that, all the standard cognitive biases apply to 'sighted' reports of audible difference.



No, because the properties of water have actually been analyzed. Now, if you said one thing was 'wetter' than another without there being an a priori reason to think this could be true, then the bias explanation kicks in and blind testing becomes helpful.

Why do you think blind testing exists, anyway? Why do you think it's de rigeur in many fields of science -- certainly in fields related to audio -- and product testing? You think that's all a waste of time? Why not just use people who 'know' like you do, what they are hearing?



All I'm saying is do your research before you come here claiming 'no one knows'.

But by all means, if you need , do what Amir says: stick a brand new woofer in a box, send it to him, he'll 'break it in' and test it for you. For example, you can buy a build-it-yourself kit from Parts Express and Amir will front you $100 towards that. That will at least establish a parameter of measurable difference in one case (better still owld be to send him a dozen woofers-in-boxes, so we can measure what the new unit-to-unit variance is.)

The magnitude of the measured difference can be extrapolated to likelihood of being audible. If that doesn't convince you, a blind listening test of a new unit versus of 'broken in' unit is required.

and speaker break-in hasn't been proven to be a lie on speaker models that claims to require them. The test here is basically tested on an aluminum speaker driver whose manufacturer never claimed to require a break in . That's like testing an 8ohm for 4ohm rating and claiming emotiva must be lying because your speakers are tested to work with 8ohm, so that must apply to all speakers...then comes your conspiracy theory that 4ohm Emovita / Magnepan , etc...are trying to dupe you into upgrading your amp. That's how u ppl are wired..


all you ppl need to do is test according to manufacturer recommendation the next time you test a speaker that claims "break in" is required and see if their claim holds... how hard is that? what is the point of me buying a DIY woofer that might or might not require break in to test this

why are ppl so scared to actually prove the speaker manufacturers as lying....lol, if i am so sure Klipsch is lying, I'd be happy to see the tests to prove them wrong. You ppl are twisting yourself into a pretzel trying to talk yourselves out of these tests..lol.