Do Audio Speakers Break-in?

[David Harper]

As mentioned more than once previously in this thread if they do "break in" why should they sound better rather than worse? One would think that a new firm tight rubber surround on a woofer would sound better than an older softened loosened relaxed one wouldn't one? Same goes for a new stiff cone. This sounds like just another thing that some audiophiles overthink and obsess about. Like wires. If they do break in, so what? If they don't, so what? Most likely it's our hearing that breaks in. In any case it would be something we have no control over. Seems like our hearing is too subjective for things like this to matter. After listening to my Polk Rtia5 speakers for maybe ten years I bought a new pair of B&W speakers, brought them home and listened for a day, hated them, packed them back up in the boxes and returned them to the showroom. The guy I bought them from was visibly annoyed that I didn't like the sound. I didn't say they sounded sh!tty only that I didn't like them. The Polk's had a very smooth laid back sound which I had surely gotten used to and the B&W speakers sounded loud, harsh, bright and unlistenable (to me). Maybe if I had kept them for a few months I would have come to like them. Who knows. This is the thing about the subjectivity of audio. Maybe if Abe Lincoln was here he would say "your system sounds just about as good as you've decided it sounds".

 

[carewser]

Julian Hirsch made sure all the speakers he tested were broken in before he reviewed and measured them.

Hirsch may be responsible for the whole speaker break-in phenomenon but then i've also heard that he's the guy who never heard a stereo component or speaker he didn't like

 

[Trif]

I bet Julian's first speaker had leather surrounds. Everybody knows leather needs to break in.

604s used to break in. Then they'd break down, and we'd recone them.

I just bought a Celestion Blue. I can't wait for it to break in. 100dB @ 1 watt, and I have a 5 watt amp. (hand-wired SET, of course! )


But if your surrounds are made of "space age rubber" instead of doped, accordion-folded paper, I sincerely doubt you will experience any audible break-in phenomena. If anything in the suspension changes, it will most likely lower the resonance, but it's really hard to imagine the change will be anything close to the spread of parameters allowed in speaker production. Perhaps audible to those listening to the speaker too closely, but meaningless to those who listen to the music.

 

[Larry B. Larabee]

It took 7 months for mine to break-in or about 400 hrs. Or it was something else that caused them to sound consistently better, who knows.

 

[LTig]

It took 7 months for mine to break-in or about 400 hrs. Or it was something else that caused them to sound consistently better, who knows.

It was your brain adjusting to them. Happens each time you get new speakers.

 

[Larry B. Larabee]

It was your brain adjusting to them. Happens each time you get new speakers.

7 months! That doesn't say much for my brain power if it took that long. Although, it does explain alot of things

 

[LTig]

7 months! That doesn't say much for my brain power if it took that long. Although, it does explain alot of things

I think it rather shows that your new speakers sounded quite different from the old ones. If you still have them reconnect them to your system and have a listen.

 

[Larry B. Larabee]

I think it rather shows that your new speakers sounded quite different from the old ones. If you still have them reconnect them to your system and have a listen.

The theory of audio memory being transient is just a myth. Versus my old speakers I went from okay (before) to pretty good (7 months ago to now) to great (the future). There is nothing confusing about it other than the interpretation of someone not in the same room deciding the outcome in the most subjective of contexts. Do you think? This is part of an ongoing discussion we need to settle. What is your evaluation of time dependent differences in the sound of newly purchased speakers?

 

[YSC]

The theory of audio memory being transient is just a myth. Versus my old speakers I went from okay (before) to pretty good (7 months ago to now) to great (the future). There is nothing confusing about it other than the interpretation of someone not in the same room deciding the outcome in the most subjective of contexts. Do you think? This is part of an ongoing discussion we need to settle. What is your evaluation of time dependent differences in the sound of newly purchased speakers?

My answer is simple. For anything it have a curve of property changes over time, if initial usage of X amount of time it changes noticeably better in say a few times more duration it will noticeably deteriorate. Nothing can keep on improving or keep itself at maximum performance forever. So if anything it is you adapting to a certain flavour and enjoys it rather than anything significant physically happened.

The most common argument being rubber surround loosen up and make it better. But consider this: a car tyre improves its grip through initial usage to say 1/3 wearing but afterwards it degrades and ultimately slips on very minor rain. Same would go true for surrounds.

And remember a lot of hifi claims that a dented tweeter isn’t going to affect sound noticeably even high SPL distortion significantly changes? When a dent dome isn’t noticeable I don’t think the minor running in in any sense should be day and night.

 

[Larry B. Larabee]

My answer is simple. For anything it have a curve of property changes over time, if initial usage of X amount of time it changes noticeably better in say a few times more duration it will noticeably deteriorate. Nothing can keep on improving or keep itself at maximum performance forever. So if anything it is you adapting to a certain flavour and enjoys it rather than anything significant physically happened.

The most common argument being rubber surround loosen up and make it better. But consider this: a car tyre improves its grip through initial usage to say 1/3 wearing but afterwards it degrades and ultimately slips on very minor rain. Same would go true for surrounds.

And remember a lot of hifi claims that a dented tweeter isn’t going to affect sound noticeably even high SPL distortion significantly changes? When a dent dome isn’t noticeable I don’t think the minor running in in any sense should be day and night.

This is a surprising and abrupt change. In another thread I noticed the improvement when a consistent difference in sound was, I thought, associated with a humidity change from average 50/60% to <40%. As with any mysterious result dealing with sound reproduction it was pooh-poohed out of hand because you can't measure that stuff.
If it isn't that it must be something else. What do I look like, a speakers breakin groupie? It just happened for some reason and saying it didn't is completely crazy and if the objectivists can't account for it then it's on them, not me.

Magic Bus-The Who

 

[Frgirard]

This is a surprising and abrupt change. In another thread I noticed the improvement when a consistent difference in sound was, I thought, associated with a humidity change from average 50/60% to <40%. As with any mysterious result dealing with sound reproduction it was pooh-poohed out of hand because you can't measure that stuff.
If it isn't that it must be something else. What do I look like, a speakers breakin groupie? It just happened for some reason and saying it didn't is completely crazy and if the objectivists can't account for it then it's on them, not me.

Magic Bus-The Who

totally ridiculous and more worrying talk when it comes to acting in real life.

 

[Frgirard]

The theory of audio memory being transient is just a myth. Versus my old speakers I went from okay (before) to pretty good (7 months ago to now) to great (the future). There is nothing confusing about it other than the interpretation of someone not in the same room deciding the outcome in the most subjective of contexts. Do you think? This is part of an ongoing discussion we need to settle. What is your evaluation of time dependent differences in the sound of newly purchased speakers?

The myth is the reliability of memory subject to the deformation of memory consolidation with each recall.

 

[ZolaIII]

It's absolutely not true that speakers don't brake in, they do if you hit them hard enough.

 

[killdozzer]

This topic came in a few threads around the Internet, not just here, and I believe I've read too much opinions. I'm still in the "break-in is a non-issue" camp.

Only two arguments made it on my radar (but my radar might be broken, one should always suspect his radar ). One is the spider-suspension and the other is the rubber suspension. The rest made even less sense to me (like parts of XO or even the very funny "amp adapting to speaker").

Rubber - I don't believe it softens (other than warm-up and cool-down, but that's not break-in, that's working temp.) When seeing old rubber, it actually hardens and starts to decompose breaking off in small chips. I think elasticity is best in new rubber. Car tires I don't see as a good analogy. It's a different use.

Spider - is often made of some sort of fibers pressed together and there is this idea that some of those will break or loosen up if they were tight in the beginning. It is not very convincing, but if this needs to happen it would happen at the very testing of proper functioning of the product. I think every company that tests its speakers would cause these to break if there even were any to break in the first place.

Finally, I said it's a non-issue, it's irrelevant. The amount of fibers to break or the percentage of rubber softening would hardly be so high to be detectable over a long period. If your only testimony is; I remember when I first got them, I wasn't all that into them... It's simply not enough. If it changed so much to be detectable over a few months period, it would be a very bad, unreliable and unpredictable product.

Also, I've never heard anyone making these claims after damaging a speaker and replacing it with a new one of same make and model, which should be the case if there's break-in. Your left speaker falls down, it cracks, you buy a new same one and now your left channel is bad (??)

It would be very important not to change anything else to be able to claim it's break-in. No new piece of furniture, acoustic treatment, different LP, different toe-in, nothing. Can any one really say this?

I remember once, long time ago, someone offered measurements out-of-the-box and long after (I doubt I could find these), but he also couldn't say nothing else changed.

Some people make some guesses, like; everything changes and material changes and there's degradation over time and there simply must be some difference. But no real confirmations.

 

[tvrgeek]

Well, I have been building speakers for 40 years. To say break in is needed or not as a blanket statement is not accurate. It depends on the suspension. Modern drivers are made with very consistent materials for the spider and surround, so differences may be very slight just as was measured at the begging of this thread.

But not always. I had an Infinity 12 inch sub driver where the Fs dropped 10 Hz from out of the box to after a beak-in. 10Hz was significant for this driver. That is the only one I found with significant enough change to have any effect on loading design. There is more differences in Qms and Fs sample to sample than I can measure for break-in. A couple months ago, I rebuild my HT mains, Dayton RS drivers in use for a good 10 years. Changes were insignificant as measured with my WooferTester II.

I think the old original Klipsch drivers had paper suspensions, so the need for break-in may be greater.

Ageing is another problem, but was only really for the foam surrounds. I guess some early papers could get brittle and who has not had a car speaker fall apart.

Now, manufactures have an incentive to have you play them before evaluation. It is because you will get accustomed to the sound. Not a real change, a change in your perception. If they can then blame it on "break in" all the better.

Bottom line, don't worry about it. I measure them, and surprise, can't hear any difference.

 

[Lsc]

It took 7 months for mine to break-in or about 400 hrs. Or it was something else that caused them to sound consistently better, who knows.

I just got a new center channel yesterday so I’ll keep an ear on the sound to see if anything changes.

 

[tvrgeek]

I just got a new center channel yesterday so I’ll keep an ear on the sound to see if anything changes.

Likely getting used to it.

 

[Lsc]

Likely getting used to it.

I haven’t heard any changes so maybe I’m not used to it yet. But it does sound great.

 

[LTig]

The theory of audio memory being transient is just a myth. Versus my old speakers I went from okay (before) to pretty good (7 months ago to now) to great (the future). There is nothing confusing about it other than the interpretation of someone not in the same room deciding the outcome in the most subjective of contexts. Do you think? This is part of an ongoing discussion we need to settle. What is your evaluation of time dependent differences in the sound of newly purchased speakers?

When I built my first DIY speakers (based on KEF LS3/5 a) I did not like them because they were rathe rboring (the old ones were very bright). A colleague was rather impressed by there SQ. After some time I started to like them and going back to the old ones revealed how bad they really were.

Years later I changed from Maggies 1.6 to K&H O300D and the chief designer Markus Wolff (later at Neumann) told ne that they do not need break in - it could be measured in the deepest bass but the change would be too minor to become audible. Guess he was right, and after 17 years they still sound great. If anything has changed in these years it's my hearing ability (to the worse I fear).

 

[Jukka]

This is a high quality 10" PA midwoofer from Eighteensound:

I bought them last summer and set up into a 2-way DIY speaker during late-summer. I did run a few minutes of multitones from REW at considerable power and when they were installed onto the cabinet, I put couple of hours bass-heavy music through them. These are not heavy woofers, these are midranges that can play a few bass notes. Then I EQ'ed them nearfield-flat through intented passband with my FusionAmp dsp's. It took quite strong filters to get it done, but it's no big deal for a dsp-computer.

Now some 5 months later after moving to a new apartment I noticed elevated bass and my Dirac shows some wild things in the bass range. "This is odd, room-mode-free room should not boost bass, it's vice versa." I think to myself, and let Dirac do it's magic. Today I finally had the time to time-align the 2-ways with my subs and while doing that, I noticed that nearfield-woofer frequency response is wild, as in "off-the-charts-wild". I removed PK F 134.0 G 6.6 Q 1.161 and reduced LS12 F 306.4 G 8.0 Q 0.707 to G 4.6 to make it flat again. That is -10 db at 134 Hz compared to initial flat response! That's some break-in for you guys!