Do Audio Speakers Break-in?

[Alice of Old Vincennes]

Did you miss the second part of my post?

I wrote that my new SCM11s sounded harsh and edgy for the first two days compared to my SCM40s. That is no longer the case as the sound has now mellowed out (in a good way), and they are now sounding closer to their bigger brothers in that respect.

Brain adapted. Breakin a myth.

 

[Beave]

Did you miss the second part of my post?

I wrote that my new SCM11s sounded harsh and edgy for the first two days compared to my SCM40s. That is no longer the case as the sound has now mellowed out (in a good way), and they are now sounding closer to their bigger brothers in that respect.

Did you miss the previous 80 pages of this thread?

 

[Svet Angelov]

Did you miss the second part of my post?

I wrote that my new SCM11s sounded harsh and edgy for the first two days compared to my SCM40s. That is no longer the case as the sound has now mellowed out (in a good way), and they are now sounding closer to their bigger brothers in that respect.

It's the wonderful brain... again.

 

[Barry_Sound]

I wonder why some are so religiously against the possibility of mechanical parts changing acoustic properties over time, especially when brand new. Au contraire it doesnt make sense to me believing that a speaker sounds 100% the same from the assembly line to the point it falls apart 30 years later.

 

[Svet Angelov]

I wonder why some are so religiously against the possibility of mechanical parts changing acoustic properties over time, especially when brand new. Au contraire it doesnt make sense to me believing that a speaker sounds 100% the same from the assembly line to the point it falls apart 30 years later.

We're talking about the initial break-in, not foam surrounds falling apart/transducers breaking?

 

[goat76]

Did you miss the previous 80 pages of this thread?

Yes, and I apologize for that, but I don’t want to read 80 pages of this thread as I just wanted to report my findings on the matter.

I read the first post in this thread where Amir uses regular frequency response measurements, and seemingly nothing else, to prove that no changes are done that can be explained as a break-in period of a loudspeaker.

Has the general view on the matter been drastically different from Amir’s view in the first post in this thread?

 

[Purité Audio]

The way to test it of course is to buy another new pair and compare side by side , I have done that here and I couldn’t hear any difference.
Keith

 

[BDWoody]

I wonder why some are so religiously against the possibility of mechanical parts changing acoustic properties over time, especially when brand new. Au contraire it doesnt make sense to me believing that a speaker sounds 100% the same from the assembly line to the point it falls apart 30 years later.

Because the changes people claim to hear haven't been demonstrated to take place. Until that happens, meaning when someone either provides the new and improved frequency response or blind tests showing this change is measurable/repeatable/testable, it's just a way to get people to hold onto stuff.

 

[DSJR]

But this was a comparison between an existing set of 40s compared to a brand new pair of 11s and then a later similar comparison some time later?

If the now home made ATC tweeters (some now with double suspensions) are anything like as tautly suspended as the bass-mid drivers are, it wouldn't surprise me at all if the tweets take a little while to fully settle down from new - and I bet the 11's as a cheaper speaker don't get the twenty minutes of resonance frequency pounding after manufacture that their larger model bass drivers used to get (I witnessed it so not hearsay) - if they withstand this I was told, they'll take anything an end user gives them.


More conventional-build drive unit suspensions apparently 'form' in the first few back and forth cone cycles and that's it for life. Tweeters may well need to 'form' as well but what I've heard is twenty year old tweeter samples mellowing out (direct memory of B&W 601mk1, original Mission 770 and Rogers LS7T, all of which not holding back up top when new and now old tales of ATC 50A's being thrashed in a Polish radio station needing annual Vifa tweeter dome 'module' replacements as the existing ones went off after this abuse). My Harbeths still sparkle sweetly as designed and the manufacturer insists that these ferro-fluid equipped tweeters don't age or need replacement, not need any running in whatsoever from new.

 

[Killingbeans]

I wonder why some are so religiously against the possibility of mechanical parts changing acoustic properties over time, especially when brand new. Au contraire it doesnt make sense to me believing that a speaker sounds 100% the same from the assembly line to the point it falls apart 30 years later.

My key argument would be that none of those assembly lines simply assemble things and send them out the door. All of them subsequently test the parts for performance within tolerance. Both the ones that make the individual drivers and ones who put them in an enclosure. Even if those tolerance checks only take a short time (especially if including thermal compression), they should be plenty enough to "shake loose" anything that needs to be so. Any changes happening from that point on would not be "break-in", but just plain old slow degradation.

 

[goat76]

I wonder why some are so religiously against the possibility of mechanical parts changing acoustic properties over time, especially when brand new. Au contraire it doesnt make sense to me believing that a speaker sounds 100% the same from the assembly line to the point it falls apart 30 years later.

I don't find it strange at all that some moving parts in the drivers will soften up over the first time of use. With my new speakers, it was done in about 20 hours and I don't expect them to change noticeably from now on.

 

[goat76]

Because the changes people claim to hear hasn't been demonstrated to take place. Until that happens, meaning when someone either provides the new and improved frequency response or blind tests showing this change is measurable/repeatable/testable, it's just a way to get people to hold onto stuff.

If I had been participating in this thread earlier, I would have made measurements of my new pair of speakers from the get-go and not moved the microphone until I re-measured them again after about 20-30 hours of use. As I said, I'm quite sure we could have seen some changes in the measurements, but probably not in the overall frequency response as I never heard any drastic changes tonality-wise. Instead, I would have looked for changes in the other graphs trying to find what causes the sound changes.

 

[CapMan]

I don't find it strange at all that some moving parts in the drivers will soften up over the first time of use. With my new speakers, it was done in about 20 hours and I don't expect them to change noticeably from now on.

Is this a one way trip to better, or do you also notice subtle degradation of performance over time as parts soften beyond the point of goodness you describe? Or does that change not happen?

I think we’re jn danger of repeating the same 80 pages again.

I think it’s accepted that some parts do break in (the spider I think) but that the process happens in seconds not days

 

[Svet Angelov]

I don't find it strange at all that some moving parts in the drivers will soften up over the first time of use. With my new speakers, it was done in about 20 hours and I don't expect them to change noticeably from now on.

Read just the first 15 or so pages of the thread and you'll have a better overview of the facts. No need to read all 80.

 

[CapMan]

I wonder why some are so religiously against the possibility of mechanical parts changing acoustic properties over time, especially when brand new. Au contraire it doesnt make sense to me believing that a speaker sounds 100% the same from the assembly line to the point it falls apart 30 years later.

As opposed to being against the possibility that our brains are fallible, our aural memories are short, and sometimes we just want to believe something because we need to …

 

[goat76]

Is this a one way trip to better, or do you also notice subtle degradation of performance over time as parts soften beyond the point of goodness you describe? Or does that change not happen?

I don't expect anyone to be able to hear subtle changes in their loudspeakers over a long period.

The differences I heard that can be explained as "harshness", "roughness", and "hard in the edge" going from my old pair of speakers to the new ones were very obvious. Those differences that were easy to hear between the loudspeakers are no longer there after the initial break-in period of about 20 hours.

As I hope you all understand I don't rely on any "long-time" memory here, it was a direct comparison going from one fairly similar speaker to another, and the new speaker sounded harsh compared to the old one. But this is no longer the case in direct comparisons with old speakers and they now sound the same in that regard.

 

[antcollinet]

The differences I heard that can be explained as "harshness", "roughness", and "hard in the edge" going from my old pair of speakers to the new ones were very obvious.

I heard the same a couple of weeks ago from my new AVR after room calibration. I adjusted the house curve, and improved it but couldn't get rid of it.

Then I came back to it a couple of days later, and just listened instead of "listening for differences" and the harshness/roughness had gone. Sounds lovely and smooth now. I promise you nothing had changed in the sound, just my perception. But it was a very obvious harshness before.

See also my post in this very thread, for an illustration of how the perception of sound changes while carefully listening for non existent break-in. This post is from more than two years ago - when I had been conned into thinking I had to break in my new speakers.

Do Audio Speakers Break-in?

I sooo wish I had kept all the notes from college days when we did a bunch of experiments including on speaker break-in. Bottom line is it was easily measurable, practically never audible, and generally completed within seconds or minutes with a tail that might last for hours but wasn't worth...

audiosciencereview.com

 

[YSC]

I heard the same a couple of weeks ago from my new AVR after room calibration. I adjusted the house curve, and improved it but couldn't get rid of it.

Then I came back to it a couple of days later, and just listened instead of "listening for differences" and the harshness/roughness had gone. Sounds lovely and smooth now. I promise you nothing had changed in the sound, just my perception. But it was a very obvious harshness before.

See also my post in this very thread, for an illustration of how the perception of sound changes while carefully listening for non existent break-in. This post is from more than two years ago - when I had been conned into thinking I had to break in my new speakers.

Do Audio Speakers Break-in?

I sooo wish I had kept all the notes from college days when we did a bunch of experiments including on speaker break-in. Bottom line is it was easily measurable, practically never audible, and generally completed within seconds or minutes with a tail that might last for hours but wasn't worth...

audiosciencereview.com

yea I completely agrees in the wonderful brain thing... sure mechanical parts do subtlely changes over time, but when the initial break in isn't altering the FR at all and need those religious other graphs to be seen, yet seasonal temperature and moisture changes which show obvious shifts in the FR and all those other curves are never reported, else we will see ppl temperature and moisture sealing their listening room all year long

 

[blueone]

Just to reiterate the point, made many times before.
Why does break-in of audio components always make them sound better - never worse?

One would give more credence to break-in being meaningful if there were common cases of components sounding worse after extended use. But every single one of the processes involved seems to only make things sound better.

In addition, the actual parameters that are claimed to change are never spelled out. The fact that suspension compliance can change with temperature is trotted out as evidence. But the effects are claimed to be much more wide reaching than just that. And generally not measurable. The article linked to earlier by @Juhazi https://www.audioholics.com/loudspeaker-design/speaker-break-in-fact-or-fiction really must be read. Take note of the limits of frequency response possible.

This is still the best post in this entire bloated thread.

 

[Twitch54]

Brain adapted. Breakin a myth.

not completely true, speaker dependent. Regardless, if a perceived 'break-in' is heard and the soul is satisfied, THAT's ALL THAT MATTERS !!