Do speakers change all that much after 100 hours of 'burn-in'?

[fpitas]

bass drivers should sort themselves out in minutes I reckon and then stabilise for their remaining lives

It takes some number of hours, depending on the materials and configurations used in the spider and surround. As Head_Unit describes though, once in the cabinet the changes tend to cancel, so the end user won't know that much is happening. That, and many high-quality drivers are broken in at the factory as part of infant mortality QA.

 

[kacos]

Part 2:

 

[ErVikingo]

I had a discussion about that many moons ago. The dealer suggested that I exercise the woofers with a 9 volt battery pos to pos a a then pos to neg.

His concept was to correct for potential misalignment in handling during shipping of my rather large and heavy woofer towers.

Never tried them before “extending and contracting” the woofers with the battery. Is that what they are referring to?

 

[fpitas]

I doubt a couple in-outs is going to do a lot. Ken Kantor told me he used to break in Peerless woofers for hours, using 1/3 octave noise centered on fs, with the cone excursion near Xmax. So, enthusiastic motion

 

[Deleted member 21219]

I am beeing "somewhat" late to the thread with my post... Please don't mind

Why they break in for the better: I would suggest, that all parameters stated for a chassis by the manufacturer are for a used / "broken-in" version and not for a new one. He must have used them quite a lot before, experimenting with them and they are finaly been measured when finalizing the product. Thus "burn-in" probably always goes for the "better" because of this. I myself had tried to "burn-in" speakers at least for Uduration) 15 (?) hours or so. At the beginning the speakers sounded restricted and locked in. Little (?) seemed to have changed afterwards after that stated period. Than I exchanged the preamp for another (cheap) model and make and it sounded now quite different: It sounded actually a lot better. Why ??? I don't know, because both seemed to have (almost) identical specs.

Probably two causes have come together: The spiders and suspensions of the chassis have been relaxed a bit by exercising them for "some" time and the sound seemed to have changed (surprisingly) by exchanging the preamp. If everything is psychological, I doubt it, but some aspects might be connected to it sometimes.

1) Never underestimate the power of the mind. It can trick us in many ways - both good and bad - that we not only can't realize at the time, but may not even be able to consciously control or prevent. That's why we use instruments for measurement; they have no emotions.

2) The only way to compare audio signals is short-time switching between level-matched devices, ideally in a test that is double-blind. Did you take the time to switch cables? Comparison invalid. Did you fail to level-match? Comparison invalid. Were you able to see the devices, or otherwise know which one was playing? Invalid again. Even a third-party switcher can give "tells" to the listener in the form of differences in snapping switches, body movement, breathing, et al.
Comparisons over the span of hours or days are 100% UNRELIABLE.

People are egotistical; they believe that they are in control of their mind. In reality, our minds control us, dangling us around here and there like the puppets that we are, and manipulating us in not-so-subtle ways to ensure our better survival and more effective physical functioning.

If you want a good guideline on audio comparisons, try this:

Andi f you want examples of the unreliability of our hearing, just search YouTube for "auditory illusions". The illusions are cute, but what is more important is our inability to anticipate (and/or control) them.

So ..... the next time someone says that speaker "break-in" is audible, you'll know better.

Jim

 

[MAB]

I had a discussion about that many moons ago. The dealer suggested that I exercise the woofers with a 9 volt battery pos to pos a a then pos to neg.

His concept was to correct for potential misalignment in handling during shipping of my rather large and heavy woofer towers.

Never tried them before “extending and contracting” the woofers with the battery. Is that what they are referring to?

No. There will be a tiny change in the driver's parameters in the first few minutes, which you will not likely be able to hear). I would just play music and enjoy. Nothing is 'misaligned' unless the speaker is damaged. Like why would a driver be misaligned? The dealer is asking you to do something that they should know is unnecessary.

 

[Roland68]

I always find it interesting that things are discussed in the audio sector that are completely normal, researched and documented in industry and medical technology.
Let's take all types of membranes that are made of flexible materials (rubber, plastics, caoutchouc, etc.) and/or fabric (similarities in function to loudspeaker drivers are of course purely coincidental). Of course, it is known in industry that these components change their function in the first period of life until a stable function is achieved that lasts for a long time. Of course, these components continue to age depending on the load and environmental conditions. And no, so far I haven't heard of any material where this isn't the case.
For special areas there are even pre-aged components to ensure a defined function from installation.

Whether and to what extent this has an “audible” effect is another question.

 

[JiiPee]

Just a friendly heads up to all audiophiles: Together with my friend and well-known audiophilia-guru professor Vytautas Kusetus we have established a professional audio equipment break-in service. For a hobbyist-friendly modest charge of USD 1.99 / hour (plus taxes and expenses) we do careful breaking-in for all equipment with professor Kusetus analyzing the results continuously with his special high-end method to ensure that the object is not returned to its owner before it has reached the absolute peak performance.
(Please note that especially with some high quality speakers it may take up to two years before peak performance is achieved.)

 

[MAB]

I always find it interesting that things are discussed in the audio sector that are completely normal, researched and documented in industry and medical technology.
Let's take all types of membranes that are made of flexible materials (rubber, plastics, caoutchouc, etc.) and/or fabric (similarities in function to loudspeaker drivers are of course purely coincidental). Of course, it is known in industry that these components change their function in the first period of life until a stable function is achieved that lasts for a long time. Of course, these components continue to age depending on the load and environmental conditions. And no, so far I haven't heard of any material where this isn't the case.
For special areas there are even pre-aged components to ensure a defined function from installation.

Whether and to what extent this has an “audible” effect is another question.

It only gets discussion in audio because of the odd tendency for people to attach magical properties to the Burn-In of their components.
The idea that large changes will occur.
The rumors that new gear absolutely needs to Burn-In before listening.
The belief that Burn-in makes gear sound better.
The suggestion that burn-in be done at high volume, for extended periods of time, even to the point we have people putting speakers face to face and running them at full-beans out of phase for a day, or a week. This is called wear-out.

 

[fpitas]

It only gets discussion in audio because of the odd tendency for people to attach magical properties to the Burn-In of their components.
The idea that large changes will occur.
The rumors that new gear absolutely needs to Burn-In before listening.
The belief that Burn-in makes gear sound better.
The suggestion that burn-in be done at high volume, for extended periods of time, even to the point we have people putting speakers face to face and running them at full-beans out of phase for a day, or a week. This is called wear-out.

I bet it got popularized by salesman telling people to keep the equipment longer, it will burn in and sound good someday

 

[Peterinvan]

I always find it interesting that things are discussed in the audio sector that are completely normal, researched and documented in industry and medical technology.
Let's take all types of membranes that are made of flexible materials (rubber, plastics, caoutchouc, etc.) and/or fabric (similarities in function to loudspeaker drivers are of course purely coincidental). Of course, it is known in industry that these components change their function in the first period of life until a stable function is achieved that lasts for a long time. Of course, these components continue to age depending on the load and environmental conditions. And no, so far I haven't heard of any material where this isn't the case.
For special areas there are even pre-aged components to ensure a defined function from installation.

Whether and to what extent this has an “audible” effect is another question.

I always run my speakers/phones for a while before doing any critical listening, and I have definitely heard a difference afterwards. The Meze 109 Pro is an example where many owners have noted that the treble "harshness" diminishes after about 75 hours.

Since all speakers and headphones have flexible parts, it makes sense to me that some materials take time to achieve the optimal flexibility. Some manufacturers run their speakers for some time before shipping. The old adage applies: "Trust your ears".

 

[Anton D]

As I've posted elsewhere, not in a large set of measurements that I did. The suspension changes did not affect the frequency response much. I'd suppose Andrew thinks people aren't hearing anything physical but have psychologically adapted to the new sound. That's what I believe 98.647% of "break-in" is.

That seems fair.

When I have asked manufacturers about this, they have uniformly said that they use 'broken in drivers' when they are working on a speaker, so I found that interesting. (Keeping in mind "broken in" is a very imprecise term!)

Has Amir ever measured speakers in their virgin state and then again after a month of use?

This would seem a fascinating avenue of measurement!

 

[Salt]

Just take a woofer and take T/S parameters before and after burn-in.
If there is significant difference, what would lead to different enclosures, there was a proof of the theory.

 

[Gringoaudio1]

Reminds me of reading cable reviews where the companies involved offer to burn them in for you, yeah right........of course they do.

Local high end shop has a machine for this purpose. Will break your new cables in for a fee. Sheesh!!

 

[Roland68]

It only gets discussion in audio because of the odd tendency for people to attach magical properties to the Burn-In of their components.
The idea that large changes will occur.
The rumors that new gear absolutely needs to Burn-In before listening.
The belief that Burn-in makes gear sound better.
The suggestion that burn-in be done at high volume, for extended periods of time, even to the point we have people putting speakers face to face and running them at full-beans out of phase for a day, or a week. This is called wear-out.

This has nothing to do with magic, it's just physics and chemistry.
It's no different with electronics, there's a huge industry that supplies pre-aged electronic components (only a small portion of them are capacitors), including for measurement technology, avionics, automotive, medical technology, etc. It's expensive and the manufacturers don't pay for such components for fun .

A few examples from IT.
In the '80s, Vobis got many of the newly sold computers back as defective after 1-3 days. These were then run under load with a test program for 2 to 3 days and then given back to the customer without doing anything to the computers. Only a small 1-digit percentage of these computers were returned and complained about. These were really defective.

15-20 years ago I started overclocking CPUs. Although initially unstable at low overclocking, these CPUs ran absolutely stable after a 48-72 hour burn at 50-100% overclocking (assuming appropriate cooling).

In the '80s I did my training with a professor who also owned a computer company and sold computers to universities. His computers, which at the time were all assembled from individual parts, had the reputation of being the most reliable. The secret: he ran each computer for a week at 20% overclock with a stress test.

Even a new high-performance server should first be allowed to burn under full load for 48-72 hours before installing an operating system. I didn't do it once because we had an outage. Man, that was a stupid idea...

Here, too, the question is whether and to what extent this has an “audible” effect.

 

[Palladium]

I always find it interesting that things are discussed in the audio sector that are completely normal, researched and documented in industry and medical technology.
Let's take all types of membranes that are made of flexible materials (rubber, plastics, caoutchouc, etc.) and/or fabric (similarities in function to loudspeaker drivers are of course purely coincidental). Of course, it is known in industry that these components change their function in the first period of life until a stable function is achieved that lasts for a long time. Of course, these components continue to age depending on the load and environmental conditions. And no, so far I haven't heard of any material where this isn't the case.
For special areas there are even pre-aged components to ensure a defined function from installation.

Whether and to what extent this has an “audible” effect is another question.

There's also no chemists who wouldn't be laughed at, if they suggested changing power cables would improve the instrumentation accuracy already in the parts of a billion or even a trillion ranges.

 

[Roland68]

There's also no chemists who wouldn't be laughed at, if they suggested changing power cables would improve the instrumentation accuracy already in the parts of a billion or even a trillion ranges.

We do not know that. Certainly no one has tried a Nordost Odin 2 or Odin Gold power cord for around $50,000 and 1000 hours of burn-in time, who knows...

 

[Littletycoon]

This has nothing to do with magic, it's just physics and chemistry.
It's no different with electronics, there's a huge industry that supplies pre-aged electronic components (only a small portion of them are capacitors), including for measurement technology, avionics, automotive, medical technology, etc. It's expensive and the manufacturers don't pay for such components for fun .

A few examples from IT.

15-20 years ago I started overclocking CPUs. Although initially unstable at low overclocking, these CPUs ran absolutely stable after a 48-72 hour burn at 50-100% overclocking (assuming appropriate cooling).

In the '80s I did my training with a professor who also owned a computer company and sold computers to universities. His computers, which at the time were all assembled from individual parts, had the reputation of being the most reliable. The secret: he ran each computer for a week at 20% overclock with a stress test.

Even a new high-performance server should first be allowed to burn under full load for 48-72 hours before installing an operating system. I didn't do it once because we had an outage. Man, that was a stupid idea...

Never did any of those things, always absolute stable from the very 1st start without any overclocking, etc. I think that goes for billions of people and billions of equipment, "pre aged electronics" are absolutely not the benchmark but rather exotic.

 

[Roland68]

Never did any of those things, always absolute stable from the very 1st start without any overclocking, etc. I think that goes for billions of people and billions of equipment, "pre aged electronics" are absolutely not the benchmark but rather exotic.

I believe you, it's not the '80s anymore and the manufacturers have known for a long time how a computer runs stably right from the start. I never had this phenomenon with Macs and HP business devices; they always ran absolutely stable right from the start.
But over the last 20 years, many people have had the experience that a PC or notebook caused strange problems at the beginning and then ran perfectly, but the uneasy feeling remained for the time being.
Things are still different today with high-end and high-availability servers, but that's a different topic.

Of course, pre-aged components are not used in consumer devices, but tens of billions in sales are not a niche market. Or would you like to get on a plane where the on-board electronics have just been replaced without it having already completed a long burn in test and running absolutely stable? Likewise, one will not do without pre-aged components in high-quality measuring devices or medical devices, which are precisely calibrated before delivery and are calibrated again after 1-2 years at the earliest. Then there would be applications in the areas of military, shipping, navigation, various aviation, various important controls in industry, oil production, water treatment and many more, nothing that would really be important for a consumer...
I only have this insight because our company supplies high-energy products to these industries, both for pre-aging and for long-term simulations and durability tests.

 

[Mart68]

. Or would you like to get on a plane where the on-board electronics have just been replaced without it having already completed a long burn in test and running absolutely stable? Likewise, one will not do without pre-aged components in high-quality measuring devices or medical devices, which are precisely calibrated before delivery and are calibrated again after 1-2 years at the earliest.

This is making sure it works properly not running it for no reason other than to make it work better, which is what audiophile burn in is.

In audiophile burn in simply running power through the device makes its performance improve over time. Really serious audiophiles may notice performance dips and peaks during this period before the device finally 'settles down.'

Nothing to do with calibration, stress testing or anything similar.