New speaker break in period

[smihalik]

I am new to all of this, and untill reading so in a few other posts I had no idea speakers needed to be broken in. How long does this usually take? What kind of difference will I see between a new speaker and a fully broken in one. Also if someone could explain what exactly is taking place during this so called break in period I am curious to know. Thanks.

 

[Adam]

Hi.

AH has an article entitled, "Speaker Break In: Fact or Fiction?" on their AV University menu that I think will answer your questions. Just click on the title and it will take you to the article.

 

[ParadigmDawg]

Speakers break in the day after it's too late to return them.

 

[Veech]

I am new to all of this, and untill reading so in a few other posts I had no idea speakers needed to be broken in. How long does this usually take? What kind of difference will I see between a new speaker and a fully broken in one. Also if someone could explain what exactly is taking place during this so called break in period I am curious to know. Thanks.

I have heard it takes at least 100 hours. I don't really know if it's truly an improvement in the sound or if you are just getting used to the speakers.

 

[jamie2112]

Most speakers are broken in the moment you turn them on .......or after your ears break in

 

[MinusTheBear]

Just listen to the speakers, no need for break in. At its core the concept of speaker break in is pseudoscience ( practice that is claimed to be scientific or made to appear scientific but does not adhere to the scientific method or lacks supporting evidence or plausibility).

If you do not like the sound of the speakers before the warranty has expired, return them!

 

[dgshtav]

Personally I believe that speakers require some break-in. But to me, a few hours of different types of music played at decent sound levels should be good enough.

I don't buy into those 200 Hour break-in recommendations. To me, that's just a gimmick that vendors play to push one into keeping the speakers longer beyond the return previlege period.

 

[jamie2112]

Personally I believe that speakers require some break-in. But to me, a few hours of different types of music played at decent sound levels should be good enough.

I don't buy into those 200 Hour break-in recommendations. To me, that's just a gimmick that vendors play to push one into keeping the speakers longer beyond the return previlege period.

I think I saw this post on another thread...

 

[Will Brink]

Necro thread bump of possible interest. A bunch of audio designer/engineers (of varying technical backgrounds I assume) interviewed claim break in is a thing. They are all industry connected, so may benefit from claiming break in is legit process. They are, to give them some credit, less adamant about electronics:

Ask The Industry: hi-fi engineers weigh in on the value of 'running-in'

“There's no argument as far as we are concerned,” says Stephen Oakes of Neat Acoustics, and “it’s pretty clear cut” says Cambridge Audio’s engineering team – loudspeakers benefit from being run-in due to their physical and mechanical nature. “Loudspeakers straight out of the box will certainly sound ‘tight’ and far from the relaxed performance that is desired,” says Peter Comeau of the IAG Group. And Oakes affirms that “this is audible and measurable”.

Why? Well, firstly, drive units are made up of moving parts that are stiffer than intended when new and unworked. “The most obvious thing is that speaker bass cones and, to a smaller degree, tweeters move, thus moving air,” says Paul Mills of Fyne Audio. “It takes a while for the speaker surround, which is often rubber, and the rear fabric suspension to ‘ease up’”.

You then have the spider that makes up the majority of the total compliance of a woofer. This, says Oliver Thomas of PMC, “will have various coatings to optimise its mechanical and acoustic properties to meet the design goals, but these coatings set harder than intended when first applied, and will gradually soften to their final state as the parts are flexed and stretched during use. The practical effect of this is that the measured resonant frequency and mechanical damping of a drive unit will shift during the first hours of use, which in turn will alter the drive unit’s acoustic behaviour”.

Cont:

Ask The Industry: hi-fi engineers weigh in on the value of 'running-in'

A priceless or pointless exercise?

www.whathifi.com

 

[Verdinut]

Some new speakers have a brake-in period and some don't.

Reading Vance Dickason's 7th edition of his Loudspeaker Design Cook Book, with regard to speaker break-in, he states that the changes in box performance are trivial. The reason this occurs is that Fs/Qts ratios remain very closely constant before and after break-in. So there is no reason to bother to break-in drivers, unless you are a in a manufacturing firm doing testing for a valid test sample.

This occurred to me: Several years ago, I was in the planning stage of building a pair of speaker towers. One speaker driver, a Morel CAW 638 was tested for a 24 hour period to see if there would be any variation of its Fs and its Qts. Neither of these parameters changed. By the way, this driver is an amazing 6 inch woofer, but a little costly now.

 

[ryanosaur]

Why do people continue to spread this cr@p?!

Just linking to a great response to Will's posting over at ASR... worth looking at the whole thread, too:
#60

Drive units do change a very small amount in the first few moments of operation, I demonstrate this. The What HiFi interview get's that part right, but they inflate the effect by an order of magnitude or two.

The effect of run-in is absolutely tiny, on the order or even less than environmental effects like changes in room temperature. The modification of Qms due to changes in spider deformation for instance are similar in magnitude to the mechanical force of my house ventilation fan blowing air over the surface of a driver from 2 meters away, on low. Putting a driver in a refrigerator for 5 mins has a larger effect than break-in. Operating a driver at 1 Watt for a few minutes causes much more change in a driver's mechanical and electrical characteristics than any run-in phenomena. These changes due to run-in result in response changes that are smaller than moving the finished speaker a few cm relative to room boundaries. None of these changes with run-in are significant enough to change the alignment of the box or application. I have demonstrated this. Vance Dickason describes the complete nothing-burger that is driver break-in in his books on speakers . Andrew Jones has discussed the run-in phenomena, the physical mechanisms behind it, and how absolutely tiny it is as well.

The idea that any of the break-in phenomena creates sonic differences is the same as saying changing the thermostat by 1 degree is a change in sound. Technically true if you have a microphone to measure the tiny changes, not true if using ears to try to assess the tiny changes. I'm sure there is some corner case driver out there that actually has dramatic break-in, would be nice to see actual measurements since measurements are so easy to do. For the moderately large range of drivers I have experience with, no way anybody is going to hear the difference after first use.

Of course, the What Hifi interview drops the suggestion that the sound always gets better after run-in, which is a trick right out of the carnival meant to keep the audio mystery alive and prevent returns of bad sounding speakers from customers who bought the wrong gear.

 

[Teetertotter?]

Well...........just use the new speakers and listen to them, until you think they sound better. Pretty simple....Right? Some folks that believe all that they read............or hear. Go with what you think is best......RIGHT? lol

 

[Kingnoob]

Why do people continue to spread this cr@p?!

Just linking to a great response to Will's posting over at ASR... worth looking at the whole thread, too:
#60

helpfull quotes!
So break in is another snake oil sold by whoever still promotes this practice?? Most people who test lots of speakers don’t keep them long enough or run enough hours to see if there any difference. I hardly expect there to be any difference, if someone bought 2 pairs of the same identical speaker and opened one up 2-3 years later ? Would they hear a difference from the ones they constantly used until then? If they compared both pairs.
Or can anyone tell a speaker is aging by sounding different if nothing has broken? Many years later?

 

[Bobby Bass]

If a stereo is playing in the woods and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound? Makes you think on a quiet and rainy Sunday morning.