Speaker break-in

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KobeeDog

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What are the general thoughts on speaker break-in out there?

I have a new pair of Totem Model-1 Sigs. Totem recommends (I believe) a 300 hour break-in period.

Anyone else owned these speakers/experienced dramatic changes over the break in period?
 
I remember when I upgraded my speakers from PSB Synchrony One to Aerial Acoustics 7T my first thought was, "I paid 10k for this." Basically, this was because they sounded like the PSBs. However, a few weeks later one night I was listening and I sat up straight since it just hit me that they were now sounding much better. Now, a few years later they still sound great as the fronts in the HT, secondary stereo.
 
KobeeDog.......My PMC EB1i speakers in the living room system settled into a permanent voice at about 150 hours and haven't changed a bit since then. My Sonus faber Amati Anniversario speakers in the studio system took quite a few more hours. I felt they reached their permanent voice at about 300 hours, maybe a little more. I believe the biggest part of speaker break-in is having the suspension systems flex and relax into a state where no additional settling takes place. There is really no way to speed it up, either. Just play lots of music at various volume levels until you sense there are no longer any changes in what you hear.
 
Been careful not to turn them up too loud so far. I have probably 50 hours on them so far. Not that I'm keeping track that obsessively.
 
I have 5 pairs of speakers and I keep swaping them every week or so.
My point is , I normally lose track of break-in hours after few swaps.:blush:
Some speakers , such as Spendor, sounds just great out of the box and improves only slightly afterwards.
For the ATC SCM19 I currently have, it' been almost 3 years now (on and off) and only last week they started sounding right to me.
I heared Dynaudio also has the same xxx hour break in period.
 
Let's see if we can make some sense of this.

Can a driver "break in" after one MILLION cycles at a fairly loud volume?

Even at a low frequency of 20 Hz, that happens in a brief 13.89 hours. A tweeter at 20,000 Hz should require 50 seconds.

Put on some full spectrum noise, go visit some friends, come home at the end of the day to fully broken in speakers.

Beyond that, YOU need time to get used to them.
 
GaryProtein said:
Let's see if we can make some sense of this.

Can a driver "break in" after one MILLION cycles at a fairly loud volume?

Even at a low frequency of 20 Hz, that happens in a brief 13.89 hours. A tweeter at 20,000 Hz should require 50 seconds.

Put on some full spectrum noise, go visit some friends, come home at the end of the day to fully broken in speakers.

Beyond that, YOU need time to get used to them.
Click to expand...

Finally somebody speaking truth about break in!

Any real break-in happens quickly. The rest is the listener, not the gear, breaking-in.
 
Vapor1 said:
Finally somebody speaking truth about break in!

Any real break-in happens quickly. The rest is the listener, not the gear, breaking-in.
Click to expand...

So the talk of over a 1000+ hours of break in time needed for Magico speakers is a bunch of hooey?
 
The gospel of the gurus has been spoken. No reason to look any deeper into this topic. The truth, that elusive truth, has finally been revealed and we have been set free.

I don't know about the rest of you but I'm feeling better already. . .


Butterflies-are-Free.jpg
 
Mike said:
So the talk of over a 1000+ hours of break in time needed for Magico speakers is a bunch of hooey?
Click to expand...

This might be true. Just this weekend I am thinking this system has never sounded better. I was wondering if everything was coming together. Since I only use it on Friday and Saturday night, at least in the summer, it takes a while to rack up the hours.
 
Mike said:
So the talk of over a 1000+ hours of break in time needed for Magico speakers is a bunch of hooey?
Click to expand...

IMO, absolutely. I've heard hundreds of pair of speakers that we've built. Within 30 minutes they're 95% of the way there, after 2-3 days of run time they're always 100%. People's auditory recollection is poor, even the best listeners, which explains all you need to know about the myth of these extended break-in periods.
 
Mike said:
So the talk of over a 1000+ hours of break in time needed for Magico speakers is a bunch of hooey?
Click to expand...

How could they even design something if prototypes took 1000+hours (that's 7 weeks 24/7) to break in?

We'd still be waiting for the first production run.

When you pay $200-225k for a pair of speakers, and they don't sound as wonderful to you at home as they sounded at the dealer when you decided to plunk down the cash, they need a reason to explain why.

Your room and your ears are the greatest variables in the system.
 
The whole thing.

The crossover is a passive device.

The drivers at least have moving parts.
 
Vapor1 said:
IMO, absolutely. I've heard hundreds of pair of speakers that we've built. Within 30 minutes they're 95% of the way there, after 2-3 days of run time they're always 100%. People's auditory recollection is poor, even the best listeners, which explains all you need to know about the myth of these extended break-in periods.
Click to expand...


So what are we talking about 48-72 hrs run time , i would normally agree with that , if by 80 hrs its not good then possibly never , but , i have also experienced drivers breaking in sonically much later than and did require approx another 100-120 hrs to exhibit some sonic consistency , agree 1000 hrs sounds pretty far fetched by some Margin and less face it, if it sounds bad after 3-5 days , it will not turn into Nirvana 1000 hrs later ...



Regards
 
GaryProtein said:
The whole thing.

The crossover is a passive device.

The drivers at least have moving parts.
Click to expand...

The drivers are electro mechanical and do need to have some settling taking place for consistency, xovers will need burn in to form the caps, wires and coils , coils are resonant basturds too , so they do need time to form . Breaking in of audio Components is real , im sure this is not whats being questioned, appear most have issues with the excessive break in hrs necessary by most manufacturers , prolly calculated to beat the return policy :)


regards
 
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