breaking in?

howie777

I wrote someone, who will remain nameless, telling them how much I liked my new speakers and couldn't wait until they "broke in". He had an interesting response that makes sense to me. I am an electrical engineer by trade (with little hardware expierece and only 2.5 years out of college so I really know very little) and I could never figure out how a speaker would break in.

Anyway, here is his response. Any opinions?

There is no such thing as breaking in. That's some fantasy invented by magazine writers. The real phenomena is a psychoacoustic one where what you listen to for an extended period becomes the new "center" of reference, and eventually all other things are compared to that. Your brain templates the characteristics of the sound and uses template matching to fit or not fit any sound to its new reference. Like people, speakers start aging from day one, albeit slowly...

MxStYlEpOlKmAn

I think u have started a war. I hope it goes to the hall of shame.

Ceruleance

I've never experienced 'breaking in' put it seems possible, a couple things, like materials becoming more pliable (less stiff) and therefore faster, and parts of the speaker (dielectrics?) building up charge so that they act faster possibly? Im also fairly skeptical about a lot of what people think makes things sound better, so I could side either way

HBombToo

I am not an advocate of brealin when it comes to digital electronics like a dvd player but speaker break in makes sense to me. A lot of moving parts and materials which must flex so its pretty straight forward.

just my 2c

HBomb

rs159

Originally posted by HBombToo
A lot of moving parts and materials which must flex so its pretty straight forward.

just my 2c

HBomb

Exactly. Digital is "1" or "0". Either all or nothing. Speakers have so many parts that have to flex hundreds, thousands, and tens of thousands of times a second. They have a much easier time doing that once they get a good workout so everything sounds more effortless, detailed, and smoother. I don't think it's in your head because there are a lot of reviews I've read (and I've done it myself) where they listen to a product straight out of the box for like 5 minutes, and then crank it when they go to work or something, but never really listen to it. After a week or two, they sit down to listen sereiously and it's like the magical audio fairy came and made it all better.

STUFFMD

So what your friend is saying is that tires don't have better traction when they warm up and become scuffed, that that better gas mileage I get on my new car after about 3-5000 "break in period" that new brakes don't work better after they break in with the pad and find their groove is some kind of psycho phenomena.......
Speakers are moving, working parts"have your buddy look under the grill while the speaker is playing,he might notice this" and with most parts that move"in my opinion" there is a break in perior albeit slight or minor in most cases, I use the car analigy because it is somthing that most rational people know as fact.
In my case when I bought my LSIC I thought the speaker sounded very hollow and pinched I really didn't care for the sound very much, after several hours of play time I notice the speaker midrange has changed substantially, not hollow sounding at all. Your friend though is probably the same kind of person who says all speaker wires sound the same. I did not notice this effect as much with my RT series.
My 2 cents, Stuff.