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General speaker questions for audio and home theater.

Speaker break-in takes 10 minutes if not already done at the factory during quality control testing

Owner's ears "break-in" could take many weeks as most speaker owners have never even heard the speakers in their room before buying them. The colorations will be different than the prior speakers, which the owner had been used to. This part of new speaker "break-in" is slow.

Driver break-in requires LOUD bass-heavy music to stroke the cones.

It takes 10 minutes, at most, to make the speakers sound normal with the correct signal. After a few hours any changes are very unlikely to be audible and are barely measurable. Roughly half the driver parameter changes are temporary changes from voice coil warm-up, which happens every time "cold" speakers are used.

The driver parameter changes that continue after the first 10 minutes of initial use can be measured but are small, and may not be audible. After a few hours of use driver parameter changes are barely measurable, much less audible.

Break-in is often done at the factory because brand new speakers could give bad first impressions with no break-in = very foolish for any manufacturer to do.

Everything else "heard" beyond the first few hours of initial use ... is most likely audiophile "ear break-in" (getting used to the new speakers).

No one with sense claims speaker break-in is not real.

In fact, there are similar magnitude changes (5-10%) to driver parameters EVERY TIME speakers with room temperature voice coils are used ... yet we rarely hear audiophiles talking about how bad their speakers sound in the first five to ten minutes of use every day!

The 100-hour 'audible during every hour of use' break-in ... and then the speakers sound perfect forever after ... is pure audiophile imagination.

Audiophiles must have good imaginations since we try to imagine we are listening to real musicians every time we listen to recorded music.

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Richard BassNut Greene
Subjective Audiophile 2007


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