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General speaker questions for audio and home theater.

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RE: break-in real?

Posted by Inmate51 on June 22, 2017 at 07:49:55:
You raise an important point, one which is often ignored and/or pooh-poohed by audiophiles who often really don't want to know - preferring to believe whatever their dogma is.
That point is "what to measure". For a long time in the history of acoustics and psychoacoustics, engineers and physicists were limited in what they COULD measure. With the advent of FFT, impulse response, time-gated measurements, waterfall plots and time/energy/frequency, etc., decades ago, we can pretty much measure whatever we want. Heck, it's gotten so ridiculous that any arm-chair audiophile can measure this stuff in the comfort of their own home with a PC and free or cheap software.
So, the amazing lack of evidence provided by manufacturers which actually have R&D departments speaks volumes. It's my position that they don't want us to know, preferring to keep it the subject of myth, conjecture and uncertainty, all of which fuels the audiophile appetite for magazines, forums and advertising.
So, now let's get right down to it: Measure a speaker from a manufacturer which claims that it needs a break-in period. Measure it six ways to Sunday. Take meticulous notes on level, ambient noise, speaker position, room furnishings, microphone placement, etc. Details matter! Then, run the speaker as specified by the manufacturer for the specified time of break-in. Then, repeat the measurements EXACTLY. Get back to me.
On an important related issue, what constitutes appropriate break-in? Can you play a low single frequency for the woofer, another appropriate tone for the mid, and another for the tweety for the required 40 to 400 hours, or, does it have to be pink noise or your favorite music selections?
Let's consider frequencies. Suppose a person plays a tone of 100 Hz. That requires the speaker to move back and forth 100 times per second. How many times does it have to move in order to "break in"? A million times, a billion times? A million times would be 10,000 seconds (166 minutes - 2.77 hours).
Lastly, given that mechanical devices are in play here, do they ever stop "breaking-in", or do they continue to change, and, do they ever change for the worse?
:)