Thinking about it for a moment or two: When I got my first set of M3s and fired them off initially, I don't recall them sounding any different than they always did. They may very well have changed a bit over time, but I can't say for sure if I noticed it. I didn't have any preconceived idea of what I thought they sould have sounded like.
With the second batch of M3(for center)I installed it in a "Main" position rather than in it's center slot and played a very familiar test(in stereo)CD and it did have a very subtle but noticable harshness for a few moments. Note that I was actually "listening" for a difference, as this topic of "Break-in" pops up fairly often in this forum. So I may well have "colored" the data internally without really knowing it. I don't "think" so though, as the Wife thought that to Her it didn't sound quite right either at first.
I can't repeat the test cuz the speakers sound fantastic every time I listen to them now
Fast foreward a couple years and new M50s are installed to replace the M3s as mains....
Fire 'em up with the same test CD(different track, though still familiar)and get the same wrinkled brow from the Wife and the same "not quite right" thought from my data aquisition system. A few moments later, all is right in the universe.
I can't repeat the test cuz the speakers sound fantastic every time I listen to them now
If the Wife(a very impartial observer cause She really didn't give a darn then)haden't volunteered her comments, I would have figured that it was all "Me"
When I visit my oldest Daughter, we often find their TV on with the bassy sounding internal speakers playing away. They always sound the same to me when I first walk in the door as they did the first time I heard them right after She got the set last year. My memory detects no difference.
My Sons' bass module with sats on his computer sounds no different in my memory than it did first time I heard it either.
Same with our bedroom TV and the Boys TV and the Girls' TV. We have a real population of speakers that sound the same each time I hear them, but only a couple of events where I detected a difference, and they were all with brand new speakers.
I have to assume though that I was indeed listening for variations, and that fact alone may have been what made me hear them. And, further, that my Wife, even subconsiously, may well have been "listening" more intently than usual right along with me.
So it's a hung jury, although there "are" a few more guilty votes in the tally
