Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Technical Questions Breaking in a set of axioms.

I actually did an experiment with two pairs of speakers. One pair "broken in", and one pair brand new. And my wife said that she could hear the difference from the other room while she was vacuuming nails.

The voice coil in the speaker is not in contact with any part. The coil is suspended in a magnetic field, the only link between the frame and the coil is the 2 thin wires and if they could find away around that they would be gone as well, so what is there to break in? Surely not the magnetic field. I have heard this BS so many times that I generally refrain from making any comments about it. But really let’s not even get into the well you have to break in an engine so why not a speaker this is just getting silly..

Carol, our Axioms can give us pleasure for as long as we want. Although, unlike fine wine, they don't improve with age, neither will they wear out and fail, absent suffering some catastrophic damage.

Good one, db.

The surrounds themselve to "move" and they do "wear" I don't care what you believe about it. Is it a known fact rubber surrounds last longer than foam ones. That is why so few good speakers are made with foam surrounds. Anything that flexes like that does change. Like crumbling a piece of paper, surely it wears as well and how many moving pieces does it possess? Why then do all the reviewers say speakers they test sound better after so many hours? I would think their ears are much more acute to differences in the tonal changes that occur, than you or me. They do listen to speakers for a living.

To quote John Potis who's review of the M22i is linked on this website: "Moving up through the midrange, things get just a little thin and a little hard before about 100 hours of break-in after which things were better fleshed out, considerably smoothed and quite musically resolving."

You know we could get into very long winded discussions on this topic. Not once in any case study that has been done has anyone been able to see any change in the speakers performance. Forget human listening tests, I believe that as in most things you become accustomed to the sound that after listening to the speaker for some hours you ear becomes tuned so to speak to the speakers sound and all of its nuances. Show me some lab test that has proven otherwise and then we can talk about it. From an engineering stand point there is no logic in the statement, and these same people when not told which speakers are which (new vs. “broken in”) have failed there own tests in blind testing by not being able to pick out the "broken in" speaker. Axiom them selves have posted may times the same response that in all lab test they have not seen any measurable difference to the speaker’s performance after a run in period.

Why dont you guys just ask Ian to do some tests on his extra time. get a old pair of m80's broken in and a pair right off the line. pull back the curtain and he can switch them around not knowing which is which and settle this once and for all.

They have already done it, the result? No difference.

I agree John H.
This topic has been beaten to death many times in many other forums as well.
People don't like to listen to the reasoning of science based on facts...at least not until the earth is crumbling and then we're given some consideration.
Why is that?

Many speaker companies use science to design their products and then turn to artistic marketing, political buzzwords, jargon and spin doctoring to fuel the sales.
[sigh]

The next time i come across some articles, that is to say true peer reviewed scientific articles, on these subjects, i will try to remember to scan them in and spread them far and wide across the net. Maybe Alan has some data/info kicking around, even some unpublished stuff that Axiom has done to throw up on their website.
Gee, they could become the scourge of the audiophile world.