Ah, the joy of having someone who's older than I on the forum!
I noticed, in the "Just How Old Are We" thread, that someone was over 70, so you aren't the eldest either.
Not much to "read" in the links I posted. The examples of optical illusions are kinda fun, and a bit startling. Don't waste your time with the audio illusions unless it's important to you.
To paraphrase the excellent point you are making, and with which I heartily concur, speaker break-in is pretty much irrelevant. We are all going to listen to our speakers for 10 hours, 100 hours, 200, hours, whatever. At the end of that time period, the speakers are going to sound like,..........well,............whatever they are going to sound like, and we're either going to like them or not. It doesn't really matter whether the speakers break-in, or we become acclimated to their sound, the end result is the same.
And, whichever phenomenon takes place, it is wise to ignore (as much as is humanly possible) first impressions, and reserve judgment until you've spent some time listening to the set of speakers in question.
I also agree that with the whole hearing/sound thing being as subjective as it is, we cannot, not should we want to, eliminate the human element. I like what I hear from my system. It pleases me. You could show me graphs and measurements that tell me I SHOULDN'T like them, that I should like something else, and I won't care. I know what I like, and pleases me. Case closed.
LOL! I empathize with your grandkids bugging you. I have a 93 year old with dementia, who asks me the same question every 30 seconds because she can't remember the answer I just gave her. What I want to know is, if they forget the answer, WHY DON'T THEY FORGET THE QUESTION? Sheesh! Our "golden years" weren't supposed to be like this, were they?
By the way, your taking on 4 grandkids at our age, is a noble and generous act, deserving of much praise. Bravo!
