Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Advice from Axiom Owners Polk SDA 1C VS M80 V3

Just use the source material you enjoy listening to at whatever volume you find comfortable.

Break in is just an excuse for manufacturers for you to not return your speakers if you don't like them during the trial period. You will know in the first few weeks of listening whether you like them or not.

OK...the strange thing is kind of everybody seems to say they need to be broken in. The treble out of the box is supposed to be very brittle, until you run them for 50 or so hours.

Yes, or no on this??

Do they need breakin or not? If i pull them out of the box and the treble is nasty brite..i would tend to just put them back in the box.

Give your brain, where brake in really occurs, a few days to get used to them. Speakers do not need a break in period.

Its true that the t/s parameters of a woofer change as the voice coils heat up but as soon as the music is turned off and the woofer is allowed ample cooling the t/s parameters revert back. When I am talking about t/s parameters changing we are talking about temporary, relatively small and inaudible changes. As for the tweeters, no they do not break in.

On the other hand psychoacoustics is a real phenomena and what many perceive as speakers breaking or burning in.

the only thing that needs a break-in is the ear-brain;
in order for it to be completed as fast as possible one needs to forget the prejudices - we all have some because we're used to one particular set of speakers in a specific room which give a specific kind of sound - and try to listen with an open mind, concentrating only about how true to the original instruments and the recording ambiance the reproduction is; and NOT paying attention to how different they sound compared to the former speakers.
in other words, one needs to listen with a fresh mind, with a blank page.
my $0.03 worth... :-)

I do tend to agree wth you..speakers are what they are, and may take a while for your ears to get used to it. Not sure why the reviews say the treble is too brite...then it mellows out.

I've played music out for 30 years, i know what i want to hear. Stereo speakers, for the most part i can tell in 5 min, if i like them or not.

But i haven't bought stereo speakers in 20 years..so just checking.

Have you checked to see if there was someone in your area that you could go hear a set?

There is nobody close. But the stupid thing is these review people say they run the speakers while there at work "breakin"..them in, then they seem to sound wonderfull???

To be honest, most of these people, don't have a clue. I EQ live bands, and have run EQ's for cd's. I know what i want my guitar to sound like..don't need some clown telling me what to do.

I only use the reviews as a base line. I have not found any reviews that are bad except for the brittle treble.

So you have to take that with a grain of salt...LOL

Subjective reviews are pointless on speakers and that's what you get with 90% of the audio/video reviews. I tend to find reviews with measurements that can back up subjective listening helpful. That can help me determine if a product is worthy of the time to audition or not. Like you said a baseline.

Most of these "wonderfull" reveiw people..I could care less about. There NOT musicains...I play stuff by ear..all i have to do is hear the song, then i can play it. I can hear whats good and what is not. They would not know a good guitar from a bad one. So there reviews are at best just a baseline.