Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Advice from Axiom Owners The science behind speaker break-in

I don't believe in either, speaker break-in or component burn-in.If a product does not sound good right out of the box I return it period.Its all just some kind of audio voodoo.

Kicker (car stereo subwoofers) claims that their woofers go though a "break in" period.
http://www.kicker.com/images/manuals/02TechTips.pdf See page 2

So do many other companies. Many companies also claim that they have the ultimate sound.

I understand totally. I'm not on the "break in" bandwagon either. I just had to throw out what some of the big dogs are claiming. If I can see scientific evidence that the “break in” actually occurs and changes the sound then I might be willing to buy in to the “break in” theory.

Just because I cannot help myself... I will chime in. Last spring, I took a brand new pair of $2500 Onix Ref 2's ... and ran a 102 dB at 2 meter pinknoise sweep for 100 hours into one (that is SERIOUS breakin) ... and did blind A/B tests...

I could not hear a difference.

I also don't understand why the "no breakin exists" crowd is so MEAN about those who DO think it exists... Smile... it is speakers ! ...

But to verify the break-in theory properly you would need to apply the scientific method...not simply listen over a period of time and come to the conclusion that 'it sounds different to me, therefore break-in must have occured'. The phenomenon must be measurable, and the cause isolated through testing of the components.

My biggest issue with the whole break-in thing is that so many people take it for granted without any measurable proof. In the meantime, lots of consumers buy the story, retailers and manufacturers avoid returns, the story gets propogated amongst the consumers, and around we go again. Without any scientific proof.

And no, computers do not break in. But they do break.

Possibly.

A simple test is to measure frequency response over a long period of time. A very slight change can cast a totally different image or tonal balance on our ears.

When listening to music, I bet most people care about the quality, not the frequency or harmonic distortion, right? Unfortunately, our science is not advanced enough to quantitize quality of sound...

Perhaps what you might prefer would be an analysis of a certain piece of music compared digitally to the master version of the same piece of music. Of course, you end up with the question of how good the mic is...

If "break in" occurs then does the actual mic have to go through "break in" ?

Sorry I couldn't resist .

Yeah.. and doesn't my room have to break in to having soundwaves bounce off of them? I've created a device that shortens this room break-in to 10 hours from 10 years by eminating extremely low bass frequencies and ultrasonic high frequencies at extremely high volumes, and distributes these soundwaves evenly across the room - PM me for details, it retails for the low low price of $5000.