Driver burn in myths Busted

[Albatross]

Going back to speaker break-in, and the debate over breakin or getting used to the speaker. I've spent 21 years in the business and have had a slew of speakers. I remember, breaking in a pair of Totem Forest's that I had purchased ( a speaker notorious for long break in). I put them close together facing each other and put one of the speaker wires out of phase, I was told this would keep them from bothering me or my neighbors and the cancelling seemed to work). I then covered them with blankets and took off for vacation with a rap station playing. Five days later I could tell that they had more bass, the mids and highs felt more relaxed in other words the speakers were much more listenable. There was not a chance for "getting used to" these speakers in this scenario. I did feel like they took forever (3 more months) to fully break in and that could have been me gettting use to them. Those Totems were quite wonderful in so many departments including sound stage. I do understand the subjective nature of my statements, but I would rather trust my ear than a measuring device for Audio almost every time.

[garyrc]

• Warm Amps: My old Dyna snd McIntosh power transformers did get slightly warm, but you could have fried eggs on some of the tubes (EL 34s?). They actually seemed to warm up the room.

• I was told that the SOP at a Magna 70 mm Todd-AO theaters was to warm up their tube amps for 20 to 25 minutes before the show. These were reserved seat road shows, with just two shows a day. If we got there early, we could hear a very faint hiss. The one time I know of when they used double system sound at the Coronet in San Francisco (6 magnetic soundtracks on full coat 35 mm magnetic film sychronized with the 70 mm print), we could hear the guy load up -- or sync up -- the soundtracks against the heads, producing some low frequency growls of great authority.. We thought , "Oh boy, here we go!" The film actually started about 20 minutes later.

Going back to speaker break-in, and the debate over break in or getting used to the speaker. I've spent 21 years in the business and have had a slew of speakers. I remember, breaking in a pair of Totem Forest's that I had purchased ( a speaker notorious for long break in). I put them close together facing each other and put one of the speaker wires out of phase, I was told this would keep them from bothering me or my neighbors and the cancelling seemed to work). I then covered them with blankets and took off for vacation with a rap station playing. Five days later I could tell that they had more bass, the mids and highs felt more relaxed in other words the speakers were much more listenable. There was not a chance for "getting used to" these speakers in this scenario. I did feel like they took forever (3 more months) to fully break in and that could have been me gettting use to them. Those Totems were quite wonderful in so many departments including sound stage. I do understand the subjective nature of my statements, but I would rather trust my ear than a measuring device for Audio almost every time.

Did you own or work in an audio store? As you say, there is still a subjective element because you (we) might expect the speakers to change. It would have been interesting to have someone else set up two pairs of Totems as you described, but with the power amp connected to one pair off, without letting you observe which was which. When you came home from vacation the other person could have turned both amps on, placed the speakers cheek by jowl and you could have tried to see which sounded like a burned in pair (or just which pair sounded better). Not an infallible method, but I would have been interested. One difficulty with this "two pair method" is that I've never heard two speakers of the same brand and model sound exactly the same ... close, but not the same.

[JJkizak]

When I leave the house unatended no electronics are on (even modems) and nothing in standby. I also do not require any warm up for my system---I crank it to 98 db SPL in about 30 seconds. I don't hear anything complaining about "help, I'm tto cold" or "ouch, I'm distorting" or "give me a break buddy" or "warm me up you SOB".

JJK

[Groomlakearea51]

I believe that anything that has moving parts that are either connected to other parts, touch other moving parts (as in bearings, sleeves, guides, etc.), or where the performance characteristics assume a nominal operating temperature, require some "break in" period to become stable. Purely "mechanical" in nature and a product of the metallurgy, or component material characteristics . Take the finest race engines made. Absolute precision machined, polished parts, etc. After assembly, they are "run in" for about 30 minutes (or more....), everything re-torqued at the operating temperature, and the oil changed. You would think that the oil would be clean. Nope.... Careful examination of the oil will show an incredible amount of metal particles from the parts that touch, move, roll or slide across each other. This will continue, in decreasing amounts after a few oil changes and by about 2-3 hours of run-in, will be minimal, if not almost undetectible. As this occurs, horse power and torque will slightly, but measurably increase.

Temperature, moving parts, etc. are part of a speaker. Temperature of course radically affects how a tube works, and to some degree affects solid state components.

Many, if not most folks, will probably not notice a new speaker "breaking in". Two things dictate this, their hearing is not "tuned" to listen to the process, and probably more importantly, their brain is compiling an audio image of what the new speaker should sound like. After a few hours, or days, the second process is completed, and of course, by that point, the mechanical parts of the speaker are finished any "breaking in".

Understanding how a device works and being able to see where temperature affects how the device components will perform, and how the components degrade over time from temperature, and the natural degradation of the materials used in the device components is the key to not only how long the device will last, but gives a clue to the "break in" period, or in many cases, the "warm-up" period.

There is, of course, some psycho-acoustics at work. Regardless of that phenomena, sometimes it just takes 15 minutes for the amps and speakers to sound "right".....

[H]