Breaking in Forte IV

[John Chi-town]

It has been over 30 years since I broke in my forte II.  I just purchased a pair of "As New" Forte IV.  With about 4 hours total use.  I have been running 6-8 hours a day for the last 6-7 days.  They appear to be opening up little by little.  How many hours of listening should it take for these to fully open?  Thanks in advance!

 

 

 

[Shakeydeal]

Congrats on the new speakers. 

 

Some here would say break in is BS. Correction; most here would say that.

 

I had Forte IIIs and Cornwall IVs. For me it was around 200 hours for things to get really interesting, and 300 hours before there were no more changes.

 

YMMV

 

 

[John Chi-town]

8 minutes ago, Shakeydeal said:

Congrats on the new speakers. 

 

Some here would say break in is BS. Correction; most here would say that.

 

I had Forte IIIs and Cornwall IVs. For me it was around 200 hours for things to get really interesting, and 300 hours before there were no more changes.

 

YMMV

 

 

Thank you very much!

 

[billybob]

Think it would be wonderful to listen to them break-in. Finding their legs, so to speak.

[Fido]

After about 50 hours my Forte IVs started to sound pretty darned good. After that I have just listened to a lot of music without analyzing their performance. 100s of hours enjoying them and they sound fantastic day in day out. I just listen to music and let the equipment break in as I listen. My Primaluna plays many hours a day and it is always driving my Forte IVs.

[Steve.]

Congrats.     I love my Forte IV.   I never really worried about break in.  I put my tuner on and just let it play for many hours without listening critically.    

 

I do this every time I make a change to the system.    I really believe "break in" is half acclimation and half mechanical / surround compliance with speakers.   Thats why just playing FM takes the analytical judgment out of the equation.   Then after a week or so listening casualty I will form opinion.

[Klipschtastic]

I’ve had my CWIVs for about 5 months now. I believe they do sound better and better. Or it could be in part because I have stopped being so analytical all the time of my expensive purchase. Now I’m just happy to have them and enjoy them everyday. Either way they’re lifetime speakers. Just enjoy them and months or years down the road it may hit you that they are damned amazing!

[the real Duke Spinner]

I have never seen any quantifiable test results that bear out the postulation of break in

[KT88]

11 minutes ago, the real Duke Spinner said:

I have never seen any quantifiable test results that bear out the postulation of break in

 

I think it is similar to the break in with my wife of 34 years. I couldn't insist that she was the only one who had tuned in.

[the real Duke Spinner]

3 hours ago, KT88 said:

 

I think it is similar to the break in with my wife of 34 years. I couldn't insist that she was the only one who had tuned in.

Ahhh break in " 

Did not work for me

Ender badly, well at least for me

 

[OO1]

break-in is 2 fold ,   50 to 100 hours  for speaker break-in    , and   50 hours more for your hearing to adapt to the new fully broken-in speakers  .

[YK Thom]

1 hour ago, OO1 said:

break-in is 2 fold ,   50 to 100 hours  for speaker break-in    , and   50 hours more for your hearing to adapt to the new fully broken-in speakers  .

I agree, partially an amount of break in, partially an amount of getting over what Stereophile writer Robert Schryer refers to  as product habituation.

 

Lifted from his recent article:

 

"Has it ever crossed your mind that the reason you like your system more than your friend's or the store's is not because yours is better, even if you think it is, but because you're used to the sound of yours and not of theirs? Welcome to product habituation.

Some people, including some audiophiles, believe that product habituation is what's really behind what some people refer to as product break-in. It's not a mechanical or electronic phenomenon, they contend, but a mental one. Assuming the sound of the new gear is of adequate quality, it's the listener that breaks in to the product, as the product's sound, which was initially strange, grows more familiar and, so, right.

Those who believe in break-in view the process as a period during which a component's signal-carrying parts are "settling," the concomitant effect of which is a gradual improvement in sound quality, until whammy! Everything has seemingly, finally, coalesced into a relaxed, cohesive, enjoyable presentation.

Except that's not what really happens, according to the habituation theory. That whammy? That wasn't the sound blossoming into a beautiful swan (song?), it was, rather, the moment your brain completely bought the illusion—an illusion that had been there all along.

I'm a compromiser. I'll venture that both things are happening—that habituation accounts for about half the break-in story. While humans may be the most adaptive species on Earth, it's jarring when something new replaces something we're used to. It knocks us out of familiar territory, forcing us to question what we thought we knew and what this new, intrusive thing is all about.

If the sound of the unfamiliar gear is fundamentally good—if there's nothing in it that's intrinsically objectionable—our brain adapts. It connects the new dots with the old ones, reorganizes the data, fills in the landscape. If it's very good, it will become a new frame of reference for us, another example of what audiophile sound can be. This audiophile sound may not be quite the same as the last audiophile sound, but in time it turns out just as valid."

 

 

 

 

 

The best thing I have read on this phenomenon thus far. 

 

[billybob]

It is just one of those things.

[Deang]

300 hours? Dag gone, that’s about the time it takes before I get bored with them. 

[YK Thom]

As far as my personal experience is concerned, I think this is a good explanation. Back in November 2016 (time flies), I replaced my stand mounted RB 61 II front mains with a pair of Ohm Walsh Tall 2000s. Loved the 61s but they didn't fill out our room well off axis. Read a lot about the Ohms lengthy break in period in various places. To me they sounded pretty damn good right out of the box. You couldn't find two more different speaker designs if you tried. But...what they both had in common was a lot of detail and a clean neutrality many other speakers do not have. My mind found them similar - so much so that the Ohms work extremely well with my Klipsch centre. Did they sound better over time, perhaps, but so minimal I never noticed. My blended system will be working together until we retire and move to a different space. Cornwall or Forte IVs will be back on the must have priority list. Just my thoughts.

[KT88]

Your comments illuminate what I see as an important point. Just an example, it concerns the fact why I could like equal to my Klipsch LaScala my BBC LS3/6 so much. These BBC speakers, as a complete line, no matter which model, have one behaviour. They are silent about the last bit of resolution and their strength is in the mids because their first priority is the reproduction of speaking voices. Now comes my point. This BBC concept may not be the most revealing of all the speakers in the world, but it does not, by its very nature, produce annoyance to the ear. I don't want to advertise on the Klipsch forum a principle that is positioned at the other end of Klipsch heritage speakers, so to speak. But on the other hand I am always surprised how many similarities to this BBC principle (LS 3/5a, LS5/9, LS3/6 etc.) the good old and new Klipsch speakers show. Klipsch Heritage speakers and my Underground Jubilees also do very little wrong. That's why they are very similar to the BBC speakers in a psychoacoustic way...even if the Klipsch are very effective and the BBC very quiet. Without going into it now, the old Quad ESL57 I would add to this patchwork family. 
This is my explanation for the positive emotion for Klipsch horn speakers. They may not do everything right, but more importantly, they do very little wrong.

My personal explanation: the human ear tends to forget what it is not being delivered at a time. With the Klipsch, it may get a little less nuance of sound colour and timbre from violins, for example. With the BBC speakers, the ear gets only little dynamics and sound authority. But with both approaches, the ear gets the most important things it needs. It is the memory of the real sound experience. As PWK said, it's in the mids that the music plays. There are many expensive high-end speakers these days with crystal clear astral highs, abysmally deep basses and "clean" mids, but they can often be a bit too sterile. Can one get used to this? I mean no. Something else happens. Often, this kind of speaker are those who initially impress very strongly. And then the interest decreases. This does not hurt buyers when the high-end system is not supposed to do more than be part of a wealthy home decor anyway. It's needed at parties or as background music at dinner with friends. But our music lover would not enjoy it for long. The reason is that this concept goes against the nature of sound and the nature of listening. I know that I am simplistically polarizing, but isn't it? Do we want the discovery of new sound dimensions or do we want to enjoy our music nice and cozy? In a British Hifi forum there was discussion about my current favorite preamplifier. It is the Quad 34 preamplifier. There was a guy who said that his job for 25 years was to be a sound engineer at Abbey Road Studios. So he had all the equipment with the highest resolution and the best possible sound to do his job. And now he is retired. He writes that the Quad 34 is his emotional favorite because he no longer has to listen to all the details to make a production. Well, that's how I feel too, even though I wasn't a professional. In a similar way as described above with the speakers, it is also with the electronics. Do we want to hear treble and bass and spaciousness or music? Of course, even a Quad 34 offers spatiality, but it is not meticulously chiseled out. 
So how much burns in and how much do we get used to? I think something burns in and we experience an approximation. But often something burns in for itself and it's not a guarantee that we will take it to our hearts

[Shakeydeal]

If break in were truly only the new owner getting accustomed to the sound of the speakers, what about someone buying used speakers with many hours on them? Should they love them straight out of the box, or should they listen for a certain amount of time to "break in" their ears? What if, after a couple hundred hours, they don't like the sound? Did their ears fail to "break in"?

 

What about someone who listens to a brand new pair of speakers on day one and is slightly disappointed. Then he puts some music through them for 24/7 and three weeks in an isolated room and doesn't listen during this time period. After this process, the speakers sound different. How did his ears "break in" in this scenario? If he likes the speakers after hundreds of hours, is he only justifying his financial involvement in said speakers? Expectation bias?