T2K Posted June 23, 2001 Share Posted June 23, 2001 Quote from Definitive Technology manual: "an extended break-in period of 20-40 hours or more of playing is required to reach full performance capability.Break-in allows the suspensions to work in and results in fuller bass,a more open "blossoming" midrange and smoother high frequency reproduction." For what its worth. Keith Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Klipschguy Posted June 23, 2001 Share Posted June 23, 2001 Definitive Technology probably says that so you will give the speakers a chance and not rush to return them. After 20-40h of listening, you begin to get used to the sound of a pair of speakers and are more likely to keep them. Hey, does anybody else remember the double blind tests with different audio components done by Julian Hirsch of Stereo Review some years back. I would love to have copies of those. One test he did was the double blind speaker cable comparison - NONE of the "golden ears elite audiophiles" could tell a diference between 16 ga zip cord and esoteric cables when the test was blind. However, when THEY KNEW what they were listening to, they said things about the expensive cables like "full bouquet", "pinpoint soundstage", "tighter bass", blah, blah, blah. Conversely, about the zip cord they said "muddy bass", "lack of coherencey", "poor soundstage", blah, blah, blah. Ole Julian nailed them between the eyes. Julian nailed them again when comparing different esoteric tube and solid state amplifiers. Even a 45 watt/channel Pioneer receiver was included in the line up. Man did those audiophiles rag on the Pioneer when they knew what they were listening to. And they laid it on thick about the Conrad-Johnson, which was considered "the stuff" back then. Again, when blind, NO DIFFERENCE. What's even more funny is that even though there was no statistical difference between perveived sound of the various amps, the Pioneer seemed to get the highest marks when giving a cursory look at the raw data. Several of the guys picked it as the Conrad-Johnson. (Maybe these guys had wax in their ears!?) I wish somebody out there would do one of Julian Hirsch's controlled double blind studies with breaking in speakers. I'd bet $1000 of my dollars against $10 of somebody elses dollars there would be no statistical difference. Anyway, I'll get off my soapbox and turn the mic over to someone else so we can get another provocative opinion - just a couple more things. No finger pointing here. I am guilty of audiophile talk too. I do believe I can hear differences between amps and stuff. But I always understand that a double blind test would likely put me to shame (surely not MY ears). As an aside, have you ever noticed that the harder you work/spend on a tweak, the better it sounds? One bet I would take. I bet I could tell the difference between a pair of K-horns and a pair of Bose 901's in a double blind test. PWK knew what mattered - THE SPEAKERS. Klipschguy This message has been edited by Klipschguy on 06-23-2001 at 02:49 PM Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Olaf Posted June 23, 2001 Author Share Posted June 23, 2001 Hey Klipschguy...I has a subscription to 'Stereo Review' for years and really enjoyed reading JH's columms and reviews. They had alot good stuff in the magazine ,but I was always a little leary of JH's reviews if the brand of equiptment he was testing had the manufacturer's advertisements in the magazine. You know,I sure they didn't want to lose an advertiser because of an overly negative review.;-) I still had respect for his conclusions though...he was da man!!!! You're right about the cables and the break-in period. As I said in my post at the top of the page.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Klipschguy Posted June 23, 2001 Share Posted June 23, 2001 Yeah, I was always a little leary myself. I also noticed they never ever said that a pair of speakers "sounded bad." JT was defintitely The Man. He was controversial and went into the face of a lot of audiophile dogma. I think there were some companies out there that wanted to put a muzzle on him. I wonder if he's posting on this bulletin board incognito. You know he likes big Klipsch. Klipschguy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
T2K Posted June 23, 2001 Share Posted June 23, 2001 Yeah, I'm with you guys. I've got a pair of used Quintet's I bought at a garage sale for $18.I'm convinced they sound just as good as a pair of Klipschorns. Keith Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rhawki Posted June 24, 2001 Share Posted June 24, 2001 Does breaking in include breaking the front MDF around the woofers loose from the cabinet? Just kiddin, already called Klipsch and i'm gonna pick up some liquid nails on the way home this morning... Seriously though, i buy into the woofers breaking in. There's definatly a difference in bass now that i've used my 30's for a couple months. How much change is real vs. how i listen now is hard to say, but coming from my old roomates DCM's ("thick" bass) to the tight bass of the Klipsh was an initial change. LOVE my KLF's though! -Rich P.S. Wanted to throw in a big thanks for the great attitude i recieved regarding this when i called Klipsch. Hard to find good cust. service these days and i really appreciate it when i do find it! This message has been edited by rhawki on 06-24-2001 at 10:43 PM Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ray Garrison Posted June 25, 2001 Share Posted June 25, 2001 Re Julian Hirsch... 1) The biggest knock against Julian (at least from the "underground audio press" of those days... ) was that he never directly compared products against each other, particularly in his speaker reviews. He'd reach some conclusions about speaker A, say a $750 smallish floorstanding 3 way design, but never compare / contrast speaker A with speakers B, C, D... which were also smallish floorstanding 3 way designs in about the same price range, which he'd recently reviewed. You could, after getting to know his style and becomming familiar with his testing and review procedures, sort of "read between the lines" and figure out how he "really" felt about something, but he almost never came right out and said it. The only exceptions I recall seeing where those (rather few) times when he reviewed something he was absolutely bonkers about. I recall one the of the Definitive Technology (BP2000?) speakers really hit his fancy, as did Polk on occation, but those "rave" reviews were very much the exception. In fact, the joke used to be that all of Julian's speaker reviews ended with the phrase: "Of all the speakers I have reviewed, this is certainly one of them." 2) I always had a problem with the fact that if he thought something was totally ridiculous, or flew in the face of "conventional wisdom" without any solid backing explination, he WOULDN'T EVEN TRY IT. One example of this was his review of the PSB Stratus speakers, which come with spikes to couple them to the floor. The spikes are FREE. They are INCLUDED WITH THE PRODUCT. The MANUFACTURER says you OUGHT TO USE THEM. Julian's position was that there was obviously no way that putting spikes on speakers could change the sound, unless perhaps the speaker was sitting on a thick carpet which the spikes would penetrate, and as that was not the case in his evaluation room, there was NO REASON TO TRY THEM. So he simply stated that they would MAKE NO DIFFERENCE and DISMISSED THEM. Without evening TRYING IT. That single article pretty much turned me off of Stereo Review. I still read it if there were music reviews I was interested in, and now that Audio has folded and the publisher decided that I'd like to get Sound and Music instead of a refund ( ) I'm back to reading it again. Ken Pohlman seems to have taken up Julian's mantle, though Ken occationally has flashes of insight that make me think he's not a completely lost cause... ------------------ Music is art Audio is engineering Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
T2K Posted June 25, 2001 Share Posted June 25, 2001 Ray, thank you, thank you, thank you. Keith Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Klipschguy Posted June 25, 2001 Share Posted June 25, 2001 Yeah, thanks Ray. I agree with your assessment of JH. But, please don't misunderstand. I don't think JH was always right, but I do admire his work. A lot of things matter in audio and JH recognized that (as do I), but you really had to love it when he would stand up and yell "the Emporer has no clothes" when everyone else was ooing and awwing. Personally, I try to keep every link in my audio system as strong as possible, yes, even the speaker cables, because I think the minutia adds up to better sound. But I try to keep it in perspective. Klipschguy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
avman Posted June 25, 2001 Share Posted June 25, 2001 two personal observations: i 'think' my klf-30's do sound better now that i've played them for about 2 months, and i know for sure that one in a pair of HUGE klf-looking (forte 2's?) gave up the ghost when i took them out of the box, hooked them up to an *** kicking adcom amp and opened them up! the 'spider' on one of the woofers seperated from the woofer cone! i can't help but to believe that a 'break-in' wouldn't have 'loosened up' the spider a bit and possibly avoided damage. my 2 cents.avman. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ckt Posted June 26, 2001 Share Posted June 26, 2001 About 20 years ago, I bought a set of Heresy's. I broke in the wife, kids, dogs, and neighbors with them. They sounded alot better about 40 hours later because everybody was running for cover. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. Blorry Posted June 27, 2001 Share Posted June 27, 2001 Well, I'm hoping my bell-shaped curve has a very flat top, but after I listen to these speakers for a few years, I'm probably going to need to have my audiologist fit me for a Beltone! After that, all I'll need to hear is for whom the bell tolls... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TechSpec Posted June 28, 2001 Share Posted June 28, 2001 First I must say that Ray's sub-caption is right on... "No Life". please don't take that as a slant on your person, you are of a very high intelect and that is duely noted. As to the question at hand, everything that incures some sort of movement will breakdown. The entire physics involved in reproducing a sound wave via a speaker will cause a movement that degrades the inital state of the compounds used in diaphragm. This will cause a curve of sorts somewhat shaped like the bell-curve with a much higher inital point than termination point. It will have some inital increase in flex (the break-in) how much increase will depend totally on the elements used, as well as the shape, width, arc, and so on. If you were to graph the amount of air movement to time you would recieve a resultant graph that is slanted slightly left. So unless you plan on replacing your speakers more often than the delta T of the graph to reach it's inital point from the peak, the "break-in" will be of little importance to you. This does not mean it does not exist, nor does it mean it does not increase the sound quality or life span of the material used in the speaker. Allowing the speaker become "flexable" at a constant rate will provide a longer lasting speaker. As to sound quality, you should reach the same or very near the quality of a broken in speaker with a speaker not broken in over some time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest polymon Posted June 28, 2001 Share Posted June 28, 2001 OKAY, OKAY!! Everybody stop! Take a deep Breath! Count to TEN! Now, go LISTEN TO SOME MUSIC!! Ain't that what this whole thing is REALLY all about? Aren't we over analyzing this just a liitle bit? Okay, my blood pressure is back down now... ------------------ Polymon Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dougdrake2 Posted June 28, 2001 Share Posted June 28, 2001 quote: Originally posted by polymon: Now, go LISTEN TO SOME MUSIC!! Ain't that what this whole thing is REALLY all about? Yeah, but that's harder to write about... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Olaf Posted June 29, 2001 Author Share Posted June 29, 2001 TechSpec If you make enough posts,someday you will have the same caption as Ray and others. When you reach a certain number of posts your caption will change. I think there are 4 different levels. Right now we are both 'newbies 'because of the number of posts we have made. We could still be 'newbies' for years to come. It depends on the amount of our activity. Have fun and keep posting.:-) They are fine folks here and someday you and I may join the elite 'No lifes.' :-) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rowooo Posted June 29, 2001 Share Posted June 29, 2001 Mr.Blorry.....Metallica.....right????? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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