Do speakers need to be re-broken in?

I would suggest that it is more likely your brain/ears getting acclimated to the new speakers. I for one never sell a piece of gear to buy a new piece to replace it, so as to come back and reevaluate the two pieces after break in and the newness effect has a chance to wear off. Enjoy the music

 No really but the spiders might loosen a bit. Happens quicker than people think. 

 mechanical break in is a thing. electrical a minor thing and quick. The mechanical is from my experience the longer of the two and dependent on the speaker. Speakers with hard surrounds take longer for example. This is measurable as well.  I find after speakers have been in storage for some time, they take a few hours to sound right after first use, assuming they had many hours on them prior to storage.

I have never noticed the need for additional breakin when speakers have not been in use for a few years. I would probably have noticed.

My experience with speakers is that some sound great right out of the box, and some sound like the components of the speaker have never met each other before, until after 150 hours or so of playing time. Same with headphones. Nothing to do with anything being acclimated; I don't even listen to them most of the time they're breaking in. It's what I expect so it's no problem for me. But once they're broken in, I've found that they don't change anymore afterwards. 

Speakers that have been sitting for several years might need to flex a little to get the suspension components working freely.  Some caps, depending on the type, might even need a little time with a voltage applied to get the juices flowing again if they've been dormant for a while.  

You may find they sound better after a few days of playing as things loosen up but I wouldn't expect any extended break-in. But you never know just listen to music and see what happens.

I'm thinking after the dust gets blown off the only things left are your ear/brain adjusting.

Regards,

barts

Still I would let them play for a day or two continuously to satisfy your curiosity and let that "static in the attic" go. 

The speakers do and so does the room...need to get broken in..

Maybe they got stiff after sitting for so long and like someone said are loosening up a little but I'm not sure that makes sense bcs if that was the case wouldn't that imply the material of drivers are deteriorating? But who knows. However consider the crossover. I'm not sure if crossovers are similar to amps in that when they are left off for a period of time they will return to pre break in state. So that's something to consider. 

Absolutely speakers need to break-in - some need more time than others to do so.When we do hifi shows (done about 20 of these) the speakers and the system almost always sounds better on day 3. I'm currently listening to a pair of SHL5+HD - not that impressed two weeks ago when unboxed but after 24 hours a day of playing in the basement of the house for the last two weeks- they have gotten much better.

Although previously broken in, they've sat around for 5 years. Being mechanical, they have to loosen up a bit but not as much as from brand new. You're hearing what you're hearing. 

All the best,
Nonoise

No they don't. 

I recently rotated a pair of JBL 4430s in that had been sitting unused for 12 to 18 months. I absolutely believe the speakers improved over several days and suspect part of the reason is the capacitors getting used again. 

So I bet that helped, toss a coin or take the answer you want…

Cheers

I just last night, hooked up a pair of bookshelf speakers that have not been used in 6+ months, ran them all night, and they sure sound better this morning. And it wasn't my ear/brain adjusting as I was sleeping while they were playing. Not sure why this topic seems to upset some people so much...

I recently purchased a pair of AER BD-3 drivers and was told it could take over 100 hours for the paper cones to loosen up and settle in.

AER BD 3's are really nice full range drivers.  Do you have any specific plans on how they are going to be used?

If the speakers sat for five years they might have stiffened up a tad, but abut a few minutes of play should be more than enough time to bring them back. 

Thanks for the responses so far. I was considering being one of those OP’ers who start a thread and then you never ever hear from them, until their next thread- but I am not that type of person.

I recently purchased a pair of AER BD-3 drivers and was told it could take over 100 hours for the paper cones to loosen up and settle in.

Again, new driver break is not being debated here, that has basically been concluded to be required by manufacturers, and most of our ears have accepted this to be a fact as well.

The speakers I have in question have Lowther drivers which from the Lowther USA rep require 300 hours of break in.

And yes of course my ears are being adjusted to the new speakers and their different presentation, and I am still playing around with setup positioning, and getting over a cold where one ear was plugged is also a definite factor.

My question was after 1000 hours of playing, then sitting for 5 years, should they require additional "loosening"? I am going to come to the conclusion of a "few hours", as some have suggested, not to mention the single capacitor between the Lowther and the tweeter may require a little juice to restabilize seems plausable as others have suggested.

Wouldn’t surprise me. Hell, my Maggie LRS sound better after an hour of playing if I don’t use them for a few days. Could be just my ears but I have noticed this numerous times.

The physiology of human auditory perception is highly adaptive. So we get used to what we listen to regularly. Theoretically, in the electronics, including crossovers, some time might be required to polarise electrolytic capacitors. This should not take too long unless they are deteriorated. Again, the mechanical parts of the drivers’ suspensions might just loosen up a little. I think this is more likely than the former to be audible. But, I think both of these factors are likely to pale into insignificance in comparison with the adaptation of our auditory perception, to transducers with a new sound signature. Our perception is extremely good at not hearing things that are interpreted unconsciously as noise, or “non-signal”, for example, the clatter of plates and cutlery, & the chatter of other diners, in a restaurant. Take a recording in that environment and play it back in a quiet environment and you will immediately notice what you had not noticed when you were there. Thus, speakers may appear to lose excessive sibilance as we adapt to them. Similarly, our auditory system is incredibly good at filling in the missing components of music that we expect to be hearing. This is one of the reasons that some small speakers appear to have such amazing bass; they reproduce the higher harmonics of the fundamental frequencies accurately, so even if the fundamental frequencies are barely audible it will sound to us as if they are.

To those who swear that breaking in must be real because their speakers sound better after playing for days without listening to them, I ask this. How do you separate your perception from your expectations? I don’t think this is actually possible. Anyone who leaves their speakers playing in another room without listening to them for weeks is, in my opinion, very likely to have high expectations that breaking in will improve them. Otherwise, why bother? And so, they now sound better to you. Placebo response is measured in clinical settings and demonstrated to have very significant effect. Don’t underestimate it! Want to eliminate it? Do a randomised double blind control trial. If you want to know how to design such a trial, ask me. This post is too long already.

My advice? Don’t sweat it. If your system sounds better after some time, just be grateful. But it it sounds horrible on demonstration in the store, don’t buy it with the expectation that it will improve significantly. If it sounds worse over time you need to upgrade, very carefully.

I ask you; If breaking in is as significant, as some claim, then how come it’s not been measured? If anyone knows of such Objective measurements, then please enlighten me.

Enjoy your new old speakers. If they get better as you listen to them, then that’s wonderful, but don’t fuss about how that is happening. It’s probably your amazing brain doing what it evolved to do; perceiving, not just hearing.

Like so many things audio, my best guess is that anybody who tries to definitively answer this question "yes" or "no" really has no idea.

I can say from personal experience that speaker break-in does exist. But I can’t define with any credibilty the scope of products or technologies that it applies to.

In my case, my Audeze LCD-3 and LCD-XC headphones both sounded horrible when I first got them. In particular, the Beatles "Come Together" had such bloated bass that I couldn’t stand to listen to it. In both cases, cycling white noise and looped music through them for a week fixed the problem. After the break-in, both had that exquisite Audeze low end, fast, detailed, and extending effortlessly down into the 20Hz region. Far too dramatic a change to be dismissed as "ears acclimating" (really!) or (if I hear this BS one more time, I’ll scream) "confirmation bias."

Then, a few years later, I came into possession of that same pair of LCD-3s, which had not been used in over 6 months by their current owner. The fat bass was back and when compared to my LCD-XCs, was exactly the way I’d remembered it. I literally could not listen to them playing most music.

But after another week of break-in and the two units sounded pretty similar again in the lower registers.

Anybody who kneejerks about this happening because I ’wanted’ it to occur is merely displaying their own confirmation bias. The difference was repeatable, and was so profound that it would be impossible to imagine -- even if I hadn’t A-B’d the two units before & after the second LCD-3 break-in. To put things into perspective, the difference was on the order of turning an old-time receiver’s bass or treble tone control knob from 1 to 10. Real, significant, and repeatable.

One last note: After owning the XCs for a while, I had the drivers updated by the factory to a newer design. When they came back -- you guessed it -- big, fat, painfully bloated low end. Another break-in and problem solved.

To sum it up: Audeze planar magnetics, at least the models I owned, undoubtedly require break-in in order to be listenable. Furthermore, leaving them unused (at least the LCD-3) for a long time created the need for another break-in period.

I have no idea why this was the case, although there are plenty of credible explanations. But it was the case.  It wasn't in my head.

I caution against trying to extrapolate my experience to other types of components, to other planar transducers, or even to other Audeze planar-magnetic phones. All I can say is that audiophile break-in, in my experience, is inarguably real in at least some very popular components.

Then, a few years later, I came into possession of that same pair of LCD-3s, which had not been used in over 6 months by their current owner. The fat bass was back and when compared to my LCD-XCs, was exactly the way I’d remembered it. I literally could not listen to them playing most music.

But after another week of break-in and the two units sounded pretty similar again in the lower registers.

To sum it up: Audeze planar magnetics, at least the models I owned, undoubtedly require break-in in order to be listenable. Furthermore, leaving them unused (at least the LCD-3) for a long time created the need for another break-in period.

Aha!, thanks for sharing @cundare2 

How do you separate your perception from your expectations? 

So if expect there not to be an improvement from break in, then you won't hear it.
Got it.

All the best,
Nonoise

Having sat dormant for 5 years, they do need re-break in, if only for a short while - meaning, likely just a few hours, if that much.

This is a popular myth that is provided by the speaker industry so that if you bring your speakers home and don't like them, they can explain it away that they are not yet broken in.  A few weeks later your ears forget how good your old speakers sound and presto!  No return is required!  If they really simply needed break-in - don't you think the manufacturers would do this process before shipping!  We are so gullible............

Yes the base will loosen up the highs will smooth out and so will the mids.. I would believe some high-priced speakers are broken in at the factory, but I have noticed that there is a huge difference after 100 -300 hours.. yes some speakers take months to reach their potential and it's definitely not your ears getting used to them.. some I have bought including headphones that have sounded terrible when I first got them.. it's definitely a real thing. as for headphones the only headphones I ever bought where my t90 and t1 Teslas by Beyerdynamic that never changed in sound they sounded good right out of the box..kef speakers take 300 hours

OP - curious after 6 days, have you heard further changes ?

@jl35

Yes, I have. I am pleased to report there have been huge changes. I was going to wait another couple of days to post this, but since you asked....

Surprisingly they have changed so much I question as to whether they were ever used. But I know that they were, for many years. The date on one of the woofers is from 2011.

Full story:

I saw these speakers for sale, I wondered what the heck are these? I looked them up, researched them, read everything I could find about them, which honestly wasn’t very much, half of it was from the good people here on Audiogon, and came to the conclusion this might be a good deal, and being a nutty audiophile why not get a second set of decent speakers. I decided to buy them unheard personally but based on the many glowing and positive impressions. I got them home, set them up in my system on Saturday Nov 18 and started playing music. And I listened and thought to myself, this is it? These are these speakers that I have read so many good things about, speakers that have been praised at shows as having "best of show" sound?

I played around with setup, I knew with 8 woofers they had prodigious bass, and was prepared to put them in a different room than this one I have now if it didn’t work. I did hear that huge bass output when placed near the manufacturers suggested position near the front wall so I pulled them well out which tamed the bass, bass was good, but something was off; not right. The treble sounded very laid back, too relaxed, like 40th row in a 40 row theatre. Some tracks sounded like someone threw not sheets, not towels, but sleeping bags over the midrange drivers and tweeters. Well hell, something doesn’t add up. I read these were "musical" speakers, well okay, but this is much flatter than "musical". I have owned Mcintosh amps from the 80’s, which were "musical", meaning the resolution wasn’t great, but something sounds darn right broken here. I checked the mids, I checked the tweeter, yes sound is being emitted from them. Perhaps they were stored outdoors and the tweeters froze to death? I listened for 2 days more swapping some of the cables I have, again playing with positioning, toe out, toe in, thinking they were a little better, I heard some detail that was promising, but still far from adequate, so different from track to track, and scratching my head in puzzlement I seriously did not think they required any major breaking in, but perhaps they would get a little bit better with use? Wondered if anyone else has been through this with a used set of speakers. I then posted this question 2 days later Nov 18.

I then wondered if it was perhaps an amp/speaker mismatch? Maybe these speakers don’t work so well with a solid state amp? So I ordered the amp that most use with these speakers, the amp they were voiced with from the manufacturer and the amp typically used at the shows they were in: a 300b tube amp.

Most answers here were along the lines of what I expected- maybe a little break-in, but not much. Definitely not like a new set. I kept listening and playing them 8-10 hours a day, and some tracks I heard their potential, but most treble still was so inferior to the Magneplanar’s they replaced; at least from 100hz and up- they still however produced wonderful bass below 100hz, and what was output below 40hz was beyond what my maggies can’t even imagine to reproduce. But this was expected. The complete lack of treble, air, and openness was not expected. I thought I made a huge mistake. Maybe the tube amp will correct the issue. Maybe something is broken inside? But there is no crossover to speak of- just a single capacitor.

Well flip ahead to Friday, 6 days later, or about 50-70 hours of playing time, and it was like someone flipped a switch- they are a completely different set of speakers. It wasn’t even gradual, it was like "Bam, here is your treble!" It is now 9 days since I put them in the system and I am now understanding the accolades and best of show reports- they are sounding phenomenal. I have the detail, realistic voices, gobs of pitch and definition but still a relaxed and "musical" presentation they were reported to have. I can’t express enough my delight!

Skeptics: Believe me I considered all other variables- I have a science degree. It was not anything else, I switched back the same cables that were in place on the first day, no other changes were made. And no, psychology and physiology majors it is not an "adjustment period", I am not that weak-minded, and the cold I had and am still getting over? Okay, although I am willing to admit my hearing wasn’t 100%, but hey- my wifes voice didn’t sound overly muffled last week compared to this week- she still sounded the same then as she does now. But the voices from these speakers sure don’t. In the past I have gone through some cable swaps I would admit may be a 1% difference, and I had to go back and forth a dozen times to hear the difference- I would argue the head cold and "adjustment period" are on this level. Whereas the sound I am getting from last week to this week is more like 60% by comparison. Additionally my 25 year old daughter also confirmed this. She was here last Sunday and heard them, then came back yesterday 6 days later and played the same music and agreed it is a night and day difference. "They sound so much more complete". Yes, I now hear the highs to match the lows.

So yes, to answer my own question these speakers need to be re-broken in. I can’t speak to any other speaker, I don’t know why or how, but these speakers with their Lowther midranges required many hours of playing to sound decent after a lengthy hibernation. Maybe it is just a Lowther "thing". But a few other posters above explained the same experience. Perhaps they will get even better in the next few weeks after the manufacturers suggested 300 hours of break-in for a new pair? They sound pretty damn good now, but who knows!

The speakers are Horning Eufrodites.

Thanks for your report. Interesting speakers... I really like the way all the woofers are hidden. Also, interesting how additional time was required. I have experienced this with cables... so, I guess it make sense it would also happen with speakers. 

@mclinnguy I'm glad that you're finally happy with the Horning Eufrodites. Will be interesting if you can share how they compare with your other babies -- the Maggies :)

I've recently added a pair of nice, and very fast, subwoofers to support my 3.7i's. Tried a few subs but very few can keep up with Magnepan tweeters. I think I've finally found something that does not take away anything from the 3.7is.

@arafiq Good to hear. I never wanted to try subs with mine, I was happy for 15 years without them, but I'll admit if I went from these Horning's and then tried the Maggies I would definitely think something was missing- you know, all the stuff below 40hz, which is probably what your ears are telling you after all the other wonderful speakers you have had and still own. 

You already have your own thread for your maggie experiment so don't post it here but update what you got over there. 

@mclinnguy Apologies, didn't mean to hijack your Horning thread. But it will still be interesting to learn more about how they compare to Magnepans at some point.

@ghdprentice

Interesting speakers... I really like the way all the woofers are hidden.

Yes, they are part horns, part dipoles, maybe part transmission line? I am no expert in the matter of speaker design or definitions, but yes they are quite the design. I am totally new to them too of course, but some here have been enjoying these speakers for almost 20 years? The advantage of multiple woofers moving 1mm instead of one woofer moving 20mm is easy to comprehend- it is the similar principle to a planar magnetic speaker- and what I don’t want is a lack of speed and some slow and plodding bass. The bass from these is powerful yet fast and tight.

Also, interesting how additional time was required. I have experienced this with cables... so, I guess it make sense it would also happen with speakers.

Yes, me too. I am now a believer and also experienced the "system sounds better after resting for several days" phenomenon, as many have claimed to be a "thing" for many years. This is beyond breaking in and seasoning of components of course.

This is what @gramophone_canada alluded to above, and what I have read from others also who attended audio shows, that systems always seemed to sound best on the last day compared to the first where nothing was touched and all equipment has been well broken in previous to the setup at the show.

Beyond cables liking to rest and the dielectric to "relax" over a few days, the Live Vibe platforms I use definitely sound better after gravity has had their effect on the components resting on them after several days. The couplers dig their way into the carpet and the resonances have found a more efficient way to the larger mass. At least that is my understanding of what is going on. Don’t care the reason, my ears tell me something is going on for the better

I still wonder though, as far as these speakers are concerned, is this the paper cone relaxing, the foam getting less stiff, the wiring/dielectric on the wiring in the speaker doing the same as any other new cabling, or is it the magnetics re-aligning or re-conditioning? All of the above? No idea.

@arafiq

No worries! No apologies for any hi-jacking necessary! I am just wanting those who have been reading your Magneplanar adventures to be able to get all the information there and not miss anything.

Actually I think that thread you started would be more appropriate for a maggie/horning comparison than this one. 

@arafiq 

I was wondering also if when you demoed these Eufrodites if they were well broken in? Because you stated you thought the treble was a little rolled off if I recall correctly. 

I have put a brand new pair of speakers right next to a pair that had been used for over a year.   Same make and model.  I was installing a different color. My wife and I could hear a difference.  The new pair sounded leaner, with less bass.

@mclinnguy The dealer told me they were his demo speakers. It's possible they weren't broke in yet. I played them for maybe 40-50 hours before sending back. In retrospect, and after reading your impressions I might have been hasty in returning them.

@mclinnguy not sure if break-in at less than five watts will do anything, but older speakers always is good to restore / check:

1) Sweep speakers freq. for resonances at 50% max power using external audio sine generator connected directly to amp (or preamp). There is good sig generator app available in Apple store, which makes speaker (and room!) freq. sweep very simple! This step always surprises me how many resonating things I can hear in the room, and even inside speaker boxes! 

2) Take low freq. driver out and vacuum spkr boxes inside. along the way, check passive crossover, terminals, wires, etc for issues (most common is to deox connectors, attach freely hanging wires to the box-walls, etc. Check damping materials etc. 

Clean and deox terminals. 

happy listening! 

My thought is that if break in or burn in was ever going to be a real thing (in my experience it is, some people disagree) then speakers is the most obvious place we would experience it. Headphones too but that's the same concept.