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Tweaks break-in period ?

Hi all,

Have you ever experience tweaks break-in period ? Yesterday night me and 4 of my fellows (all audiophiles) were having a good time listening to music on my main system.

As I had received a brand new set of Black Diamond Racing cones (MKIII version)sooner in the day; and the ones (also MKIII) sitting under my power amp were a "loan" and belong to one of my friends, I proceeded to switch the older set with the new one.

Holy s...!! The sound changed !! It became harsher, thinner, more up-front, a little sibilant and less musical !!! We all thought that something was wrong and that maybe I had MK IV version instead of MK IIIs. But no, both sets were MK IIIs. It is true that my friend's set had several hundred hours under my amp but does burnin exist with tweaks or were we all nuts?

Maybe it is an energy related thing. Maybe after x number of hours of receiving vibrations (therefore energy) from the amp the cones get their final arrangement at the molecular level !? I don't know.

One thing is certain though, we ALL notice the differences and they were not subtelities but very evident ones.

My question is: Have you ever experience similar effect with tweaks and if so, what do you think would be the reasons ?

Hope we are not the only 4 nuts on this planet ;-)

Thank you all
Best regards

Marc-André Rodrigue
marcandr
albertporter's avatar
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albertporter
4,949 posts
 
Maybe you overlook the obvious. To listen to the new BDR feet, you had to move the interconnect, speaker wires and power cable. Perhaps you even disconnected the AC for a brief period. All of these could be responsible for the big change in character in your system.

No, you are not nuts, just clearly concerned with hearing what you did not expect.
bluenose
387 posts
 
Just a thought, and I may be way wrong. But did you move any wires when you changed the cones? Did the cables touch each other in any way? Try lifitng all cables, power cords, and conditioners off the floor and off each other.....I noticed a major improvement when I did all of the above. I think you might have disturbed a balance you had when you made the change and if you could find it again then compare the cones and you may hear the difference...Anyone else have any idea what may be happening? Now if it was Canadian beer, I would understand, he, he....let us know what you find, cheers, Bluenose
flex
292 posts
 
Did you place the new cones in the identical place as the old ones? Often, small changes in position of cones under components leads to significant changes in sound.
bob_bundus
1,834 posts
 
You might try reverting to the original cones just as a sanity check?
Flex's question is also valid here - moving cones closer togther can soften & warm the sound, while moving them further apart can increase detail at the expense of warmth. I do this intentionally when tuning, even a 1" difference is noticable.
tacs
220 posts
 
I find the very act of putting tweaks in place can give pleasure, if you're expecting a better sound, by getting one's blood flowing via the creative act of positioning the tweak and expecting a result.

or, alternatively, tweaks may detract from the sound, if the sound was good before and you had settled into a bliss before the tweak (thereby ruining it by getting all analytical and getting up to change something)

of course it is possible that the specific tweak is solely responsible for the change. but usually it is the interaction between tweak and tweaker (and ear).

Cheers all
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