Is break in quicker with Planars and Stats?

good plan!

I've had 2 pair of Maggies.
Original MG-1s rebuilt at the 20 year old mark were
very different upon return and needed months at my modest listening schedule to return to 'normal'.
There replacement, some 1.6s were weird! I was sitting listening after original install and the stereo image wavered from left to right and back again, several times fairly quickly. I was absolutely SOBER, too, so don't even say it!
They settled in fairly quickly and never repeated the image thing.
I, too, would have been a little leary of speaker break in but am now a believer. I think speakers break in quickly for the first say.....8 or 10 hours.

its a simple matter, on Maggies the mylar stretches and on cone speakers the surround gets more flexable. Both free up the sound and allow better bass.

From my experience with MG 1.6's I would definitely agree that there is speaker break-in with Maggies. It was less noticeable on the little Castle towers I use in the upstairs living room so I can't say if it was quicker.

Cone speakers have the surround in front and the spider in the back that locates the piston. I understand (feel free to correct me) that the spiders in quality cone speakers are very substantial and really need some serious break-in.

For the sake of argument consider how Magnepan planar panels are made. Mylar stretched to a certain tension and glued to a support frame that floats inside the larger baffle (only horizontal staples to keep the frame located). The mylar is sprayed (everywhere) with 3M spray adhesive and copper and aluminum wires/foil held in place then sealed with another bead of glue. Buttons are pushed through the mylar and anchored in the magnet plate to tune the resonant frequency of each panel.

You have the mylar stretching (to a certain extent) changing the initial tension. The 3M base coat is flexing and settling. The wires are flexing and settling, as is the second bead of glue directly over the wire. The mylar around the tensioning buttons is shifting in place until it settles. The mylar support frames/magnet assembly is shifting in the outer baffle as it settles from being shipped prone to standing upright. Add to that a coat of matt black around the perimeter of the mylar frame and supposedly Magnepan is now using a coating of some sort over the whole panel to protect from UV and moisture.

Yeh, kinda' makes sense there may be a mechanical system based break-in, doesn't it?

Jim S.

Sounds plausible!