Speaker Burn In...

There is physical evidence of driver's T&S parameters changing after some use. As for electrical components, most noticeably capacitors and resistors require some burn in time before they sound right.

Drivers usually don't wear out(sans foam rot), but the electronics inside them can after 15-20 year, especially electrolytic capacitors.

I have found that speakers do not so much require 'burn in' as 'break in'.

I believe it's a matter of the actual mechanism requiring a bit of 'loosening up' for the speakers to sound optimal.

There is no doubt in my mind whatsoever that this holds true; I once purchase a pair of NHT 1.3's, but they didn't have them in stock. I borrowed the demos until mine came in on order. When I got my NIB speakers home, they did not sound anywhere NEAR as good as the demo pair i had been using. They sounded flat, uninvolving, totally lacking in bass, undynamic...

Day and night, i tell ya. I simply played my new speakers at moderate volumes as often as i could to get them to loosen up. I am in total disagreement with anyone stating that speaker break-in is pyschosomatic.

Just play music - and lots of it! your speakers will break in eventually and you can enjoy/observe the changes in the process along the way.

Many years ago I sent my MG1 panels to White Bear lake for a rebuild. When they came back they were a little stiff in the sense that they had less power handling and needed a little more juice to get going. That fixed itself in a couple months of casual use.

When I replace the MG1s with 1.6s, I started with zero time speakers. These quite different to break in. The image wandered back and forth for several hours. Frequency response changed, too.
All that was over within a few hours and they have remained stable ever since.

Cool answers everyone...thanks!

Loose,I think most people take burn in and break to mean the same thing.I could be wrong,have been before!!!!