Thought My Harbeth M40.1's Were Forever Speakers - Guess Not

Alan Shaw has often said he doesn’t believe in any audible break-in other than after a few initial seconds for the tweeter.

Let’s not forget that he is in a far better position than most of us to compare new and used speakers/drivers - or also that he has nothing to gain by saying this.

Yet some manufacturers and dealers seem to claim (usually without offering any data) that they do believe in it.

If so, and let’s face it the promise of ’break-in’ would be a great tactic to try to shift unimpressive loudspeakers by promising nebulous future improvements, I would hope they are prepared to extend the return date (plus accept at least 50% of the return costs) accordingly.

Confirmation bias on the other hand is definitely real and far more likely to affect perceptions. Especially when large sums of money are involved.

In my experience if a product is not initially satisfactory it is unlikely to become so in future.

In fact there’s just as much chance that the niggles will remain and gnaw with increasing intensity with the duration of time.

The Anni's are demo's... new as of February 2020.  Not sure how many hours are on them, but I'm guessing < 500.

@cd318 Unless you own or have owned 40.2's from new, and have gone through the process, you hardly seem like the best qualified to opine on this topic.  Most of us are posting based on first-hand empirical experience.

ditto @twoleftears 
I've recently been corresponding with a fellow Goner that recently purchased a new pair of 40.3XD's that confirmed he was initially very worried as they were initially very harsh, but finally blossomed after a break-in period.

cd318,  interesting as usual. I've been reading some old papers on the evolution of BBC monitors from the 50's through the 80's. The designers and engineers had to argue with the top dogs trying to build state of the art and best sounding speakers they could. The accountants saying it didn't matter since 90% of the public used garbage speakers anyway and they argued their's needed to be better than the 10% who didn't. Interesting that Shaw used his daughter's voice as some monitors were not designed for music but voice and effect work. Some for use in those old small broadcast vans.