Do speakers need to be re-broken in?

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