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Okay, How Important Is Speaker Break In? (Dynaudio Contour 60i)

I have been running 25+ year old B&W Matrix 803 S2 speakers in my 2-channel system for about 15 years, and I finally treated myself to new speakers.  Mock me for buying based on research alone, but I got a really good deal and just unpacked my beautiful Dynaudio Contour 60i's.  The Dyn's are not broken in, just starting to play around with different songs, but I am expecting an improvement out of the box, and not getting it.  They are no more revealing, and slightly harder and more jangley in the mids and highs.  The bass is of course much better with the big Dyns, but the B&Ws with the Dyn Sub6 subwoofer I was running were better.  I have very good equipment so it is not a matter of driving bigger speakers (ARC Ref preamp and Bryston 7bSST2 monoblocks).  Unless speakers get A LOT better with break in, I thinking these Dyns may be converted back into cash.   Thoughts? Thanks.
mathiasmingus

Showing 1 response by abasia

abasia
16 posts
 
Break in is important but only in the first few hours; if you don't like the speakers after a day or two, send it back. I purposely tried to gauge this when I bought Special 40s. Significant change in the first minutes, then slightly improvements to the 5th hour, then very little to the 15th hour (which btw is the break in time for BWs according to their manual), then next to nothing in the 50th, 100th, 200th playing hours. 
In your case though, it might be more of your preference of the BW house sound which makes the contour less impressive; haven't heard the matrix but the more modern BWs are slightly boosted up top and below, while the Dyns are dull flat. Do try to see if you can like the Dyn sound as they should be more detailed, albeit less exciting.
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