Jrd- hearing is believing. Gunbei- the wife and daughter now agree the new ones sound better than the older pair Spudco and Elevick- it was worth the wait but yes it was painful wasn't it. In my case it seemed like I bought a Yugo for the price of a Mercedes and it eventually turned into a Ferrari. For the disbelievers out there, I'm telling you the difference is not minor. The changes have been drastic. No source, cable, component or even room change has had as drastic an impact as break in.
Speaker Break In- my experience
Until now I have remained skeptical about claims of the need for speaker break in time. My experience with a brand new pair of Shahinian Diapasons has proved to me that this is a very real phenomena. My experience is somewhat unique in that I had a 10 year old pair of Shahinian Diapasons that I was listening to daily before my new ones arrived. Imagine my despair upon hooking up my brand new $12,000 pair and hearing what I could conservatively rate as terrible. I'm sitting there thinking oh god these really sound bad. Then my wife in the other room confirms my fear when she says "turn the music down it's hurting my ears". Then the ultimate confirmation when my 8 year old daughter walks in the room and says " I don't like them, you should take them back and keep the old speakers". Of course I tell my wife about break in and how everything will be just great once break in is accomplished. But inside I'm thinking that no amount of break in is going to solve this. I'm panicking now, one of my thoughts was that Richard Shahinian was getting older and his revised design was compensating for his high frequency hearing loss. Then I think OK I'll just wait 30 years and when I'm 70 these things will sound good. I'll grow into them! I paid full retail so unloading them was not an option. My only option was to give break in a chance. Since then (about 2 months) I have been playing the speakers every chance I get. I leave them on when I go to work or when we go out to eat. After a month, the old Diapasons still sounded better. A friend came over who I had been bragging to about my system. I hooked up the old Diapasons because I knew he wouldn't like the new ones. Thats when I called Vasken Shahinian and told him I was worried. He told me to be patient. The process has been gradual but the end result has been amazing. The speakers after two months are entirely different and entirely better. I went from hating these speakers to loving them. I can now report that Richard Shahinian still has fantastic ears.