Speaker Break In...? Or listener “Break In”?

TBC: There are a number of times when speaker makers have measured the break in of a woofer.

The annoyance for us is that driver manufacturers (not speaker makers) specify the drivers after being broken in, but we get them without, so when we measure them they don’t necessarily match up for a while.

YMMV, different drivers, suspensions, etc. will behave differently. Usually this has to do with the resonant frequency dropping after use. That’s a key component of cabinet design, which is why it can be really annoying.

Best,
E

Conventional drivers have components made of materials that move, bend, and flex.  I can't see how anyone would not think that those materials would have a break-in period.  How long that period is, and how big an impact that makes in the grand scheme of things, is much more problematic.  But I tend to agree with the poster who said that if you don't like it when hearing it new, the chances are you won't love it once it's broken in.

This, of course, is a varient to the power cord threads, where many people cannot hear differences. And if you read very carefully, the same " few " continue to show up, and imo, show ignorance in listening ability, and making claims, again, that for the rest of us, the majority, it is " all in our heads ". I simply ignore these folks now.

prof   I agree.  It's like a car salesman.  If they can get you inside the car and take it for a test drive, or let you take it home and drive it for a couple days, a sale is more probable.
I do think there may be a slight break in for speakers, but I also wonder how much we adapt to the new sound.  It would be interesting to compare a used pair of speakers with a brand new pair on the same system and see if you could tell the difference.

when I got my von Schweikerts, speaker break-in was real for me. When I first played them "out of the boxes" I was disappointed but expected them to need to be played a while. Took about 400 hours to really come into their own. lots of congestion and lack of detail originally, nothing like what I heard at the dealers