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Does anyone know about how long the Paradigm Signature line takes to break in? I've heard some speakers take much longer than other ... I'm just wondering which side of the spectrum they're on.
Follow Ups:
The trustworthy Harbeth designer, Alan Shaw believes that the 'break-in time' is simply the amount of time required to stifle the urge to flee badly designed speakers:
The only component part of a Harbeth loudspeaker that can change as a result of the exercise known as 'burning-in' is the resin-doped cloth suspension that centres the neck of the cone in the magnetic field - sometimes called the 'spider'. Under the microscope, once the resin has been worked, it crazes into millions of small interconnected islands. This process is irreversible and takes only a few hours - or less, with bass heavy music played rather louder than normal. After that, the drive unit can be considered fully aged, and the resonant frequency has settled at its final value and will stay at that value.The ferrofluid used in Harbeth tweeters will become appropriately viscous after a few minutes operation. Neither the coils, resistors, capacitors, cables no any other part of a Harbeth speaker has any short-term ageing mechanism.
As discussed in Designer's Notebook Chapter 7, "When one hears reports of a loudspeaker 'needing an extended burn-in period, maybe hundreds of hours' this has little or nothing to do with the ageing process of the drive units but of the listener attempting to reprogram his fight-or-flight response. At the top of the design specification of all and every Harbeth speaker is that it must not be fatiguing to listen to hence, by implication it must not have an over-vivid phantom image".
If they don't sound good after ten minutes of use, it's mainly because you have never heard these speakers before in your room.
They won't sound the same as prior speakers.
They won't sound the same as they did in the store.
You may have inferior locations for them at first.
Speakers will sound as good as they can sound after five or ten minutes to warm up the voice coils.
You can break in new drivers in the same time period required to heat up the voice coils.
The 100 hours break-in, after which the speakers will sound perfect forever after, is an urban audio myth!
Of course it may take your ears 100 hours or longer to get used to the new speakers. They'll have different colorations than the old speakers you were used to.
That's why speaker manufacturers don't mind the 100 hours break-in myth.
Use LOUD bass heavy music to break-in the driver's suspension (fine cracks will form in the spider coatings the first time the driver's cone is stroked significant distance).
Don't use string quartets -- the cones have to cover a significant portion of their linear stroke (XMAX)!
Most likely the audible portion of break-in was handled at the factory during brief quality control testing.
There are typically 5% to 10% changes in some driver parameters during break-in. This may be audible.
Similar 5% to 10% changes to driver parameters happen EVERY day when the voice coils warm up. No one seems to notice this!
It's funny that audiophiles never seem to report hearing 5-10% driver parameter changes over 5 minutes of voice coil warm up ... but many report hearing 5-10% changes spread over 100 hours during "break-in"!
Some subwoofer driver with large single or dual spiders may have driver parameter break-in changes in the 10-20% range. These changes are audible because the bass is so weak initially compared with three minutes later as the drivers play a LOUD bass heavy RAP song.
Find some music with a loud repeating bass drum and play it as loud as you can tolerate for a few minutes.
But if the bass output seems okay the first time you play your speakers, the audible portion break-in, assuming there was any audible portion of break-in) was already accomplished at the factory during quality control testing.
There may still be small changes to driver parameters AFTER the first 10 minutes of LOUD use ... which become very small after a few hours of use.
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Richard BassNut Greene
Subjective Audiophile 2007
has no bearing whatsoever on the validity of what many others, including myself, do hear. It's just your experience and opinion, nothing more. Please explain to me how you can judge whether or not I hear something. Hearing acuity is a multidimensional matrix; it does not and never will boil down to simple generalizations. Otherwise, we would have long ago agreed on the "perfect" stereo.
Unlike Richard Vandersteen who's claim "the model 3As break-in and significantly improve during the first 100 hours of use. Until this period has elapsed, the speakers exhibit some sonic aberrations as the parameters of the Model 3A were established with completely broken-in drivers" that is right on the money.
I just lived it and "sonic aberration" is exactly what I heard, but no longer.
Any claim that this is my imagination hasn't heard speakers break-in.
"the best you know is the best you've heard"
He makes some really good speakers, too. Soundstage magazine interviewed Paul Barton. You can find the relevant couple of paragraphs if you go down to the last picture in the article.
Craiger
"Any claim that this is my imagination hasn't heard speakers break-in."
That's certainly an ambiguous sentence! I've never noticed break-in with any of the speakers I have owned, and indeed, I would not buy a lousy sounding speaker in the hopes that at some later time it would "break-in" and sound better.
You have not proved that you have heard any break-in phenomena in speakers, which would not be an easy thing to do. There are other explanations for why you perceived changes in the behavior of the loudspeakers over time, and one of them is simply that perception is biased: there is no need to bring imagination into it.
____________________________________________________
"Opposition brings concord. Out of discord comes the fairest harmony."
------Heraclitus of Ephesis (fl. 504-500 BC), trans. Wheelwright.
Perhaps speakers that are not time and phase accurate don't break-in or don't have enough resolution to reveal the changes that occur in their sound even if his speakers are "really good", I don't know I've only heard our own speakers break-in.
You've never noticed speakers break-in? What could that mean? You once claimed that your Stratus Minni's sounded better than your Quad ESL 57s, that might have said something about your biases, as you would likely be alone in that observation.
You used the words "lousy sounding" and that could be the case with inexpensive speakers with no track record, but for a very well established company with many years of positive comments and reviews the concept of break-in is that the speaker's sound will improve with use, from how it sounds new.
If you could get everything you wanted in a loudspeaker at a price you'd be willing to pay, but can not accept that a break-in period will take place before hearing them at their best that's your right, but you could miss out on a great sounding speaker.
People that review speakers for a living are not likely all fooling themselves, they accept the practice as a necessary step to see what's there.
"You have not proved that you have heard any break-in phenomena in speakers, which would not be an easy thing to do. There are other explanations for why you perceived changes in the behavior of the loudspeakers over time, and one of them is simply that perception is biased: there is no need to bring imagination into it."
You have not proved that I didn't hear our speakers improve after break-in.
Think about what you saying here, I claim to have heard our speakers break-in and you claim it's just bias, yet you "never noticed break-in"
Barton himself said "minimal" and that could be use to describe the difference, but for some anything audible, is substantial.
Craiger
"You've never noticed speakers break-in? What could that mean? You once claimed that your Stratus Minni's sounded better than your Quad ESL 57s, that might have said something about your biases, as you would likely be alone in that observation."
This has nothing whatever to do with hearing break-in effects. I did point out that forward radiating speakers suited our listening room better than dipoles.
I've never owned the Quad '57, it was the ESL-63, and it is a great loudspeaker if they can be set up properly. I explained why I was trying forward radiating speakers. Here are a couple of things I wrote: "The rooms in our house are small enough to make it difficult to get the best out of dipolar or bipolar speakers." And: "Indeed, I am finding that most recordings sound better in our room with the Stratus Minis than they did with the Quads."
http://www.audioasylum.com/cgi/m.mpl?forum=speakers&n=169515&review=1
As for the alleged effects of speaker break-in, you're the one who adopted Vandersteen's terminology of "sonic aberration:"I just lived it and "sonic aberration" is exactly what I heard, but no longer." This fits in with Paul Barton's suggestion that it is most likely your mind that breaks in.
You have missed an important logical point in the following exchange:
Me
""You have not proved that you have heard any break-in phenomena in speakers, which would not be an easy thing to do. There are other explanations for why you perceived changes in the behavior of the loudspeakers over time, and one of them is simply that perception is biased: there is no need to bring imagination into it."
Craiger
"You have not proved that I didn't hear our speakers improve after break-in."
Of course not. That's why I made no such claim. How on earth can someone prove something doesn't occur? But you are making a positive claim, that you hear speaker break-in and I pointed out you have not proved you have and that you have not eliminated other explanations for your perceptions.
Again, I point out that drivers do have some break-in, and below I gave another reference, this one to an article by Mark Sanfilipo. But how long does it take and how audible is it?
http://www.audioholics.com/education/loudspeaker-basics/speaker-break-in-fact-or-fiction
Craiger
"If you could get everything you wanted in a loudspeaker at a price you'd be willing to pay, but can not accept that a break-in period will take place before hearing them at their best that's your right, but you could miss out on a great sounding speaker."
There are just oodles of reasons I might miss out on a great sounding loudspeaker--chiefly that I cannot possibly even be aware of all the likely candidates, much less be able to listen to each one of them. I now have two sets of great sounding speakers, one of them subsequently given Stereophile's highest rating. But I do expect that a loudspeaker on display should be in a listenable condition. If not, tough luck for the manufacturer and dealer.
Craiger
"People that review speakers for a living are not likely all fooling themselves, they accept the practice as a necessary step to see what's there."
Not all speaker reviewers believe in long term speaker break-in. In any case, I don't see any reason why audio reviewers should be less liable to fool themselves than many others.
Craiger
"Think about what you saying here, I claim to have heard our speakers break-in and you claim it's just bias, yet you "never noticed break-in"
Barton himself said "minimal" and that could be use to describe the difference, but for some anything audible, is substantial."
Again, I reiterate, I only claim you have not proved you have heard speakers break-in. I have simply suggested that perceptual bias is a plausible reason for your perception that speakers break-in.
Actually, Doug Schneider wrote that the difference was "slight," and I will quote at some length for interest.
"Barton has examined his own speakers to test this. He has taken a Stratus Gold loudspeaker, built and measured some ten years ago, and re-measured it today. The deviation is slight, perhaps 1/4dB at most. Although that deviation can possibly be heard, it is certainly not a huge difference that one may attest to hearing. Instead, Barton surmises that the difference in sound that people are hearing over time is conditioning of the brain. He cites experiments done with sight that indicate the brain can accommodate for enormous changes fairly quickly and certainly within the hundreds of hours that audiophiles claim changes occur in."
http://www.soundstagelive.com/factorytours/psbnrc/
____________________________________________________
"Opposition brings concord. Out of discord comes the fairest harmony."
------Heraclitus of Ephesis (fl. 504-500 BC), trans. Wheelwright.
This fits in with Paul Barton's suggestion that it is most likely
PatD I actually respect your view on this but in the future could you reference exactly what he said. "Most likely" is a weasal phrase. It either is true or it is not true. And saying most likely means what it's 99% true or it 1% not true. It either IS a FACT that it is all in people's heads or it is a FACT that speakers break in and some people may actually hear it.
I am not stating one way or the other. To me the only proper test for this is to take two sets of the same loudspeaker that are both deemed to be matched as well as can be. Take one set of the loudspeakers and play loud for 500 hours versus one right out of the shop and conduct preference based level matched sessions (blind). Have professionally trained musicians listen to two identical set-ups for several hours level matched in two rooms with no equipment visable - they fill out the card for room a room b. No one running it ever sees any listener and none of the listeners ever meet any other listeners. Both rooms and set-ups are exactly the same to the micromillimeter playing the exact same music at the exact same level.
Such a test would take one day and about 3 hours to set up and would be perfectly acceptable to the DBT community since all bias is removed. In fact the listeners should not even be told what the test is about or the people hired to set up the test.
If something like the above has not been done by a completely independent company (IE no company selling speakers) then it has not been tested and any "tests" are 100% garbage!
I already given the URL to what Doug Schneider reported about what Paul Barton did.
I've also given the URL of an article on the Audioholics site.
You could easily find them farther up the thread with a few clicks of your mouse.
____________________________________________________
"Opposition brings concord. Out of discord comes the fairest harmony."
------Heraclitus of Ephesis (fl. 504-500 BC), trans. Wheelwright.
I don't think loudspeaker break-in is really the subject you're writing about, I'm convinced you like to say something lousy, something you would never say to some one's face like "some have done research evidently you haven't" or "most likely your mind that breaks in" just to stir up an argument because you love them.
I think you have a personality disorder.
You say: "Hearing acuity is a multidimensional matrix"
I say: Hearing acuity is one part reality and another part overactive audiophile imagination.
No manufacturer would ship a product that sounded bad in the first 20 (or 50 or 100 hours) of use and then magically sounded good from that point forever after.
Long-term speaker breakin is Just Your Imagination misinterpreting the process of your ears getting used to new speakers.
The driver parameter changes for cone/dome drivers after the first few hours of use are barely measurable, and certainly not audible at that point ... and probably not audible after a few minutes of use, assuming long strokes of the drivers in the first few minutes.
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Richard BassNut Greene
Subjective Audiophile 2007
Richard,
You really need to stop stating your opinions as is they are indisputable facts. The real fact of this issue is that speaker manufacturers do indeed ship products (speakers) that often sound worse in the first 20 (or 50 or 100 hours) of use, as opposed to after they're fully broken in. In fact many manufacturers talk about 'breaking in' period in their speaker manuals, and recommend several hours of usuage at a reasonably loud levels to allow the speakers to become fully broken in BEFORE listening critically to their speakers! Here's a quote from Martin Logan's manuel for their Summit ESL speaker: "Break-In When you first begin to play your Summit speakers, they will sound a bit bass shy. This is due to the high quality, long-life components used in our woofer. Our custom made, butyl surround woofer requires approximately 72 hours of break-in at 90 dB (moderate listening levels) before any critical listening. The break-in requirements of the crossover components (and, to a lesser degree, the stator) are equivalent. Seems as if this particular speaker manufacturer is disagreeing completely with your OPINION and agreeing completely with the FACTS as I stated them to be.
Later and no Richard it's not "magically" as you sarcastically suggested, these very same speakers will sound better as a result of the scientifically verifiable and measureable fact that the various materials that speaker drivers are made of (ie rubber, paper, etc which are often relatively stiff and inflexible when they are newly manufactured) have now been flexed and moved through their normal usage routine. So now they will be more pliable, and adjust to a state of used flexibility that relatively new drivers don't have. This is just a normal part of various manufacturing processes, i.e molding/weaving/setting and the time it requires for them to gain increased flexibility varies greatly depending on the materials being used.
I suppose there could be an arguement made and to me it seems less intuitive that the conductive material and dielectric of a wire and components in the crossovers within the speakers, also have to break-in. Don't see why not. So that might be yet another factor contributing to the need for speaker break in. Once that's been done these speakers would indeed sound "better" from that point as opposed to a new relatively unused speakers.
Perhaps you should have your local audio dealer directly compare a set of their well used demo speakers with a pair of the same speakers taken new out of a box in front of you. I think the sonic differences will surprise you.
Thetubeguy1954
ML want you to give their speakers lots of time before you judge them.
You will be used to colorations from your old speakers and it does take time to get used to other colorations. Lots of time if you switch from monopole to dipole speakers.
I don't have any test data for electrostatic speakers, but for cone drivers the parameter changes, which could be audible, are rapid in the first few minutes of use, small over the next few hours, and barely measureable after the first few hours.
The ML claim that crossover components need 72 hours break-in is complete nonsense, assuming the usual L/C/R passive components.
ML is selling speakers and will say or write anything that helps their sales and or makes their owners feel good about the purchase.
Since audiophiles believe falsely that "fine" speakers require a lot of break-in, the ML marketing dept. will tell their customers what they want to hear.
To assume that a for-profit speaker company selling speakers bases 100% of what is written in their owners manual on objective experiments and facts is not wise.
I seek test data and objective experiment data and merely summarize the results here. To assume that all test data (from cone drivers) is wrong is not wise.
That would make you "not wise" in assuming everything a manufacturer says is a "fact" and everything I say is an "opinion".
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Richard BassNut Greene
Subjective Audiophile 2007
You evidently haven't. It seems it's mostly fiction.
____________________________________________________
"Opposition brings concord. Out of discord comes the fairest harmony."
------Heraclitus of Ephesis (fl. 504-500 BC), trans. Wheelwright.
Okay I read it. So which speakers can I go and buy to determine if they are correct. Or is that one test supposed to indicate that all drivers in all speaker boxes will yield exactly the same results? Where was the actual listening session. Or are they assuming based on JNDs. God these tests are bad. You yoddles need to go out and actually take some psychology courses.
The voice of a sane man? Throw the bum out!
Certainly not more than a few minutes for my Signature 2 speakers. It was a few minutes of playing before I actually got around to listening to them. As far as I can tell, they sound the same now as they did when I first got them, except insofar as the placement has been changed to get the best sound I can out of them.
____________________________________________________
"Opposition brings concord. Out of discord comes the fairest harmony."
------Heraclitus of Ephesis (fl. 504-500 BC), trans. Wheelwright.
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