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Speaker Break In

I got a set of Sennheiser HD650's a month or so ago. I can hear a definite difference from when they were brand new never used to after over 100 hours of use. They did "open up", but it's only a subtle boost; prolly not as big of a difference as some people would have you believe
 
After a couple of minutes the spider loosens up and lets the speaker perform at maximum. After several days your ears get used to the sound.
 
Yes speakers do need to break in because theyre mechanical devices with motors and moving parts. However it doesnt take as long as most think. A few hours or a day or two at most, thats about it.
 
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It all depends on the speakers/headphones. It's irrelevant for $20 earbuds, but for something like, for example, my AD700s or DT770 Pros, it makes a noticable difference.

From my own experience, it seems the higher quality the spearkers/headphones are, the bigger a difference proper break-in makes. There are as many different break-in methods as there are barbecue sauces...everyone has "the best way".
 
i believe in burn-in for speakers. day one you can hear the difference of the sound in front of your desk and across the room. many many days later the difference isn't as much as the first day. i think that was one of the easiest for me to notice.

have to agree with pojut, everyone has their own way of enjoying their new setup.
 
Yeah, I believe it. Same goes with headphones.

Had broken in a headphone without listening to it for a good few days of break in (with rest periods, of course). Magnificent difference afterwards.
 
I was very skeptical about burn in at first but it's not only real it's even a huge change with some speakers. I could swear my DT770/250s got more lush sounding with a wider soundstage now after years of use, but It was clear to me lately with my latest headphones the sennheiser IE8s. They were extremely boomy in the midbass department out of the box to the point where I thought they had to be fakes, it was rediculous.. but now after about 70-100 hours of use the bass is almost competely tamed. (yes, lowest bass setting). Massive change on this one.

I'm a bit baffled by this actually.. logically if anything the driver should be loosened after use right? so how does that give you tighter bass? I don't grasp the physics behind this development but it's there.
 
Totally legit, not a matter of belief but fact.
Dynaudio for example, tell their customers to leave their monitoring speakers on for 40 hours for them to reach their best.

hfk said:
I could swear my DT770/250s got more lush sounding with a wider soundstage now after years of use
Click to expand...
Respectfully, what does this even mean?
 
Solstice said:
Totally legit, not a matter of belief but fact.
Dynaudio for example, tell their customers to leave their monitoring speakers on for 40 hours for them to reach their best.


Respectfully, what does this even mean?
Click to expand...

Smoother highs, more clarity, and left/right channels seem further apart.
 
Sounds very vague and subjective to me, how could those things be measured?

A lot of things going on in audio seem to only exist in peoples minds, the frailty of human hearing and the power of suggestion cannot be underestimated.
 
Solstice said:
Sounds very vague and subjective to me, how could those things be measured?

A lot of things going on in audio seem to only exist in peoples minds, the frailty of human hearing and the power of suggestion cannot be underestimated.
Click to expand...

Yeap been there myself, I was skeptical about it too. But given my own experiences and shared experiences from different people in regard to the specific changes to the sound with burn in on the same phones has me convinced at this point; most IE8 owners agree that the bass lessens drastically with use just as I can confirm so far.

Some people insist that burn in affects amplifiers and even cables as well... I'm not sure about that though.
 
LOL on the cables.

For amps, I presume the manufacturers do a burn in at the factory. However unlike speakers, this is not to improve sound but to make sure there are no defect components that can breakdown right away (ie its not to mechanically break in the components but to electronically ensure there are no bad parts).
 
http://www.audioholics.com/education/loudspeaker-basics/speaker-break-in-fact-or-fiction
http://www.gr-research.com/burnin.htm

There's definitely a measurable change in speakers from brand new to roughly 40 hours of play time or so. Now that does NOT seem to translate directly into a change of sound (going by the audioholics article, it's all considerably less than 1 dB).

However, anecdotally and from my own ears, there does seem to be a slight sound character change that (oddly) seems universally better. That's what strikes me most as burn-in being psychological: burn-in seems to always make the sound better, never worse.

As for methods of burning-in, I don't place a lot of stock in the idea that pink noise is going to do anything different than Pink in the long run.
 
that 1 db difference would only show that its playing a small portion louder.that has nothing to do with soundstage or quality.its mainly your soundstage that opens up with the burn in of the speakers crossover caps.
 
pharoah said:
that 1 db difference would only show that its playing a small portion louder.that has nothing to do with soundstage or quality.its mainly your soundstage that opens up with the burn in of the speakers crossover caps.
Click to expand...
Deeper bass is the often quoted as a result from burn in, which should be measurable.
 
fact. When I first built my Adire Tempest sub years ago.. I felt horrible after turning it on the first time. All that work and the sub that came with my Logitechs sounded better. After a couple hours.. bass smoothed out and was like a night and day difference. I am still using it to this day w/ my home theater.

I would say my Beyer's had the same affect but not to the same level as the sub.
 
It's no stretch to believe that a speaker's output will change over time. It's a stretch to believe it changes significantly over a short period of time.

Buy speakers; enjoy immediately.
 
I've always believed that a little burn-in time is a good thing. Normally I'll let speakers or headphones run overnight for a day or two before doing any super serious listening. Still, I have my new Fiio E7 / E9combo sitting at home, and I plan to crank it up tonight. :)

So in a perfect world maybe things sound a little better after some burn in. If I'm wrong, I'm not really out anything. ..
 
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