I don’t want to sound crazy but I think this cat knows more than I do about speakers.

The audiophiliac conversing with THE speaker god himself is so enlightening That being said, whenever I hear a Brit accent talking about speakers, all I can think of is “These go to eleven.” :)

I didn’t learn much about speakers but I finally know why my underpants don’t fit so well.

Disappointed to read comments criticising your crumpled white sheet. Everyone must surely know that it's a £12,000 acoustic sheet whose wrinkles are carefully angled to break up standing waves, absorb unwanted resonances and dissipate reflections. Sheesh, some folks ......

Interesting and informative explanation. Looking forward to Part 2 (and more?). Thank you Steve and Andrew.

First time I heard him speak at length. What a brilliant guy with a cogent and understandable explanation. Great interview, Steve.

Thank-you Steve and Andrew. Excellent interview. I love fact based explanations of how things actually work.

Love this interview! He knows his stuff!

The man the midth the legend ! Andrew jones, 'Speaker break is real'!! I been an audiophile for 33 years and I love the Pioneer FS52 by A.J. so much i bought 2 sets ! 1 set i put up in my attic. A year later a friend of mine goes threw a difficult time so i gave him my used set of FS52s. Then i brought down the FS52s that were in my attic and ohhh my what a difference ! Espically in the midbass and yes the Fs52s sound even better after break in took about 50 plus hours , Andrew Jones over-engrenered the FS52s so people could afford great sound , I got them on a 3k amp right now My Yamaha-AS-1100 and if i was to Rebadged the towers and gloss paint them, nobody would know their 200.00US towers ! I still can't get over how good they sound even the box desighn is outstanding !!! Anything that causes frictions will losen up overtime . Just like a new motor in a car , you need break in time for the the rings on the piston to seat up by rubbing against the cylinder walls !! Yes i'm an engeener also but i work on multi-million dollar machines and robots but my calling was an audio engeener just didn't pay the bills Were i'm from in KY owell my machines build the new mid engine CORVETTE 😆 Thanks Andrew , I would have loved to seen you and Burt Lancatti, Greg Timbers on a passive speaker project dang that would be crazyness ! Thanks Steve , love the channel buddy How was me essay i wrote today ?😆 Why does the FS52 sound so good for the money , Because Andrew got the midrange on point ! And the dip in the high frequency at 16khz allows for non top end fatiguing sound 😆 and provides a smoother top end with soft dome tweeters

Keep these more technical videos coming! Raise our bar!

Steve, you're amazing and deserve a medal just for putting up with all the crazy critics and punters here in the comments. I don't know how you do it. I suppose growing up in New York, you develop a thick skin or don't survive. : P

No BS just Mr Jones explaining concepts in layman's terms, my first speakers were designed by him and I'm still keep em. Steve that is a golden episode for the content and the high caliber (yet simple) figure you brought in. Awesome video thank you both.

This is great stuff, Steve. Thank you.

Wow, some actual PHYSICS in a discussion about audio! Very refreshing to see.

Brilliant video! Thanks!

Andrew is such a good explainer.

One of the world’s most talented designers.

Nice to hear the Jones' breakdown. I use his pioneer subwoofers and bought 2 sets of his Pioneer 5.1 system, plus an extra set of the bookshelf. Very nice sounding for medium or small rooms. Based on Steve's original bookshelf recommendation. I like the backdrop of Steve's workspace the best. All I would do is to tidy a small part of it where I video, but it is not that important. He could also hang a wrinkle free grommet grey curtain over a shelf unit from a curtain rod that would give a fine backdrop. But it is interesting to see his workspace and all that he accomplishes within it. In the meantime, as George Orwell said, Keep the Apidistra Flying , my friend.

did not know the importance of the spider. thought it was all in the surround. thanks for the info.

Andrew Jones + Nelson Pass + Rupert Neve would be one helluva intervew/audio panel.

Fascinating! Thankyou!

I need part 2! 😁

Steve's doing an interview from Jail, he used his bed sheet to cover the bars..

I've always known speaker breakin is real even before I've been exposed to the idea or concept of it. Purely from personal experience with speakers I had bought over the years and how dramatic their sound had changed over time.

Andrew Jones is an icon. I do not know of a better living design engineer that Steve could have for an educational guest on his show.

This reminds me of breaking in new guitar strings by stretching them to work harden them. They go out of tune like crazy at first but eventually settle in. The question then becomes, how often do you really need to change your strings?

My experience is that 90% of the improvement occurs in the first 3 hours. It continues to get noticeably better for another 10ish hours, and after that the change is minimal. At about 50 to 75 hours, small details emerge that couldn't be heard at 10 hours, but you have to be listening critically to know.

Great video...thanks!

I always learn a ton from these Andrew Jones interviews and they get me thinking too. Thank you 🙏. Perhaps one reason you like 15” woofers Steve is that for a given listening level, they operate in a much more linear range than smaller woofers? Perhaps they are better coupled to the air and therefore better damped (I.e. more damping per UNIT MASS) too? 🤔

Next topic, why using speaker cables that exceed the specifications of the internal wiring in a speaker is fool's gold.

My findings are that transducers require break-in, ribbons amts tweeters in general take less time since less material and they have more cycles per second. I find that full-range drivers require the longest time. I run in most all I make before the owner gets it. Just like the ride on your car changes with time your moving transducer will change with time. Some transducers age like wine others age like a toaster.

I'm so glad that this is the topic I bought a new pair of speakers over a month ago and because of the virus I've had the opportunity to break in my new speakers I'm not sure either way right now if there is a difference however from what I'm hearing from the video my speakers have to be going through a changing process thank you Steve great information

So it would seem that playing a speaker for an hour at about 75% of its rated wattage RMS, would do the trick. No 50 to 500 hours of "burn in" required. That is a good thing to know. And to know that no, "burn in" is not snake oil, but rather it is real, based on solid mechanical and electrical physics, but overall it isn't something to worry about so much. Most of us will naturally burn in our speakers during use and we'll get them to the state they should be in for the rest of their useful lives, as long as they are not abused. Nice to hear this from an expert who should definitely know.

A change of topic but I added a Schiit Modi3 and Klipsch to my Onkyo 7030 CD player and my 1970’s refurbished Pioneer sx650. A total knockout. Thank you.

Not a fan of the sheet.....edit....go green screen and a green turtle neck so all we see is a head. Get a swivel rocker so you can spin your head around. Occasionally Add greeen face makeup so you're just eyes and a mouth.

I really am interested in the 'burn-in' of crossover filters. Hope this will be a topic too.

Nice living room “fort”, Steve 🤓

I have Pioneer TAD S1-EX and I must say they are amazing 😍😍😍

That Chesky recording "Exploations In Space and Time" has proven to be a great workout for my new Cornwall 4's.

🙄😳Look who's talking about Rockstar you are the Rockstar for me. great review love Andrew Jones you're the best Steve the god of audio reviews... 😍❤️❤️💞💞😜😜

Thank you Andrew for making the Unifi B5'S, they are amazing and no they aren't hard to drive

Thanks Steve

“Speaker burn-in” is a clever way of encouraging people to hold onto the speakers long enough to either a/ adjust to the sound or b/ allow the return period to expire.

Great stuff, Steve! Let’s get you set up to review a Cherry Amplifier!

I bought monitor earbuds in China for €50 and was initially very disappointed. The low frequency range between 20 and 100 Hz was weak, so I always had to turn up these frequencies on the EQ. Now after 6 weeks of listening to music, I noticed that the bass is really pumping now and I actually don't have to make any changes to the EQ. Since I also use other headphones and had the comparison all the time, I can confirm that I'm not imagining it. In addition,I only found out about this "burn in" today by chance when I read the instructions for my kz zs10 pro for the first time. There is a recommendation that I should better do a burn in before using it for the first time.I suggest just to ignore that because this will happen from time to time by itself. Beste grüße!

According to AudioCircle you need like 10,000,000 hours for the wires and capacitors to magically align

This is very useful.👍🏾 Hey Steve, Just how difficult would it be for you to interview Greg Timbers (JBL)?

This makes perfect sense, seeing as speakers are mechanical devices. The various materials flex and bend and will eventually become more supple, if you will.

Andrew, you mentioned "conditioning" woofers before measuring the T/S parameters, but I wonder how many manufacturers do this to their production line drivers. I used to work for a woofer manufacturer and we did exactly what you said when we measured a sample, but never before we boxed production drivers for shipping.

Playing music, turning it off after a couple hours of play, then waiting around 8 hours and then repeating the drill is the best way to burn in equipment. If you do it the regular way, it is going to take forever. This way it takes about 1/10 of the time. And doing it with vinyl and pink/brown/black/white noise also helps a lot.

Steve, how about following up with discussions of break-in for phono cartridges and electronics/tubes?

Yes, fundamentally speaking speaker break in is a real thing. However, as Andrew pointed out, the changes that occur between a fresh off the line driver and a broken in driver occur fairly quickly. How long will it take a driver to reach it's normalized state will vary but usually anything more than ten hours and the differences you hear are more likely due to aural accommodation than changes in driver parameters. All that means is that you get used to the way your new speakers sound. Think of it like this. Sometimes you hear a new song from an artist you don't know and you can't make out all the words. Over time you hear the song enough to learn the artists phrasings and intonation so it becomes easy to understand what is being said. Subsequently, the lyrics in new songs from that same artist are much easier for you to understand. It's the same process that occurs as you learn to understand someone with a strong accent. And it's the same process with speakers. As you listen more and more you start to build a mental index of what the speaker does and the things it emphasizes or minimizes. Once your brain reaches a point where, as athletes put it, the game slows down in regards to the way your speakers resolve sound you can then hear the things that were always present but were lost in the chaos.

I've always thought that every force wether it be current flow or physical movement will find the path of least resistance and then increase the path size as a result of increased pressure around this path. I think everything has a burn in.

Didn't believe much in burn-in until I got a pair of Spendor S3/5R2. The bass became noticeably more abundant after about 20 hours of use. The change was profound. On a couple of other pairs of speakers I didn't notice much, if any change during the break-in cycle.

🤔 I just bought a pair of KEF 105.1 speakers from 1979 are they just getting broken in or are they worn out .....

Andrew Jones - the legend!!

Usually I play loud house music through them - not at the point of about to burst but enough to get the cones moving nicely. If you have neighbours in an apartment, or if you're burning in Klipsch Jubilees and it's rock concert loud, you might need to remove the speakers and just use a sinewave. Playing "dinner music" through them is little better than letting them gather dust. Some of my mum's speakers are still factory stiff from only playing quiet music, which is okay but not getting the best bass and lower mids out of them. All of mine are soft and pliable because I liked to blast it when I was a kid - especially when my parents were out and didn't have to listen to it.

Talk about evading the question of a point blank answer. He avoided it like the plague . I believe speakers do require breakin. Every new speaker I purchased sounded better, more easily relaxed after 20-100 hours of good playing time.

This guy is a fucking hero.

Anyone who has ever owned a brand-new pair of Dynaudio speakers will understand the importance of speakers settling in over time. Interestingly, they go from terrible to awesome several times until finally remaining consistently awesome after about 200 hours. The late Wes Philips, describes his experience with the Dynaudio Focus 140 exactly in his review for Stereophile. It made me laugh as it precisely mirrored my own experience.

ELAC IS THE name on my turntable that i bought in Wiesbaden Germany in 1968 the turntable is actually a dual but has the largest syncroness motor I've ever seen in a turntable and the plater weighs about five pounds. I have several other turntables derect drive and they can not outperform my elac and at high volumes the elac never gets any subsonic feedback. Like the talk on speakers but i clicked on it because i thought this was about elac turntable. Still an interesting bit of speaker info.

Ok, soooo.....break-in is real because it involves physical movements of parts that wear over time. And you can measure these differences. But the real question is this: Does it actually make a difference in how it sounds? And is that difference good or bad? Also, does it really matter? For most people, they either wouldn’t care or they simply can’t detect any differences, especially considering the fact that this breaking-in process occurs over time after our ears have become accustomed to the initial sound. So it becomes a sort of breaking-in equipment vs “breaking-in” our ears dilemma. Our brains can adjust to whatever sound we hear and it can vary greatly. Those really great-sounding speakers or headphones that you bought 2 months ago can suddenly sound not-so-great afterwards. There could be a variety of reasons for that including how our brains might be perceiving the sound for that given moment under whatever circumstances might be present at that time. But, later on, those same speakers or headphones sound remarkable - again, depending on the time and circumstances at the time. Those $10,000 speakers you have might sound ok when you listen to them first thing in the morning but they absolutely sing to the heavens when kicking back in your favorite recliner sipping on a fine, imported wine. I’m not denouncing the science of break-in or its effects, whether measured or imagined, but the science of psychoacoustics and our own individual interpretations of sound makes a much bigger difference in our own perceptions of sound than any break-in process. That’s why some (most) people won’t/can’t hear differences in sound between initial listenings and break-in listenings. This is why you can play a set of speakers in a room and play them for 50 people one at a time and, in theory, come away with 50 different opinions on what they heard. Break in those speakers for a certain length of time and repeat. Potentially the same outcome. Again, break-in is relevant but to whom?

I sit 8 feet from my speakers. Is that far enough to listen without wearing a mask? ;-)

THIS was the moment of SHIFT in audiophile discussions about speaker break in. You have witnessed history, people. Live, love, and prosper...and don’t waste time trying to break in what’s already broken in.

Has Steve been kidnapped? I'm thinking this is a coded hostage video.

So I'm thinking that the thing to do with any new speakers is to input a sweep from DC to just above the woofer Fs and back, with the signal at their rated power handling capacity for the first say, ten or twenty hours, maybe 50. I would bet that not much change is likely after that. With consumer-spec units, however, I just want to see video of the excursion and maybe audio if there's one particular moment of "break-in" that stands out...

Thanks for this - now I'm even more scared of spiders than before 😳😉😁

Zu does burn-in. It might be an interesting interview to hear Sean Casey talk about Zu's view on burn-in and their method of performing it.

When the speakers are ‘burned in’, all that’s happening is the glues are getting worn and shaped into its repetitive wear patterns, the spider and surround are getting manipulated into its their repetitive motion pattern. Once those parts have better movement, the voice coil can move more freely and the speaker will provide better output. It’s up to the designer to make sure the selected materials overall make the speaker sound good once it’s broken in.

So all you need is play a frequency which moves the woofer 1 cm for a few min. Then you are done. how Elac does it prior to measuring drivers.

The easy way to explain it to people is to ask them if they've ever had leather shoes and if they fit better after a few wears. Same basic idea with speaker drivers.

Mind blown

I've just recently had to repair my woofers from my Polk M5 studio series monitors. Bought two pair with three drivers totally let loose around the entire circumference of the spider. Five minute epoxy- precision hobby swabs- dental pick to lift the spider as epoxy is applied and a nine volt battery to suck the voice coil into perfect center as it forces the spider into compliance thereby effectively clamping it down until the epoxy kicks and VOILA! Good as new. Question is: now that I've got the front baffle removed, should I add some DYNAMAT and a nice thick layer of poly fill?.....

I bought a pair of fairly expensive Illusion Audio car speakers. For the first four months I hated them and assumed I wasted my money. Then, one day I found myself really enjoying them. I continued to enjoy them for about another six months until one of the drivers seized and stopped working entirely. It was replaced under warranty and now I am in the break in period again. Alas.

I've used to run white noise at a moderate level for 24 hours, after which I listen to music without particular considerations taken (I normally listen at just 75-85 dB anyway, so there is little risk of any "undue stress"). There is some improvement during the first 100-200 hours, but this is not something I've had to do very often. All my speakers have been around 90 dB sensitivity, so the "moderate level" during the first 24 hours have not been excessive, which I imagine would have been beneficial for very sensitive speakers like Klipsch, etc.

Reckon my JBL 123A-1 woofers must be run in by now!

I'll take that as a "yes."

Makes me wonder if resin coated fabric is really the best material for a spider.

Mr Guttenberg .. you should use a nice diffusion panel as your backdrop .. would be better than a wrinkled white sheet

I don't know if these comments will be read before Pt 2? I think probably not. However a question from me in a similar vein. It maybe an old wives tale but the story is that it's a good idea to turn large drivers through 180º if you buy old used speakers as after many years the voice coil can drop causing a gap mismatch. By turning them around the gap will gradually go back to where it should be and make the movement more linear. I've done this on some big Celestion's and more recently on a pair of original Klipsch Quartets. Was I impressed with the improvement? Can't really say as that may only come as they realign themselves. Another poster mentions his "old" KEF 105.1's. You might be able to try this "trick". It's bolt pattern dependant of course.

Steve, get yourself a green sheet, and then you can do some cool video effects.

Interesting conversation, but limited to spiders. A whole different conversation can be had about corrugated paper cones where decoupling occurs at different radii with different frequencies and there’s a hysteresis damping effect occurring within the the “paper” fibers of the the cone....there will inevitably some fatigue associated with this process over time....hence this can become an immensely complicated subject matter if one really wants to split hairs, thus best to leave it in the subjunctive realms

Whoah, Andrew Jones! The MAN! Great guest, Steve! Far as the break in? Someone can just shoot video of a speaker playing a song at no-hours break-in, then at 100 hours - see if there's a different toggling back and forth between the two. To me, it's a stupid question. Most things do break in - how can speakers be different? I mean, to logic there is none? Your shoes or jeans never wear in. Seriously, that's a stupid question.

Andrew: "So ... what does that mean ?" Me: 😳

Certainly, break in period should be testable (if it exists). I do believe there is some amount of change due to "break in".

I manually moved a subwoofer cone a few times and its resonance frequency dropped 10Hz. But it went back up later. So idk if you have to do that many, many times for it to be more permanent, or if it only drops frequency while being used hard.

Correct. A well designed box will have an air suspension that totally dominates the driver behaviour! Audible break in only occurs with inadequately designed speakers where resonance is not controlled and small compliance changes may be audible. Woofer drivers with small voice coils will heat up and sound dull every time they are pushed

"We run it for a few minutes." (myth busted right there)

Thinking about sending this video to Andrew Robinson.. lol

So, if the spider sags or creep, there is a chance to come back to a normal position when playing it again?

Burn-in is real, I bought Sony MDR-XB450 On-Ear EXTRA BASS headphones in 2017, I was disappointed the way it sounded then. Gradually the sound started getting better and better and today I hear sounds which I've never heard in last couple of years. It now sounds with so much of clarity on the same songs I've been hearing over the years. So, Burn-in is something I've personally experienced it so it is REAL.

So my Elac Speakers B6 have broken in So nice The Emotiva just handles it. I never turn it up that much. 65 or so on the Volume 40 is half.

Yes

After all, it's the voice coil and the magnet that work together to generate sound. And who would have thought that the sounds that are coming through the wire or the loop that makes up the voice Coil is also electrical And is it possible That is more current or sound that's looped around through the voice call and how it reacts to the magnet. May heat up the voice coil a little bit thus breaking it in. And the spider flexing out does it too

Can we get some interviews with Greg Timbers as well?

So there is somehow some hope if you don't like the sound of those new speaker you just bought. Burn-in time may not just be about getting to like what you have instead of getting what you like. :-) All the audio dealers in the world must be relieved!

I bought klipsh RP600M's based on this dudes recomendation and a cursory listen at magnolia room at best buy. When I got mine home they sound flat with a huge void between the highs and lows. after 2 or 3 weeks of listening i can hear the bass getting fuller, and the hole between highs and lows filled in a bit. any one that says ITS YOUR EARS when you say new speakers dont sound as good a fool.

i got the tall elac adante and they get better and better by hour

Don't servo controlled speakers eliminate the "creep" issue?

1. If, by pure mechanical action a speaker's sound changes at a break in point, why would it be a better sound, why not worse? Could it not turn out either way? 2. If at the 150 or 200 hour mark a speaker's sound changes (to the better???) then what keeps the speaker from making another change at the 400h or 2000 hour mark. The same force that originally caused the "broken in" sound is still there! If this logic holds true, an Elac should, in due time, end up with a Klipsh sound (or vice versa) 3. How is it that the great advances in speaker engineering have failed to create a speaker to sound as intended without an "abuse" by the consumer. If a speaker can be designed with a "house sound" (Elac, B&W, Wharfadale) then the science and engineering must exist. It appears to me that this whole "break in" idea is more about marketing than anything else.