How much time do speakers need to break in? (1 Viewer)

[Dave H]

My subwoofer has about 15 hours on it.

My mains have around 25 hours.

Is it likely they will even sound better with more hours? Is there a general peak period? 40 hours I have heard before they sound optimal.

 

[John Garcia]

It completely varyies depending on the speaker. There is no real way to say for sure.

 

[Chris Tsutsui]

I like to break speakers in my entire life.

 

[Scott Oliver]

It varies greatly.

I imagine most mass market speakers are designed with as little break-in needed as possible. The genral public is not very patient on waiting for their speakers to be optimal, nor do they care about break-in, nor do they believe in break-in.

My audiophool speakers have a recommended minimum break-in period of at least 200 hours. And changes in the speaker's sounds have been reported all the way up to 700 hours. I don't know about how significant the changes are because mine were demo models that had been broken in by the manufacturer's own special break-in disc for 300 hours. Thus avoided having to deal with that process.

 

[Chu Gai]

I'd listen to the speakers long enough that I could safely return them within the grace period of the store. There was a long discussion on breakin a couple of months back in the Speakers forum that maybe will shed more light. My personal advice, is if you're having trouble adjusting to the speakers (assuming they're placed correctly, calibrated, etc.) return them and choose something different.

 

[Marc H]

If you want to speed up the break-in period, you can put the speakers face to face, about an inch away from each other, reverse the speaker wires on one speaker only to put it out of phase, then let them run on FM hiss for a day or two at very low volume. Some brands do take much longer though. My Veritas 2.8 took forever it seemed.