In the world of things and the people that make noise ‘Speaker Burn In’ is the equivalent of the ‘What came first, chicken or the egg’ dilemma. Many claim night and day a particular speaker sounded better after a few weeks of use, while engineers categorically rule out such a thing.

What is Speaker Burn In?

Speaker whenomena where a new piece of audio equipment such as a loudspeaker or set of headphones is claimed to sound better after it has been run for several hours, days or weeks.

The belief is that by playing signals through a new speaker for an extended duration the ‘spider’ and ‘rubber surround’ that holds and acts as suspension for the speaker cone loosen up leading to better sound quality, similar to a new set of shoes feeling more comfortable after a few days.

It is often reported that speakers which have undergone this process sound more open, have a wider dynamic rangmore preciseave clearer bass.

How do you ‘burn in’ a new or set of headphones?

The commonly accepted method to ‘burn in’ or ‘break in’ a new set of speakers is to play music which has a wide dynamic range such as classical music at a moderate volume. Al,ternatively some elect to play either ‘white noise’, ‘pink noise’ or other test tones.

How long varies from hours, days and even up to weeks! The general consensus is it’s an act of diminishing returns with the greatest changes (if any) occurring within the first few minutes and several hours.

What do manufacturers say?

Advice from manufacturers varies with the most common stance being that ‘burn in’ is theoretically possible and the acoustic properties could improve with use, but advice their equipment is ready to enjoy for non-critical listening out of the box.

Major manufacturer Yamaha claims ‘break in’ in speakers is a myth while other manufacturers such as ADAM audio go as far as ‘breaking in’ the speakers at the factory as part of the quality assurance process to ensure the best possible experience is achieved.

What’s Fact

• With use the padding on headphones will wear to the listener’s head resulting in a better fit and presumably higher sound quality
• ‘Breaking In’ a speaker won’t damage it or do any harm if you have time
• Changing speaker positioning and headphone adjustment can result in better sound quality
• EQ’ing and fine-tuning settings on equipment to your personal preferences will result in a more enjoyable sound
• Electrical circuitry such as capacitors in amplifiers can change over time and once warmed up result in different electrical characteristics which will change how connected devices sound
• The mind is easily fooled with ‘confirmation bias’ and other tricks such as volume levels
• Environmental factors such as temperature and humidity can alter how humans perceive sound, leading to a source sounding better in a warm room after a couple of hours compared to a cold room first thing in the morning.
• When tested, ‘broken in’ speakers and headphones are almost always identical acoustically and electrically before/after which should translate to there being no difference in sound quality.
  Sam Vafaei from Rting’s did an excellent writeup on this in his article Is Headphones Break-in Real? 120-hour Burn-in Test which found no evidence of break-in.
• If a speaker sounds terrible once you unpack it, chances are it will sound terrible in 100 hours’ time once the 30-day return policy has lapsed.

My personal experiences and conclusions

After thousands of hours unpacking, hanging and listening to all range of audio equipment I have not experienced ‘break in’, however most certainly have made changes over the first 100 hours of their life which improved how they performed.

1. When first powering on and running new speakers I would strongly recommend running them at reduced power for the first few minutes while you set the initial volumes and test connections. The last thing you want is a loose connection creating a loud pop which could damage equipment. Once you’re confident it won’t blow up you can increase it.
2. Check your speaker phases, in a multi-speaker setup a speaker plugged in backwards will be 180° out of phase and result in the sound waves cancelling each other out. This can result in the output sounding muddy and the vocals muffled.
3. Set EQs EQ’s, low/high pass filters, preset modes, fine-tune volumes for each speaker and set any offsets between equipment
4. Verify your source is setup for best output: Technology (RCA, XLR, Toslink, HDMI), Bitrate etc
5. Fine-tune speaker placement ensuring subwoofers are away from walls, speakers angled inward at a 45° to ear level and install furnishings to dampen reflections.
   Cambridge Audio have a good article on how to set up speakers for the ideal listening position, Art Positioning Speakers
6. Sit down with a beer and close your eyes while listening to your favourite album

At the end of this process you no doubt would have racked up a few hours where any ‘burn in’ would have had any effect.

It is my strongly held belief that ‘Burn In’ is no more than the time it takes to tinker with a new set of equipment until it best meets your personal expectation. For some this could 30 seconds to set the volume, for others hundreds of hours of tiny adjustments.

What are your thoughts, let us know in the comments below?