I finally made the move and purchased the first of several Aperion speakers that I will be purchasing. I have a few questions about speaker break-in and if I should break them all in the same way.

Denon AVR-2807 (Purchased)

Intimus Cinema 532 HD
Front - Intimus 532-LR (Purchased)
Sub - Intimus S-10 (Purchasing next month)
Center - Intimus 533-VAC (Purchasing next month)
Rear - Intimus 532-LR (Purchasing in 2 months)

After pouring through the forums, my understanding is that it takes 20 - 50 hours for initial break-in and some say as much as 100 hours.

1) Which type of music is best for break-in (or does it matter)?
2) Do I need to break-in the sub/center/rears for the same amount of time (more/less/same)?
3) How loud should the speakers be for break-in?
4) How many hours before it is safe to crank the volume up a bit?

Thanks to all who have helped me get this far - the input is greatly appreciated!

Aperion Owner,
Sean Gilbride

 

Hi Sean,

Here are my thoughts:

1) Which type of music is best for break-in (or does it matter)? Any music that uses a wide range of frequencies, any sort of rock, pop, blues. Avoid most vocal music, as they are tame. If you are breaking them in all at once, pop in a movie while you are out of the house and let it run continuous.
 

2) Do I need to break-in the sub/center/rears for the same amount of time (more/less/same)? Each model will break in differently. In your case, the rears and front L/R are the same model, so they will need roughly the same amount of break-in time. However, your surrounds are arriving a couple of months later, so you will notice a sound difference between them and the front when you first get them. The 532's can be enjoyable after a few hours of break-in (they will get better with more break-in). However, the 533-VAC sounds horrible out of the box, and you'll want at least 15-20 hours before judging it... for this one it might be better to play a more vocal type recording while you are out of the house. In my opinion, the sub will take the longest to break-in, but you can let it rip after 10 hours or so... but you will notice it getting better with time. Oh... this probably applies to any speaker, but especially the sub, let it warm up to room temp before testing it out. If it is cold where you live, the speaker could have been subjected out outside temps during shipping.... your speaker will be nice and stiff and unforgiving when it is cold.

3) How loud should the speakers be for break-in? They don't need to be loud, only audible. I would recommend against doing anything crazy with the volume until you get 5-10 hours under them.

4) How many hours before it is safe to crank the volume up a bit?  5-10 hours is safe, although you can crank-em earlier, they just won't sound as good until you get 30-50 under their belt... keep that in mind when listening. Depending on what you are upgrading from, they will probably sound better without the break-in

The break-in process is nothing to stress about. Just be gentle for the first few days of listening and do not judge the speakers until you have had them running a couple of weeks.

-James

Hey Sean,

I'm probably going to get a lot of disagreement with what I'm about to say.  I think speaker break in is more a 'psychoacoustic' phenomena rather than something real, IE more like ear/brain break-in with your new speakers.  I'm sure the suspension does break in a little bit, but my big question is how does the speaker know when to stop breaking in after so many hours?  And if that were the case, wouldn't the speaker continue to degrade after the point of 'best listening' to the point of failure?

I would be interested in seeing some frequency sweeps from Aperion with fresh outta the box speakers vs. the 100 hour break-in speaker to see any sort of real world difference.

 Matt

 

Sean, below is a guide, directly from the  Aperion Owners Manual

 

Speaker Break-In

Your new speakers will sound great right out of the box but we do recommend

that you allow about 48 hours of break-in time to fully appreciate them.

Like a new pair of shoes, the suspension of your speaker will loosen up and

become much smoother and dynamic over time. As your speakers breakin,

you will notice smoother highs, a lusher midrange and deeper bass.

James,

This is exactly what I was looking for - thank you for the input!

Regards,
Sean

Thanks to Jack and Matt for your input as well

This makes for an interesting discussion.

I doubt the whole break-in speaker deal is phsyco-babble. Every speaker manufacturer recommends it, and many electronic and cable manufacturers do as well (some sort of "burn-in" period).

Will a speaker degrade over time and move past its "prime". Absolutely. The rubberish material around the cone will eventually break apart, mid-bass will not be as tight, and the little tweets may not be as crisp... all of this will depend on the quality of the drivers. I'd imagine that speakers with longer break-in times will last longer. Some manufacturers want several hundred hours of break-in before critical listening.

I'd imagine the most noticable difference in speaker sound will come in the first 50-100 hours of use. After that, the changes are minimal over time and you probably would not notice the slow degrade as the speaker life gets past 20,000 hours (or whatever)... sort of like looking at yourself in the mirror each day. You don't notice the differences, but when you look at a picture of yourself 5 years ago, you see that there is a difference. If you have a speaker with tens-of-thousands of hours, you might notice a sound difference if you swapped it with the same model with only 100 hours.

Anybody else have a thought on this?

-James

I was always very skeptical about break-in.  No more.

When I received my 633T's, they sounded very very thin at first.  And, the upper end was pretty harsh.  Actually very harsh.  I was pretty disappointed, to be honest.  After about ten minutes of that I covered each one with three thick blankets and blasted them pretty good for about 20 hours without once lifting the blankets for a 'sound check'.

I removed the blankets after those 20 hours had passed and listened again.  They were SO much better than they were out of the box.  It was really pretty incredible.

Fuller and tighter bass..  and MUCH smoother highs.

After that, the improvement leveled off at about 40 hours.

So do not discount giving new speaks a workout for awhile before you judge them.  I'm sure Aperion would appreciate their speakers be given a fair shot before some box them back up and return after an quick initial listen.
 

My Aperion Sub S-10 seemed to take a bit longer to “ Break In “ than the 534-SS’s , 532C and  the 422’S .

I tried three different locations for placement and decided on the front main wall for the Sub.

At first the sub seemed a bit overbearing at moderate levels. Now after many hours of use it is a welcome addition to my speaker setup.

I believe that placement of the speaker will have a major influence on the effect one derives from the speaker.

It may take a bit of experimentation, but the results will be worth the time invested.

I have a pair of 532’S coming to replace the 422’S on speaker B, which is just the next step in evolution.

 

I found that the Aperion S-10 sub was my favorite speaker addition, not to say that the others were not a great leap forward in audio quality.

 

It makes sense to me that speakers would "break in" over time but I am not so sure about audio cables. I have done a bit of reading about this and I believe tests have been done that debunk this as a myth.

I tried this little "break-in" experiment with my new 422LR's.  I let only one of them break-in for about 20 to 25 hours. Then I tried comparing its sound with the other one that had not been played much at all (less than an hour).  Could not tell any difference. I ran out of patience to continue this experiment for longer. But you could try this too... let me what you experienced. 
I beleive the only reasonable way to compare a broken-in speaker with one that hasn't been is to play side-by-side and alternate between them. And not try to notice the difference "over a period of time". Human mind simply has too much tendency to adjust itself to things over a period of time.. like pain,odor, noise etc. 

My experiment does NOT conclude 100% that speaker break-in is merely a myth.... only that i didnt notice any difference with the pair of speakers I had, given the amount of break-in i gave one of them.

Anyway... the experiment is easy enough to try it yourself with your new speakers.

I would love to do a scientific test for speaker break-in.  Problem is, I don't have the spare cash to buy two identical sets of speakers to do it on.  Level matching, placement, source gear, and amplification makes the whole scientific process much more difficult.  Something as simple as level matching can throw off all data.

 If Aperion wants to send two pairs of 633-T speakers so I can do a unbiased break-in test procedure, I would be very happy to take on the challenge.

Matt,

You bring up a good point, although I think your approach is flawed. The only way to have a true test would be to have multiple people perform an evaluation - Gotta keep it honest

Aperion - We're willing if you are

Regards,
Sean

Matt,

I am curious as to what kind of scientific test you would perform on the speakers that you want Aperion to send you for test purposes.

I would like to know what you may use to judge the speaker's performance other than decibel output at comparitive input levels.

I think that the break-in is for you're ears only and gives you time to become acustomed to the speakers characteristics.

matt,
 you dont need two sets. just 2 speakers is enough to do the experiment. ..like i did.

-void *