hoarse with no name wrote:
I have buyer's remorse and am trying to decide whether to pay the 25%
restocking fee or put my hopes in speaker break in. I know that about
1/2 the buying public believes in it, but does anyone with an
engineering degree believe in it?

I'd say if you are unhappy with your speaker purchase, no amount of
"break-in" will change things.

Be sure to examine the possibility that the speaker is damaged and
should be repaired/replaced under warranty. That is quite a different
situation than not liking the performance. What exactly is causing your
"remorse"?

On Mon, 19 Sep 2005 11:36:55 -0700, hoarse with no name
wrote:


I have buyer's remorse and am trying to decide whether to pay the 25%
restocking fee or put my hopes in speaker break in. I know that about
1/2 the buying public believes in it,

I wouldn't have thought 1/2 the buying public had even heard of it.
Is this a specific "buying public" that reads certain magazines?
(Arny, do you have an opinion here?) In that case I might be amazed
that ONLY 1/2 of the readers believe in it. They also believe in
speaker CABLE breakin, but you didn't ask about that...

but does anyone with an
engineering degree believe in it?

FWIW, I have something like 3/4ths of a degree, and a couple of
decades or so of work experience. It's been good enough for several
employers.
There's the idea of breaking in a woofer to slightly 'loosen' the
suspension, slightly lowering resonant frequency (so that after the
burn-in you can design the exact size cabint or make the exact length
port for it), but that likely won't substantially change the sound of
a speaker. If anything it would change the low end only slightly.
Your words "put my hopes in speaker break in" suggests that you
hope the sound of the speakers will change in a positive way if you
"run them" for a while. I wouldn't expect the sound to change at all.

Care to tell us what make and model these are?

hoarse with no name wrote:
1/2 the buying public believes in it, but does anyone with an
engineering degree believe in it?

What kind of engineering degree? grin/ I believe in _listener_
break-in more than speaker break-in.

If you're thinking about paying more, how sure are you that anything
else is going to sound better in that room?

(If you're thinking you like the sound of your old speakers better, that
may be a different kettle of worms.)

"Robert Gault" wrote in message
...
hoarse with no name wrote:
I have buyer's remorse and am trying to decide whether to pay the 25%
restocking fee or put my hopes in speaker break in. I know that about
1/2 the buying public believes in it, but does anyone with an
engineering degree believe in it?

I'd say if you are unhappy with your speaker purchase, no amount of
"break-in" will change things.

Not necessarily true. What the reviewers call speaker "break in", is mostly
due to the listeners auditory system becoming accustomed to the sound, which
hasn't changed at all..
The other major factor influencing the sound is the room accoustics. You may
like to fix any problems there before writing the speakers off.

MrT.

"hoarse with no name" wrote in message


I have buyer's remorse and am trying to decide whether to
pay the 25% restocking fee or put my hopes in speaker
break in.

IOW, you're having a problem adjusting to the sound of your
new speakers.

Give it time, in a month you'll either really love 'em or
really hate 'em and you won't need any advice to make up
your mind.

I know that about 1/2 the buying public
believes in it, but does anyone with an engineering
degree believe in it?

Speaker break in is a real-world, measureable effect. It
takes place in a few seconds every time a speaker is used
after an extended period of non-use. There's an AES paper by
David Clark from which I paraphrased this.

So, yes engineers believe in speaker break in, just not in
the sense you are probably thinking about.

In , on 09/19/05
at 11:36 AM, hoarse with no name said:

I have buyer's remorse and am trying to decide whether to pay the 25%
restocking fee or put my hopes in speaker break in. I know that about
1/2 the buying public believes in it, but does anyone with an
engineering degree believe in it?

I've experienced a few electrostatic designs that can take a day or two
to charge. I don't like to think of this as "Break In", because one
must go through this cycle each time the unit has been powered down for
a while.

By the way, did you listen to the speakers prior to purchase?

-----------------------------------------------------------
spam:
wordgame:123(abc):14 9 20 5 2 9 18 4 at 22 15 9 3 5 14 5 20 dot 3 15
13 (Barry Mann)
[sorry about the puzzle, spammers are ruining my mailbox]
-----------------------------------------------------------

Think about how much temperature, humidity and barometric pressure change
the characteristics of air. Those things are more likely to have a changing
effect on a speaker's performance. Once you get the voice coils about as hot
as they will ever be in normal operation and you get your woofer to throw
about as far as it can, the speakers are broken in. I don't think this takes
any time at all. The only effect of the passing of time after this is aging
and degrading of the materials. We all know what foam rot is. It's not a
good thing. Many speaker systems are made with materials that are formulated
to be less susceptible to damage from time, oxygen and ultra-violet.

James. )


"hoarse with no name" wrote in message
...

I have buyer's remorse and am trying to decide whether to pay the 25%
restocking fee or put my hopes in speaker break in. I know that about
1/2 the buying public believes in it, but does anyone with an
engineering degree believe in it?

hoarse with no name wrote:
In article ,
Ben Bradley wrote:

Care to tell us what make and model these are?

I thought that adding a Polk PSW10 sub to my KEF C30s would improve the
sound. The KEFs sound better alone on music, though the Polk does well
with movies. With music the Polk sounds like a man impersonating a bass
while plucking imaginary strings and going "bvvvvv, bvvvvv, bvvvvv".

Ah, now that sounds like something blown, or a bad cabinet resonance. Could
also be something in the room resonating. Check your amp, move the sub
around in the room, and if that doesn't help, try to see if it's a physical
noise not being directly produced by the cone.

On Tue, 20 Sep 2005 12:33:05 -0700, hoarse with no name
wrote:

In article ,
Ben Bradley wrote:

Care to tell us what make and model these are?

I thought that adding a Polk PSW10 sub to my KEF C30s would improve the
sound. The KEFs sound better alone on music, though the Polk does well
with movies. With music the Polk sounds like a man impersonating a bass
while plucking imaginary strings and going "bvvvvv, bvvvvv, bvvvvv".

In addition to the possibility of a defective sub, have you taken care
to set up and balance the sub with test signals and, possibly, a sound
level meter?

Kal

James Lehman wrote:
Think about how much temperature, humidity and barometric
pressure change the characteristics of air.

Okay, let's do just exactly that. Let's use weork of people
Beranek, Kinsler, Frey, Balckstok and others as our guide.

From Kinsler and Frey (1) we learn that the velocity of
propogation in a gas such as air under normal conditions
goes as:

c = sqrt(y P0/p0)

where c is the velocity of propogation, y is ratio of
specific heats of the gas (for air, which is essentially
a diatomic gas, y = 1.402, and is largely independent of
temperature over the range of such where we'd want to do
our listening), P0 is the constant equilibrium pressure
of the gas, which at 0C is 1.103*10^5 Pascals, and p0
is the constant equilibrium density of the gas, which at
0C is 1.293 kg/m^3. This leads to a velocity of sound at 0C
of 331.6 m/s.

If we then explore the temperature dependency, as it effects
P0 and p0 (since we find that y is independent of temperature),
the result is that the velocity goes as the square root of
the absolute temperature, and this first expression reduces
to a temperature dependent form:

c = sqrt(y r Tk)

To quote from Kinsler:

"For most gases at constant temperature, the ratio of
P0/p0 is nearly independent of pressu a doubling of
pressure is accompanied by a doubling of density of
the gas, so that the speed of sound does not change
with variation of density"

As can be found in Kinsler, Frey, Beranek and others, one
that over moderate distances and the audible frequency
range (say, less than 10 meters and at frequencies below
25 kHz), large changes in relative humidity have no significant
effect on the propogation of sound.

One can find, without much effort, other means of determining
the dependency on the "characteristics or air" temperature,
pressure and humidity to an equal degree of scientific rigor.
The conclusion is fairly straightforward:

Over the range of temperatures, pressures and humidities
one is likely to encounter in a home listening situation,
with the exception of the propogation velocity, ambient
conditions have no significant effect on the propogation
characteristics of sound.

Even is one then considers the propogation velocity, it
goes as the square root of absolute temperature. Consider
a range of 15C (65F or 288K) to 35C (95C or 308K), the
difference in propogation velocity is sqrt(308/288) or
about 3%.

Consider the context of what variations are likely to
be found: in addition to the small variation due to
temperature, pressure does NOT vary over a wide range
except in extraordinary circumstances (usually referred
to as "hurricanes"), circumstances under which the critical
acoustics properties of air are rather unimportant.

Thus, it would seem that the ACOUSTIC properties of air one
might encounter is unlikely to cause any significant difference
in sound.

Those things are more likely to have a changing
effect on a speaker's performance.

The above summary analysis shows that this is very unlikely to
be the case. This prediction is quite well supported by actual
measurements.

Once you get the voice coils about as hot as they will ever be
in normal operation and you get your woofer to throw about as
far as it can, the speakers are broken in.

In fact, much, if not most, of this "breaking in" recovers after
the speakers are left to themselves for a short period of time,
ofetn but a few seconds.

I don't think this takes any time at all.

Maybe a few seconds.

FAR more likely is the environmental dependency of the mechanical
parameters of the drivers themselves. For example, one can easily
measure a 10% difference in the mechnical compliance of surrounds
of the same temperature range (15C to 35C) that aco****s for a mere
32% difference in propogation velocity. One can also observe that
the actual mass of pulp-based cone materials also changes to a
substantial degree over typical ranges of relative humidity (10%
to 90%). Just these observable parameter changes alone can account
for significant changes in loudspeaker performance. This is less
true for configurations such as so-called "acoustic suspension"
systems, where fairly large suspension compliance changes have
little effect on system performance, since the system's compliance
is dominated by enclosure compliance (the very definition of
acoustic suspension, in fact). For higher order systems such as
vented box, they are more critical and can lead to measurable
differences in performance.

But one also encounters 10-20% differences in a driver's
mechanical compliance from sample to sample just due to
manufacturing variations alone: mechanical complisance is one
of the most difficult to control parameters, especially of
woofers.

The conclusion that one comes to after exploring both the
theory and measuring THOUSANDS of speakers (as I have), is
that the claims of "break-in" are simply not well supported
by either theory or data.

To date, no one who has performed the obvious experiment of
comparing a new, out-of-the-box speaker to a broken-in
speaker has been able to reliably detect which is which
when the selection is based solely on listening to the two,
simply because no one has actually performed the experiment.
Indeed, the inevitable variations between individual samples
of "nominally identical" speakers would seem to complicate
the matter.

Perhaps someone should do a controlled study of many woofers tested brand
new, half of them used for a few years and the other half sitting in boxes
on the shelf.

This is pure imagination on my part, but I would think that the first time a
strong signal is applied to a woofer, fibers in the spider and slightly miss
placed bits of glue would crack or melt away. That might make a difference
between strong signal and week signal measurements.

It has always amazed me how a woofer will measure very nearly the same when
driven over a HUGE range of power. But I guess that's the nature of sound.
It is logarithmic on many scales.

James. )

To date, no one who has performed the obvious experiment of
comparing a new, out-of-the-box speaker to a broken-in
speaker has been able to reliably detect which is which
when the selection is based solely on listening to the two,
simply because no one has actually performed the experiment.
Indeed, the inevitable variations between individual samples
of "nominally identical" speakers would seem to complicate
the matter.

On 20 Sep 2005 18:19:08 -0700, wrote:

To date, no one who has performed the obvious experiment of
comparing a new, out-of-the-box speaker to a broken-in
speaker has been able to reliably detect which is which
when the selection is based solely on listening to the two,
simply because no one has actually performed the experiment.
Indeed, the inevitable variations between individual samples
of "nominally identical" speakers would seem to complicate
the matter.

I recall that Paul Barton of PSB described just such an experiment in
an interview many years back. The experiment also included
measurements. My recollection was that there were small differences
in measurements but the speakers were not audibly distinguishable.

Kal

On Tue, 20 Sep 2005 12:33:05 -0700, hoarse with no name
wrote:

In article ,
Ben Bradley wrote:

Care to tell us what make and model these are?

I thought that adding a Polk PSW10 sub to my KEF C30s would improve the
sound. The KEFs sound better alone on music, though the Polk does well
with movies. With music the Polk sounds like a man impersonating a bass
while plucking imaginary strings and going "bvvvvv, bvvvvv, bvvvvv".

You might be playing the Beatles song "I Will."

"hoarse with no name" wrote in message

In article ,
Ben Bradley wrote:

Care to tell us what make and model these are?

I thought that adding a Polk PSW10 sub to my KEF C30s
would improve the sound. The KEFs sound better alone on
music, though the Polk does well with movies. With music
the Polk sounds like a man impersonating a bass while
plucking imaginary strings and going "bvvvvv, bvvvvv,
bvvvvv".

Sounds like a problem with your location for the Polk, or
your adjustment of its crossover.

"James Lehman" wrote in message


Perhaps someone should do a controlled study of many
woofers tested brand new, half of them used for a few
years and the other half sitting in boxes on the shelf.

This has been done.

This is pure imagination on my part, but I would think that
the first time a
strong signal is applied to a woofer, fibers in the spider
and slightly miss
placed bits of glue would crack or melt away. That might
make a difference
between strong signal and week signal measurements

Stuff like this happens. Thing is, it's all over in a short
period of time - in seconds.

"James Lehman" wrote in message
. ..
Perhaps someone should do a controlled study of many woofers tested brand
new, half of them used for a few years and the other half sitting in boxes
on the shelf.

This is pure imagination on my part, but I would think that the first time
a
strong signal is applied to a woofer, fibers in the spider and slightly
miss
placed bits of glue would crack or melt away. That might make a difference
between strong signal and week signal measurements.

It has always amazed me how a woofer will measure very nearly the same
when
driven over a HUGE range of power. But I guess that's the nature of sound.
It is logarithmic on many scales.

James. )

To date, no one who has performed the obvious experiment of
comparing a new, out-of-the-box speaker to a broken-in
speaker has been able to reliably detect which is which
when the selection is based solely on listening to the two,
simply because no one has actually performed the experiment.
Indeed, the inevitable variations between individual samples
of "nominally identical" speakers would seem to complicate
the matter.



Actually, a few years ago (I think on RAHE) someone posted of doing that
very thing. And he found a difference. As I recall, it made no difference
to most of the objectivists...they just told him he obviously was "wrong".

"Harry Lavo" wrote in message


To date, no one who has performed the obvious
experiment of comparing a new, out-of-the-box speaker
to a broken-in speaker has been able to reliably detect
which is which when the selection is based solely on
listening to the two, simply because no one has
actually performed the experiment. Indeed, the
inevitable variations between individual samples of
"nominally identical" speakers would seem to complicate
the matter.

Actually, a few years ago (I think on RAHE) someone
posted of doing that very thing. And he found a
difference. As I recall, it made no difference to most
of the objectivists...they just told him he obviously was
"wrong".

The hidden gotcha is that out-of-the-box driver matching can
show 3 dB or larger variations over 1/3 octaves.

IOW, you can ABX most randomly-chosen drivers of the same
make and model and tell them apart.

If you compare two absolutely identical drivers
side-by-side, you can again hear a difference if only
because they aren't coincident.

hoarse with no name wrote:

I have buyer's remorse and am trying to decide whether
to pay the 25% restocking fee or put my hopes in speaker
break in.

It is subtle, and surely not a pass/fail remedy, if they fail your
criteria new, then that is not going to change. Do not shop at such a
silly shop again, 25 percent restocking fee is a bet that they sold you
something you will dislike, it means that they make more money from
leaving you dissatisfied with what you bought than by having you a happy
customer.

I know that about
1/2 the buying public believes in it, but does anyone with an
engineering degree believe in it?

If the shop asked you to allow for a break in, then return them
promptly. The sound of loudspeaker units does change over time, but very
subtly and you need quality programme to be able to detect it. The
change is in resolution, and certainly not in neither frequency response
nor simple distortion.


Kind regards

Peter Larsen


--
*******************************************
* My site is at: http://www.muyiovatki.dk *
*******************************************

hoarse with no name wrote:
I have buyer's remorse and am trying to decide whether to pay the 25%
restocking fee or put my hopes in speaker break in. I know that about
1/2 the buying public believes in it, but does anyone with an
engineering degree believe in it?

Just for fun here's one who does:

'I have come to the conclusion that cones improve with age, especially
under dry conditions. It is also clear that the continual movement of
the cone assemblyduring use tends to free the suspension and lower the
bass resonance. These factors often result in an improvement in quality
as time goes on. ... with careful use, the performance of a good
loudspeaker can reasonably be expected to improve.'

- Gilbert Briggs, 'Loudspeakers', 4th edition, 1955.

E.J. Pitt wrote:
hoarse with no name wrote:
I have buyer's remorse and am trying to decide whether to pay the 25%
restocking fee or put my hopes in speaker break in. I know that about
1/2 the buying public believes in it, but does anyone with an
engineering degree believe in it?

Just for fun here's one who does:
Yeah, for fun.

'I have come to the conclusion that cones improve with age,
especially under dry conditions. It is also clear that the
continual movement of the cone assembly during use tends to
free the suspension and lower the bass resonance. These
factors often result in an improvement in quality as time
goes on. ... with careful use, the performance of a good
loudspeaker can reasonably be expected to improve.'

- Gilbert Briggs, 'Loudspeakers', 4th edition, 1955.

1955. That's 50 years ago, a half century. Let's look at the
kinds of drivers we had then vs what was available even only
10-15 years hence. There were, in effect, no drivers utilizing
any modern polymers. There was next to no materials research
done, paper was used because it was convenient, NOT because it
was the best, and the paper used was not more suitable for
loudspeaker use than it was for the backs of legal pads, in
most cases. Suspensions were cut-and-try affairs, often little
more than simply mopre of the cone painted with some concoction
or another, with little attention to such properties of the
volatility of solvents (which, as they evaporated over a period
of months and years, also changed the behavior of the suspension).

1955. That's 50 years ago. More time has passed since then than
had passed at that point since the invention of the electrodynamic
loudspeaker. Quality control on driver manufacturing? Well, if it
was the right color, the right size and made some sound, it passed.
This was the days of Rudy Bozak and his wooly speaker and even
woolier sound, of quaint little cottage (in some cases literally)
speaker manufacturers. The good old days of blessed little speaker
acoustics theory, of even less measurement and comparison. This
was the golden era before the likes of Thiele and Small and Benson
and Heyser came along and messed everything up by turning the
design of loudspeakers into something approaching a predictable
engineering activity instead of one of eyeballing wierd slurries
of pulp;, hand formed, sometimes even seamed paper codes, nice
ladies hand-painting surrounds, no two drivers EVER even remotely
the same.

1955. Ten years before Thiele, 15 and more before Small. Before
the widespread use of high tuning ratio acoustic suspension
systems, which render large changes in driver suspension essentially
irrelevant in system performance. Before the time when there was
a sufficiently precise description of how speakers actually worked,
when reflex systems were magical and, on the whole, pretty awful
affairs where changes in suspension compliance really didn't mean
diddly squat, because the systems were so badly tuned to begin with.
Before it was known and understood that in a number of systems
that used high compliance ratios, pretty large changes in driver
compliance had little, if any effect on system resonance because
it was the enclosure compliance and NOT driver compliance that
determined the total system compliance.

1955. When even then, the changes in driver compliance from use
was smaller than the unit-to-unit variations in compliance just
due to manufacturing slop.

1955. Yeah, that's really relevant.

wrote:
E.J. Pitt wrote:
Just for fun here's one who does:

Yeah, for fun.

[etc/snip]

Touch a nerve did we?

I'm prepared to believe that physical materials in speakers either
deteriorate or improve from an audio point of view over years of being
vibrated at AF frequencies, or perhaps that they do both and that the
net effect is either negative or positive on the perceived result and/or
the measured accuracy of reproduction.

What I'm not prepared to believe is that the science of materials has
advanced so much since 1955 that we can now produce physical materials
which is entirely immune to any such effect (until the rubber surrounds
and we suddenly plummet towards zero).

Like G.A. Briggs in 1955, and as a musician, I really have to tend
towards the belief that in common with pianos, violins, guitars, &c, the
net effect of continued AF vibration is probably positive rather than
negative. However all scientific evidence to the contrary is most welcome.

E.J. Pitt wrote:
wrote:
E.J. Pitt wrote:
Just for fun here's one who does:

Yeah, for fun.

Touch a nerve did we?

No.

I'm prepared to believe that physical materials in speakers either
deteriorate or improve from an audio point of view over years of being
vibrated at AF frequencies, or perhaps that they do both and that the
net effect is either negative or positive on the perceived result and/or
the measured accuracy of reproduction.

I, on the other hand, am more inclined to look at the actual evidence,
rather than simply believe something, especially based on a 50 year
old quote written by an auther who, while popular, was even in his
time not considered amongst the more expert of practitioners.

What I'm not prepared to believe is that the science of materials has
advanced so much since 1955 that we can now produce physical materials
which is entirely immune to any such effect (until the rubber surrounds
and we suddenly plummet towards zero).

And, like all beliefs, you may hold this one despite contrary
physical fact.

However, to hold this belief is, in fact, to igore the fact that
the use of materials in loudpseaker has indeed advanced a huge
amount. No speaker, for example, in 1955 used epoxies, anaerobic
adhesives, polymers, composites, polybutadene/styrene alloy
suspensions. No speaker in 1955 had anything approaching the
consitency of manufacture found even in 1965.

If you are correct, then it should be a trivial excercise to
go into any high fidelity store and at random pick any speaker,
disassemble it and find that the driver is made of materials
essentially identical to those found in speakers 50 years old.
And, if this is the case, they should essentially measure the
same and sound the same. Thus, all of the material advances
initiated by people such as KEF, B&W, the BBC, and many others,
outlined in many dozens of articles published in the like of the
Audio Engineering Society and others simply don't exist, eh?

Like G.A. Briggs in 1955, and as a musician, I really have to tend
towards the belief that in common with pianos, violins, guitars, &c, the
net effect of continued AF vibration is probably positive rather than
negative.

Then why do speaker wear out? Or, according to you, maybe they
don't. And, according to you, since there were NO significant
materials advances in the last 50 years, and since speaker ONLY
get better from use, than a 50 year old speaker MUST be intrinsically
better than a new speaker.

However all scientific evidence to the contrary is most welcome.

You just summarily dismissed 50 years of such evidence out of
hand without once investigating it.

On Tue, 27 Sep 2005 13:58:42 GMT, "E.J. Pitt"
wrote:

Like G.A. Briggs in 1955, and as a musician, I really have to tend
towards the belief that in common with pianos, violins, guitars, &c, the
net effect of continued AF vibration is probably positive rather than
negative. However all scientific evidence to the contrary is most welcome.

Musicians will tell you that some instruments improve with age, some
deteriorate. Certainly, no player would treasure an antique string,
an elderly reed.

On Tue, 27 Sep 2005 22:31:06 +0100, Laurence Payne
wrote:

On Tue, 27 Sep 2005 13:58:42 GMT, "E.J. Pitt"
wrote:

Like G.A. Briggs in 1955, and as a musician, I really have to tend
towards the belief that in common with pianos, violins, guitars, &c, the
net effect of continued AF vibration is probably positive rather than
negative. However all scientific evidence to the contrary is most welcome.

Musicians will tell you that some instruments improve with age, some
deteriorate. Certainly, no player would treasure an antique string,
an elderly reed.

And, whiole resonances certainly contribute to the sound of every
musical instrument, that's the *last* thing you want from a speaker,
which has to reproduce the sound of *all* instruments in as neutral a
manner as possible.

While Briggs had much to offer the nascent audio industry in 1955, he
was wrong about this (if in fact he actually said it, which I doubt).
Note that his 'sand-filled baffle' loudspeaker was a paragon of
totally 'dead' construction, quite contrary to your claim above.

--

Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering

wrote:
I, on the other hand, am more inclined to look at the actual evidence,

I seem to remember writing exactly the same thing.

And, like all beliefs, you may hold this one despite contrary
physical fact.

Not if you read what I actually wrote.

If you are correct, then it should be a trivial excercise to
go into any high fidelity store and at random pick any speaker,
disassemble it and find that the driver is made of materials
essentially identical to those found in speakers 50 years old.
Thus, all of the material advances
initiated by people such as KEF, B&W, the BBC, and many others,
outlined in many dozens of articles published in the like of the
Audio Engineering Society and others simply don't exist, eh?

As I haven't claimed any such thing this is nonsense.

Then why do speaker wear out? Or, according to you, maybe they
don't.

According to me I specifically mentioned the fact that they do and I
also specifically adverted to the possibility that wear has both
negative and positive effects.

And, according to you, since there were NO significant
materials advances in the last 50 years, and since speaker ONLY
get better from use, than a 50 year old speaker MUST be intrinsically
better than a new speaker.

I am not interested in straw-man debates. Perhaps you could address what
I actually said?

However all scientific evidence to the contrary is most welcome.

You just summarily dismissed 50 years of such evidence out of
hand without once investigating it.

I dismissed nothing and I cannot make any sense of this comment.

The question is not whether speakers, or G.A. Briggs, or me for that
matter, had reached such a state of perfection in 1955 that there have
been no advances in physical materials. The question is whether physical
materials have reached such a state that a brand new speaker exhibits no
change, or nothing but deterioration, from the moment it is switched on.
This is contrary to my admittedly informal experience over several
decades but I repeat that I am open to scientific evidence. What I am
not open to is straw-man arguments based on a whole lot of stupid
remarks which I didn't make based on an assumption of a stupid attitude
which I do not hold.

Stewart Pinkerton wrote:
While Briggs had much to offer the nascent audio industry in 1955, he
was wrong about this (if in fact he actually said it, which I doubt).

To allay your doubts as well as your imputations of bad faith with the
implication that I have fabricated a 66-word quote you will find it in
G.A. Briggs, 'Loudpeakers', 4th ed., Wharfedale Wireless Works Pty Ltd
1955, reprinted 1957, pp72-3.

Note that his 'sand-filled baffle' loudspeaker was a paragon of
totally 'dead' construction, quite contrary to your claim above.

If in fact I actually said it, which I doubt.

So the official r.a.t. position is that speaker materials definitely
never improve? OK. All in all I think the denizens of r.a.t. have
delighted me long enough with their logical debating procedures and
their scrupulous regard for evidence and attribution.

On 25 Sep 2005 17:27:40 -0700, wrote:


E.J. Pitt wrote:
hoarse with no name wrote:
I have buyer's remorse and am trying to decide whether to pay the 25%
restocking fee or put my hopes in speaker break in. I know that about
1/2 the buying public believes in it, but does anyone with an
engineering degree believe in it?

Just for fun here's one who does:
Yeah, for fun.

'I have come to the conclusion that cones improve with age,
especially under dry conditions. It is also clear that the
continual movement of the cone assembly during use tends to
free the suspension and lower the bass resonance. These
factors often result in an improvement in quality as time
goes on. ... with careful use, the performance of a good
loudspeaker can reasonably be expected to improve.'

- Gilbert Briggs, 'Loudspeakers', 4th edition, 1955.

1955. That's 50 years ago, a half century. Let's look at the
kinds of drivers we had then vs what was available even only
10-15 years hence. There were, in effect, no drivers utilizing
any modern polymers. There was next to no materials research
done, paper was used because it was convenient, NOT because it
was the best, and the paper used was not more suitable for
loudspeaker use than it was for the backs of legal pads, in
most cases. Suspensions were cut-and-try affairs, often little
more than simply mopre of the cone painted with some concoction
or another, with little attention to such properties of the
volatility of solvents (which, as they evaporated over a period
of months and years, also changed the behavior of the suspension).

There is a modern loudspeaker system maker that claims that there
indeed is a break in effect: Ingvar Oehman of Ino Audio. The
interesting thing is that this person is a down-to-earth hard core
engineer who seldom has anything positive to say about snake oil,
fancy cables, and other such nonsense.

However, he says that breaking in his loudspeakers with music (not
noise!) will make them distort less and tolerate more power. The
reason for this is, according to him, that the adhesive between the
cone and the spider will set to a more porus junction.

As I don't know anything about this myself, I cannot comment further
on this. Intereseting, nonetheless.

Per.

On Sat, 01 Oct 2005 08:37:41 GMT, "E.J. Pitt"
wrote:

Stewart Pinkerton wrote:
While Briggs had much to offer the nascent audio industry in 1955, he
was wrong about this (if in fact he actually said it, which I doubt).

To allay your doubts as well as your imputations of bad faith with the
implication that I have fabricated a 66-word quote you will find it in
G.A. Briggs, 'Loudpeakers', 4th ed., Wharfedale Wireless Works Pty Ltd
1955, reprinted 1957, pp72-3.

OK, I gave him more credit than he deserved.

Note that his 'sand-filled baffle' loudspeaker was a paragon of
totally 'dead' construction, quite contrary to your claim above.

If in fact I actually said it, which I doubt.

So the official r.a.t. position is that speaker materials definitely
never improve?

For someone so precious and spiky, you seem to have no problem with
distorting what others say.

OK. All in all I think the denizens of r.a.t. have
delighted me long enough with their logical debating procedures and
their scrupulous regard for evidence and attribution.

The official *sensible* position is that loudspeaker *driver*
materials have improved enormously, as have the analytical tools
available for their design. OTOH, it remains the case that a
loudspeaker should ideally have *no* resonances whatever. It is
absolutely *not* a musical instrument, it should produce *no* sound
other than that of the instrument it is *reproducing*.

We see the same argument about amplifiers, i.e. tubes are used in the
best guitar amps, hence tubes make the best hi-fi amps. NO!

--

Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering

"Per Stromgren" wrote ...
There is a modern loudspeaker system maker that claims that there
indeed is a break in effect: Ingvar Oehman of Ino Audio. The
interesting thing is that this person is a down-to-earth hard core
engineer who seldom has anything positive to say about snake oil,
fancy cables, and other such nonsense.

However, he says that breaking in his loudspeakers with music (not
noise!) will make them distort less and tolerate more power. The
reason for this is, according to him, that the adhesive between the
cone and the spider will set to a more porus junction.

As I don't know anything about this myself, I cannot comment further
on this. Intereseting, nonetheless.

If he really believes this (?) why doesn't he "break in" the
drivers himself to maintain some sort of quality control?
How can he send out product when he doesn't know whether
it meets his standards or not?

On Sat, 1 Oct 2005 10:48:56 -0700, "Richard Crowley"
wrote:

"Per Stromgren" wrote ...
There is a modern loudspeaker system maker that claims that there
indeed is a break in effect: Ingvar Oehman of Ino Audio. The
interesting thing is that this person is a down-to-earth hard core
engineer who seldom has anything positive to say about snake oil,
fancy cables, and other such nonsense.

However, he says that breaking in his loudspeakers with music (not
noise!) will make them distort less and tolerate more power. The
reason for this is, according to him, that the adhesive between the
cone and the spider will set to a more porus junction.

As I don't know anything about this myself, I cannot comment further
on this. Intereseting, nonetheless.

If he really believes this (?) why doesn't he "break in" the
drivers himself to maintain some sort of quality control?
How can he send out product when he doesn't know whether
it meets his standards or not?

Good question. I have asked myself the same queston, but I tend to
stay away from products that needs this sort of care-taking to meet
the standards. I will ask him, he is active on one of the local forums
around here. I guess his answer will be something like "it is cheaper
to let the customers do some of the finishing time consuming work,
which will keep the price down", or something to this effect.

Per.

On Mon, 19 Sep 2005 11:36:55 -0700, hoarse with no name
wrote:

I have buyer's remorse and am trying to decide whether to pay the 25%
restocking fee or put my hopes in speaker break in. I know that about
1/2 the buying public believes in it, but does anyone with an
engineering degree believe in it?

From my DALI's owner's manual: 'Like any other mechanical system, a
speaker needs to be "run in", so you can look foward to a gradual
improvement in sound quality over the initial period.'

On Sun, 02 Oct 2005 22:45:10 GMT, dizzy wrote:

From my DALI's owner's manual: 'Like any other mechanical system, a
speaker needs to be "run in", so you can look foward to a gradual
improvement in sound quality over the initial period.'

So don't send it back under warranty because it sounds odd, wait a bit
and you'll get used to it :-)

I recall one world class speaker line that included a graph with each
speaker, comparing it to their "reference" speaker. They also claimed
that the speakers needed to break-in.

I've never been sure exactly what that graph meant to the customer. To
me it meant that the speaker at hand sounded exactly as their reference
speaker sounded at some point in the manufacturing process. Hopefully,
after break-in, the reference speaker sounded wonderful and the
customer's speaker will too -- some time in the future.

It did, however, produce wonderfully flat graphs. There weren't any
dips, peaks, or room problems to worry about.

-----------------------------------------------------------
spam:
wordgame:123(abc):14 9 20 5 2 9 18 4 at 22 15 9 3 5 14 5 20 dot 3 15
13 (Barry Mann)
[sorry about the puzzle, spammers are ruining my mailbox]
-----------------------------------------------------------

Stewart Pinkerton wrote:
On Sat, 01 Oct 2005 08:37:41 GMT, "E.J. Pitt"
wrote:
To allay your doubts as well as your imputations of bad faith with the
implication that I have fabricated a 66-word quote you will find it in
G.A. Briggs, 'Loudpeakers', 4th ed., Wharfedale Wireless Works Pty Ltd
1955, reprinted 1957, pp72-3.

OK, I gave him more credit than he deserved.

Your apology is accepted.

So the official r.a.t. position is that speaker materials definitely
never improve?

For someone so precious and spiky, you seem to have no problem with
distorting what others say.

Cut it out, Stewart. The only person I have quoted is Briggs.

The official *sensible* position is that loudspeaker *driver*
materials have improved enormously, as have the analytical tools
available for their design. OTOH, it remains the case that a
loudspeaker should ideally have *no* resonances whatever. It is
absolutely *not* a musical instrument, it should produce *no* sound
other than that of the instrument it is *reproducing*.

A more sensible and scientific position would be not to assert a
universal proposition which can be and has been disproved by
counter-example.

'Should' is nice, what about real speakers? and real vendors?

"E.J. Pitt" wrote in
message
Stewart Pinkerton wrote:
On Sat, 01 Oct 2005 08:37:41 GMT, "E.J. Pitt"
wrote:
To allay your doubts as well as your imputations of bad
faith with the implication that I have fabricated a
66-word quote you will find it in G.A. Briggs,
'Loudpeakers', 4th ed., Wharfedale Wireless Works Pty
Ltd 1955, reprinted 1957, pp72-3.

OK, I gave him more credit than he deserved.

Your apology is accepted.

So the official r.a.t. position is that speaker
materials definitely never improve?

For someone so precious and spiky, you seem to have no
problem with distorting what others say.

Cut it out, Stewart. The only person I have quoted is
Briggs.
The official *sensible* position is that loudspeaker
*driver* materials have improved enormously, as have the
analytical tools available for their design. OTOH, it
remains the case that a loudspeaker should ideally have
*no* resonances whatever. It is absolutely *not* a
musical instrument, it should produce *no* sound other
than that of the instrument it is *reproducing*.

A more sensible and scientific position would be not to
assert a universal proposition which can be and has been
disproved by counter-example.

You already flunked the test Mr. Pitt. Any fool can see that
there are a number of assertions in Pinkerton's paragraph.
Some of them are fundamental to the obvious meaning of the
phrase "High Fidelity". Therefore the paragraph in its
entirety can't possibly be disproved by any means, including
counter-example.

However, I think there is one sure loser in Pinkerton's
paragraph, which is the following:

"... it remains the case that a loudspeaker should ideally
have *no* resonances whatever."

It appears to me that it would be permissiable for a speaker
with ideal audible performance to have a number of
resonances. Here are some reasons why:

(1) I don't think that an ideal speaker would actually have
to have unbounded or infinite high frequency response. All
an ideal speaker needs to do on the high end is to have
enough high frequency response to satisfy the ear, which
itself has severely limited high frequency response.
Therefore any resonances that are outside the range of the
ear, and that have no effects within the range of the ear,
are permissable.

(2) It is possible to create a system with any reasonable
desired technical performance, even if it is composed of
components or subsystems that have resonances.

Now these are pedantic points. I do agree with the probable
spirit of Pinkerton's statements.

On Sat, 29 Oct 2005 06:31:25 -0400, "Arny Krueger"
wrote:

"E.J. Pitt" wrote in
message
Stewart Pinkerton wrote:
On Sat, 01 Oct 2005 08:37:41 GMT, "E.J. Pitt"
wrote:
To allay your doubts as well as your imputations of bad
faith with the implication that I have fabricated a
66-word quote you will find it in G.A. Briggs,
'Loudpeakers', 4th ed., Wharfedale Wireless Works Pty
Ltd 1955, reprinted 1957, pp72-3.

OK, I gave him more credit than he deserved.

Your apology is accepted.

So the official r.a.t. position is that speaker
materials definitely never improve?

For someone so precious and spiky, you seem to have no
problem with distorting what others say.

Cut it out, Stewart. The only person I have quoted is
Briggs.
The official *sensible* position is that loudspeaker
*driver* materials have improved enormously, as have the
analytical tools available for their design. OTOH, it
remains the case that a loudspeaker should ideally have
*no* resonances whatever. It is absolutely *not* a
musical instrument, it should produce *no* sound other
than that of the instrument it is *reproducing*.

A more sensible and scientific position would be not to
assert a universal proposition which can be and has been
disproved by counter-example.

You already flunked the test Mr. Pitt. Any fool can see that
there are a number of assertions in Pinkerton's paragraph.
Some of them are fundamental to the obvious meaning of the
phrase "High Fidelity". Therefore the paragraph in its
entirety can't possibly be disproved by any means, including
counter-example.

However, I think there is one sure loser in Pinkerton's
paragraph, which is the following:

"... it remains the case that a loudspeaker should ideally
have *no* resonances whatever."

It appears to me that it would be permissiable for a speaker
with ideal audible performance to have a number of
resonances.

You can't call something a 'sure loser', and then say that this is so
because I said that an *ideal* loudspeaker should have no resonances,
while you argue that it's *permissible* for a speaker to have some.

Here are some reasons why:

(1) I don't think that an ideal speaker would actually have
to have unbounded or infinite high frequency response. All
an ideal speaker needs to do on the high end is to have
enough high frequency response to satisfy the ear, which
itself has severely limited high frequency response.
Therefore any resonances that are outside the range of the
ear, and that have no effects within the range of the ear,
are permissable.

Still, it would better if no such resonances existed - they might fold
back IM artifacts to the baseband.

(2) It is possible to create a system with any reasonable
desired technical performance, even if it is composed of
components or subsystems that have resonances.

But it's easier to do it with non-resonant components, and
'reasonable' is not 'ideal'.

Now these are pedantic points. I do agree with the probable
spirit of Pinkerton's statements.

I never suggested that my ideally non-resonant speaker had real
existence!
--

Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering

In , on 10/29/05
at 06:31 AM, "Arny Krueger" said:


[ ... ]
Therefore any resonances that are outside the range of the ear, and
that have no effects within the range of the ear, are permissable.
[ ... ]

Do you allow that there may be some body responses not attributable to
the aural channel?

-----------------------------------------------------------
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wordgame:123(abc):14 9 20 5 2 9 18 4 at 22 15 9 3 5 14 5 20 dot 3 15
13 (Barry Mann)
[sorry about the puzzle, spammers are ruining my mailbox]
-----------------------------------------------------------

"Barry Mann" wrote in message
om
In , on 10/29/05
at 06:31 AM, "Arny Krueger" said:


[ ... ]
Therefore any resonances that are outside the range of
the ear, and that have no effects within the range of
the ear, are permissable.
[ ... ]

Do you allow that there may be some body responses not
attributable to the aural channel?

Of course. So let me restate what you quoted:

Therefore any resonances that are outside the range of
the human senses, and that have no effects within the range
of
the human senses, are permissable.

In , on 11/02/05
at 09:18 AM, "Arny Krueger" said:

"Barry Mann" wrote in message
. com
In , on 10/29/05
at 06:31 AM, "Arny Krueger" said:


[ ... ]
Therefore any resonances that are outside the range of
the ear, and that have no effects within the range of
the ear, are permissable.
[ ... ]

Do you allow that there may be some body responses not
attributable to the aural channel?

Of course. So let me restate what you quoted:

Therefore any resonances that are outside the range of
the human senses, and that have no effects within the range of
the human senses, are permissable.

And do these other body responses effect what we hear or think we hear?

-----------------------------------------------------------
spam:
wordgame:123(abc):14 9 20 5 2 9 18 4 at 22 15 9 3 5 14 5 20 dot 3 15
13 (Barry Mann)
[sorry about the puzzle, spammers are ruining my mailbox]
-----------------------------------------------------------

"Barry Mann" wrote in message
om
In , on 11/02/05
at 09:18 AM, "Arny Krueger" said:

"Barry Mann" wrote in message
om
In , on 10/29/05
at 06:31 AM, "Arny Krueger" said:


[ ... ]
Therefore any resonances that are outside the range of
the ear, and that have no effects within the range of
the ear, are permissable.
[ ... ]

Do you allow that there may be some body responses not
attributable to the aural channel?

Of course. So let me restate what you quoted:

Therefore any resonances that are outside the range of
the human senses, and that have no effects within the
range of the human senses, are permissable.

And do these other body responses effect what we hear or
think we hear?

Some of them, I think so.