I am a believer in break-in of audio components. I realize that some disagree, and I am open-minded enough to\u00a0accept their right to be wrong.<\/p>\n
Once I hooked up a system with a long run of cheap speaker wire and the sound was way too harsh. I did a seven-day break-in with a cable burner and was rewarded with\u00a0acceptable\u00a0sound. I have a Cable Cooker and have always “cooked” my cables three days just on general\u00a0principles, though I should report that my cable\u00a0suppliers\u00a0do not think the difference is large.<\/p>\n
Some say that when you break in speakers\u00a0you are deceiving\u00a0yourself that they sound better after break in because you are just getting accustomed to the sound. Not so.\u00a0When I had a storefront I often put new models of small speakers on display, only to hear weak bass and harsh highs, so I made it a\u00a0practice\u00a0to break them in by putting them in a storeroom hooked to the low\u00a0voltage\u00a0tap of a transformer. Two or three\u00a0days\u00a0of continuous 60 Hz was enough to significantly improve the sound..<\/p>\n
Listening only before and after break-in meant\u00a0that I had not grown accustomed to the sound, and in the store I had the added advantage of daily comparing various speakers with a switcher with our very familiar playlist of demo tracks, so I knew the sound of\u00a0each demo track\u00a0and\u00a0each speaker from excessive\u00a0repetition. (Yes, I\u00a0have heard\u00a0Dark Side of the Moon\u00a0more than once.)<\/p>\n
With\u00a0electronics , because\u00a0I lack confidence in my memory and because it takes at least a week from first listen to the broken-in product I don’t even try to compare before and after sound.\u00a0I do, however, have several friends whose hearing and memory I trust. I believe them when they tell me the improvements they hear make as much as 15% to 20% improvement.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I am a believer in break-in of audio components. I realize that some disagree, and I am open-minded enough to\u00a0accept their right to be wrong. Once I hooked up a system with a long run of cheap speaker wire and … Continue reading