Have your say & ask the experts

not sure what to make of Ashleys post.  demoing some new speakers at the moment and yesterday the treble was bright and edgy, after being told they hadn't been run in i left them playing on repeat while i was at work and guess what?  the treble has calmed down noticeably.  i don't see how it could be me getting used to the sound and my brain correcting it as i've been out all day.  it isn't a case of them sounding better because i expect them to sound better as i thought they would still sound bad for another couple of days.

also, if my brain is tricking me into thinking that my stereo is better then it is, good on it!

Craig M.:

not sure what to make of Ashleys post.  demoing some new speakers at the moment and yesterday the treble was bright and edgy, after being told they hadn't been run in i left them playing on repeat while i was at work and guess what?  the treble has calmed down noticeably.  i don't see how it could be me getting used to the sound and my brain correcting it as i've been out all day.  it isn't a case of them sounding better because i expect them to sound better as i thought they would still sound bad for another couple of days.

I agree. Logic tells you that any part that moves needs to bed in. If a sound is there, it's. . . .there imho.

Taksinridgeback:

A football?

Ha! Here's a fact! In the World Cup, the footballs are warmed before use to make sure the leather is supple, or they are rotated in a machine which causes the leather to loosen slightly.

Taksinridgeback:

A football?

Surely a football doesn't 'perform movement' but is instead moved.

Well, in the last game I saw, the football was performing plenty of movement, it was the German defence that did not move!

I was just being pedantic and commenting on a sweeping generalisation, that was all. I agree about speakers needing a bit of time to break-in, but am unconvinced about other components. And I think that for cables and interconnects, there is a strong case that says it's the brain tricking the ears.

That's interesting - why do they do that?

In cricket, the reverse is true, because you want a hard ball for the bounce. As it wears, you change type of bowler - a bit like swapping hifi components, I suppose.

Taksinridgeback:

And I think that for cables and interconnects, there is a strong case that says it's the brain tricking the ears.

Ah, now I DO NOT believe that cables need running in - they don't perform a physical movement - electrons just travel down them. After a few microseconds, I'm sure the friction is just the same as it will ever be!

Taksinridgeback:

.....I agree about speakers needing a bit of time to break-in, but am unconvinced about other components. And I think that for cables and interconnects, there is a strong case that says it's the brain tricking the ears.

Definitely.

On a related issue, I once read an interesting observation by the late Peter Walker (Quad), who said that an often overlooked loudspeaker parameter is the effect of short term heating on the voice coil resistance.  He measured changes of up to 40% after the speaker had been run for a few hours (with music).  Such a big change will have a very significant effect on the speaker's frequency response (from the electrical -> acoustic equivalent circuit).

So although the long term effect is minimal, the short term effect of normal use can be very noticeable.  This factor also renders A/B testing a complete minefield, as you change a 'component', hear a difference, and attribute the effect completely erroneously !

Speakers have their own distortion, break-up of cones at certain frequencies (I believe this has actually more to do with the termination or interface of the cone and surround but I may be wrong there). A good design should move these outside the audible range both at woofer-midrange/tweeter xover points and tweeter break up at high frequencies. I can hear that with my (cheap) in car speakers. On certain material there's a 'shouting', out of character with the material played.

When I listened to AVI's ADM9.1's I've commented on the crystalline extended treble and the cleanliness of it even at high volumes. This has probably a lot to do with low distortion amplification and my ears just happen to be very sensitive to treble distortion. Further down the detail may well be a result of a very low noise floor, courtesy of a good regulated power supply/pre-amp section. Anyway, its hard to argue about the perceived realism of the things when listening to something decent and it does make a lot of hifi sound bloated and muddled but then I've never liked that sort of sound.

... with regards to running new speakers in I do believe they change over a period of time, perhaps also as a result of cone surrounds becoming pliable, but if you have serious reservations when hearing them new I somehow doubt you'll get over all of them.

when i look at the figures of most modern amps, i always see distortion figures of