So...Do You Need to "Break In" Headphones?

[Anderton]

I bought a set of PreSonus Bluetooth headphones for my wife over a year ago for $99. I tried them, and the highs seemed kind of brittle and scratchy (or whatever the opposite of smooth would be). Listened a couple weeks later, same thing.

 

Fast forward to now. She's logged a lot of hours on them. It's been cold here, so for my daily walk, I wanted to take advantage of their earmuff-like talents compared to my earbuds.

 

This time, the highs sounded smooth, and the scratchiness was gone. Same player, same music, no firmware updates. I have pretty good auditory memory for sounds that stand out, and I swear the sound had changed considerably, for the better.

 

My only theory is that headphones need to be broken in. Has anyone else had this experience?  

 

 

 

[Doerfler]

can't say I have, but never had an experience like yours. dB should have a good idea about this. 

[Sundown]

Well, I think it was this board that encouraged me to break mine in when I bought them (a pair of KRK KNS 8402’s). I plugged them into an iPod on constant shuffle and let them play unattended for well over a week straight. My musical tastes are all over the place so they would have been hit with just about every imaginable sound (from thrash guitars to electronic drums to orchestras to folk singer/songwriter tracks). 

 

Did it make a difference? I don’t know … I’ll probably get a second pair for guest tracking and maybe I can do an A/B test.

 

But I certainly believe that it’s physically possible that headphones would change over time.

 

Todd

[The Real MC]

Owned at least five sets - different brands/models - and never had to "break them in"

[KuruPrionz]

I've been given a used set of headphones, bought some used sets and one new set. I haven't broken it in and I'm not worried about it. 

They are EX-25 Extreme Isolation headphones and they're nice for tracking vocals since the bleed into mic is low or inaudible. My AKGs leak the most but they are comfortable. 3 sets I listen to, they don't sound the same. 

That's fine with me. If something sounds at least pretty ok on those, my Mackies, the laptop speakers etc. then I figure it at least traslates. 

 

[Anderton]

Did a little more digging...speaker manufacturers say breaking in speakers can make a difference in the sound, so it makes sense the same issues would apply to headphones. This is from the Eminence website (emphasis mine):

 

The components making up the speaker’s suspension are primarily what changes during break-in. These components are the spider (lower suspension) and the cone surround (upper suspension). As the speaker is used, the spider and cone surround begin losing some of their initial stiffness. The sonic results you will hear are an increase in overall warmth, slightly deeper/fatter lows, and warmer/smoother highs. Subtle changes will continue throughout the life cycle of the speaker, but the most noticeable amount occurs in the early stages of use.

 

What I bolded describes what I experienced with the headphones after a significant amount of use. I thought I heard the same thing happen with my KRK KNS-8400 headphones, but figured it was just my imagination. After this experience with the PreSonus headphones, though, I think it probably wasn't my imagination after all.

 

There's a blog post on the  Klipsch web site about breaking in speakers, and although it says speakers do have a break-in period, they also say: 

 

Not all speakers will sound dramatically different after break-in. Some improve only marginally, while others can change dramatically. Either way, it’s likely that you’ll notice an improvement.

 

They also gave a representative figure of 100 hours to break in speakers. Finally, this reference is pretty thorough. It covers a lot of ground, but my takeaway is that burn-in part of the manufacturing process for many (most?) loudspeaker companies, so further burn-in by consumers will make little or no difference. However, it wouldn't surprise me that for $99 Bluetooth headphones made in China, companies aren't going to spend the time and effort to burn them in at the factory, which may very well explain why I heard an (obvious) difference.

[KuruPrionz]

I've no objection to the idea, it does make sense. The assessment above sounds accurate to me. 

I've broken in a couple of re-coned guitar speakers, it might be a subliminal reason I dislike Celestion speakers. 

Maybe my headphones will break in and I'll know something. 

 

Dynamic mics are just speakers in reverse. I had a pair of SM58s that I bought new and my impression was that they smoothed out a bit after abusing them for a few years. 

The AKG D1000E mics never did sound better but I didn't like them in the first place so maybe less use than the Shures.  I haven't used the Aston Element enough to change it yet. I like it, life has been relentless. Gah!

[Joe Muscara]

It would be interesting to see frequency response curves for speakers and headphones before and after a break-in period to answer the question objectively, wouldn’t it?

 

it would also be nice to know if a manufacturer had done a break-in at the factory so we could decide to bother with our own or not. 

[KuruPrionz]

3 hours ago, Joe Muscara said:

It would be interesting to see frequency response curves for speakers and headphones before and after a break-in period to answer the question objectively, wouldn’t it?

 

it would also be nice to know if a manufacturer had done a break-in at the factory so we could decide to bother with our own or not. 

I went a-Googlin' and found this about headphones.

I'm certain there are more articles and more tests out there regarding speakers etc.

The conclusion of this article is that headphones do not need to be broken in. 

https://www.rtings.com/headphones/learn/break-in

[Joe Muscara]

22 minutes ago, KuruPrionz said:

I went a-Googlin' and found this about headphones.

I'm certain there are more articles and more tests out there regarding speakers etc.

The conclusion of this article is that headphones do not need to be broken in. 

Thanks, that was interesting. The one thought that I had was if the slight amplitude change in the one model might account for the perceived differences people have, as amplitude greatly affects frequency response perception (see equal loudness contours or curves, formerly known under Fletcher-Munson curves).

 

But, they didn't note this change in the other models.

[KuruPrionz]

7 minutes ago, Joe Muscara said:

Thanks, that was interesting. The one thought that I had was if the slight amplitude change in the one model might account for the perceived differences people have, as amplitude greatly affects frequency response perception (see equal loudness contours or curves, formerly known under Fletcher-Munson curves).

 

But, they didn't note this change in the other models.

I think to be fair you would need to test more headphones but I can understand why somebody would not bother. 

It might be as exciting as watching paint dry or it might not. 

True or not, people hear what they hear and say what they say. 

Loudness change could definitely change the perception of frequency response, it does that pretty consistently. 

 

As someone who purchases quality used gear at good prices almost exclusively, I don't have much perspective on new speakers/headphones/microphones needing to be broken in, I remember the 2 Celestions that seemed to sound better after a few gigs but no measurements were taken. Recently I had a new Peavey Vypyr X1 at home for a bit and I hated the 8" speaker but there was a high pitched squeal that played at lower settings of the master volume so I returned it. I would have put a used Scorpion 10" speaker in anyway if I'd kept the amp, that's what I did to my Vypyr VIP 1 and it's fantastic. 

[Joe Muscara]

27 minutes ago, KuruPrionz said:

I think to be fair you would need to test more headphones but I can understand why somebody would not bother. 

It might be as exciting as watching paint dry or it might not. 

Science isn't always exciting.  Besides, now that the tests can be automated, you just set it up and let it run and someone keeps an eye on things while it goes. This is why grad students exist.

 

In all seriousness, they would have to spend the money to buy the headphones, pay whoever is doing the actual work, do the analysis, write the report, etc. It's probably not worth it for a site that does product reviews unless someone wanted to pay them for it. Even university studies get paid for by companies wanting to see how their products do.

[KuruPrionz]

7 minutes ago, Joe Muscara said:

Science isn't always exciting.  Besides, now that the tests can be automated, you just set it up and let it run and someone keeps an eye on things while it goes. This is why grad students exist.

 

In all seriousness, they would have to spend the money to buy the headphones, pay whoever is doing the actual work, do the analysis, write the report, etc. It's probably not worth it for a site that does product reviews unless someone wanted to pay them for it. Even university studies get paid for by companies wanting to see how their products do.

Cost to reward is certainly a factor since only audio nerds like us care in the first place, well us and the hi-fi weirdos.

A friend of mine spent almost $10k on a pair of hi-fi speakers, has them in the middle of his living room running through a tube amp and playing vinyl. 

He would probably care to know if headphones need to be broken in but he only has one pair. 

 

I can say for certain that $10,000 speakers are not 10x better than $1,000 speakers, more like 2 to 5% maybe. 

Reminds me of the folks I see driving around Bellingham in a new Corvette or BMW M series. The speed limit is 35 on a few roads and 25 on the rest. 

I can cut in front of them in my beat up 88 Oldsmobile because ugly cars win in town. 😇

[Anderton]

There were some interesting comments at the end:

 

However, we are not able to make a conclusion on whether break-in has an effect during the manufacturing process or whether the headphones tested were broken-in during the manufacturing process, since the headphones tested were retail versions of the products.

 

Since I got the impression from the other links that most manufacturers burn in speakers, it seems reasonable that if high-end headphones needed to be burned in, then that would have already happened by the time they left the factory.

 

It is possible that there are headphones in the market that would require break-in but were not included in our test. Additionally, we only compared the headphones in terms of frequency, phase, and harmonic distortion response. Other metrics such as inter-modulation distortion or non-coherent distortion may be able to show a pattern of change that could be considered as evidence for headphones break-in.

 

I'm not sure a frequency response chart would account for what I heard. Tweeters can have the same frequency response, but different sonic "characters" depending on their materials and construction. 

 

I might end up getting another pair of the same headphones for myself, which would be ideal. Then I could compare a brand-new one with one that's been in heavy use, and see if I hear a difference.

 

P.S. I visited the KRK factory years ago, and they burned in their finished units for at least a day IIRC. But, I don't know if it was to reduce stiffness in the loudspeakers, weed out infant mortality in the power amps, or both.

[KuruPrionz]

6 minutes ago, Anderton said:

There were some interesting comments at the end:

 

However, we are not able to make a conclusion on whether break-in has an effect during the manufacturing process or whether the headphones tested were broken-in during the manufacturing process, since the headphones tested were retail versions of the products.

 

Since I got the impression from the other links that most manufacturers burn in speakers, it seems reasonable that if high-end headphones needed to be burned in, then that would have already happened by the time they left the factory.

 

It is possible that there are headphones in the market that would require break-in but were not included in our test. Additionally, we only compared the headphones in terms of frequency, phase, and harmonic distortion response. Other metrics such as inter-modulation distortion or non-coherent distortion may be able to show a pattern of change that could be considered as evidence for headphones break-in.

 

I'm not sure a frequency response chart would account for what I heard. Tweeters can have the same frequency response, but different sonic "characters" depending on their materials and construction. 

 

I might end up getting another pair of the same headphones for myself, which would be ideal. Then I could compare a brand-new one with one that's been in heavy use, and see if I hear a difference.

 

P.S. I visited the KRK factory years ago, and they burned in their finished units for at least a day IIRC. But, I don't know if it was to reduce stiffness in the loudspeakers, weed out infant mortality in the power amps, or both.

Probably both. Component failures usually occur early in the game, if something survives a test it may well keep working just about forever, depending on who is using it. 

I'm running a pair of Mackie HR824s that I bought used at a pawn shop in about 2008-10 or so. They work well, I like them. They get to stay. 

I know people who would blow them up or touch the cones and mess them up. 

[dboomer]

I can say with certainty that speaker components do undergo some changes after break-in having measuring a few dozen. But it should be a very small amount.  Measurable yes but actually perceiving an audible difference, not so much. In my days as a designer, if I had put out a product that you could hear much of a difference, I would have considered that product to be defective. Day to day changes in temperature or humidity I would expect to be making a bigger difference in perception.
 

Changes in mojo?  Well, whatever makes you happy  w

[RABid]

I've heard this since 1978 when I bought my first good set of Koss headphones and EV speakers. My take, they better sound good when I audition them in the store no matter how long they have been on display. My NHT speakers never needed a break in and over the years I never noticed a difference. I got them at a speciality store after auditioning a few types. My big set of Infinity speakers which came from Amazon definitely improved after a year.

[Anderton]

7 hours ago, dboomer said:

I can say with certainty that speaker components do undergo some changes after break-in having measuring a few dozen. But it should be a very small amount.  Measurable yes but actually perceiving an audible difference, not so much.

 

Yet I can't help but wonder if measurements mean everything. I consulted to a software company that modeled a channel strip plug-in. They were sure they had nailed the sound, it measured the exact same frequency response, phase response, harmonic distortion, you name it. Yet their beta testers kept insisting it was different.

 

When the company injected a tiny bit of hiss, the testers said they had finally gotten it right Apparently they associated the virtually subliminal amount of hiss as part of "the sound." Bear in mind they hadn't been told hiss had been added, they were just told it was a new build.

 

Now, I'm not a super golden-ears type by any means, who hears sonic differences depending on the knobs you use. But, I do think components can measure the same yet have a different sonic character. You'd know more about this than I do, but if a company invented a silk dome tweeter, a ribbon tweeter, and was able to have them match exactly in terms of frequency response, THD, etc., would they sound exactly the same, or would they have subtly different "characters"?

 

I don't know, I'm just asking questions LOL

[KuruPrionz]

45 minutes ago, Anderton said:

 

Yet I can't help but wonder if measurements mean everything. I consulted to a software company that modeled a channel strip plug-in. They were sure they had nailed the sound, it measured the exact same frequency response, phase response, harmonic distortion, you name it. Yet their beta testers kept insisting it was different.

 

When the company injected a tiny bit of hiss, the testers said they had finally gotten it right Apparently they associated the virtually subliminal amount of hiss as part of "the sound." Bear in mind they hadn't been told hiss had been added, they were just told it was a new build.

 

Now, I'm not a super golden-ears type by any means, who hears sonic differences depending on the knobs you use. But, I do think components can measure the same yet have a different sonic character. You'd know more about this than I do, but if a company invented a silk dome tweeter, a ribbon tweeter, and was able to have them match exactly in terms of frequency response, THD, etc., would they sound exactly the same, or would they have subtly different "characters"?

 

I don't know, I'm just asking questions LOL

I like this post. Long ago I remember reading about somebody who had a method for making your stereo "sound louder", it was a small pink noise generator. 

Just a tiny bit of noise added to music seems to make it sound louder and more defined. 

I've been experimenting with duplicate tracks and various forms of distortion added to a duplicate and blended in at a very low volume. 

Some of it is pretty cool. Worth the experiment. 

[harmonizer]

My wife bought me a pair of Grado SR80e headphones for Christmas in December 2020.

Actually she bought me two pairs, but did not tell me until early December 2021, after I had lost one the headphone pads for the first pair.

I did not use the second pair, and told her to give me the second pair for Christmas later that month, since I realized that had been her intention all along.

 

I used the first pair a lot during 2021. In addition for all my audio stuff, I use them for web meetings for work

(I plug them in for listening, and use the mic on my laptop).

So the first pair of headphones logged a lot of hours before I started using the second pair after Christmas 2021.

 

I can't tell any difference in the sound quality between the two pairs of headphones. But it is just a sample size of one.

 

I can't know whether speakers or headphones actually have a break-in period.

But I just think we need to consider that there are so many factors that influence our perception of what we hear.

Can we as humans really remember what a pair of headphones or speakers actually sounded like several months ago?

[Anderton]

11 hours ago, harmonizer said:

Can we as humans really remember what a pair of headphones or speakers actually sounded like several months ago?

 

That's definitely a valid consideration. However, the reason why I brought this up is because I really noticed an issue with the headphones when I first tried them, so much so that I decided against getting a pair for myself. Then when I used them a couple days ago, they didn't have that quality (or I'm sure I would have noticed it!). The other consideration is that I listen to files of the same quality from the same smartphone when I take a walk, so there were no variables there.

 

It makes sense to me from a theoretical standpoint that things that move, and are stiff initially, would loosen up over time (which I presume is why speaker manufacturers burn in their speakers at the factory). In any event, I guess it doesn't really matter because it's not like the sound gets worse over time, which would definitely be a problem  

 

 

[dboomer]

On 2/5/2022 at 10:06 PM, Anderton said:

 

Yet I can't help but wonder if measurements mean everything. I consulted to a software company that modeled a channel strip plug-in. They were sure they had nailed the sound, it measured the exact same frequency response, phase response, harmonic distortion, you name it. Yet their beta testers kept insisting it was different.

 

When the company injected a tiny bit of hiss, the testers said they had finally gotten it right Apparently they associated the virtually subliminal amount of hiss as part of "the sound." Bear in mind they hadn't been told hiss had been added, they were just told it was a new build.

 

Now, I'm not a super golden-ears type by any means, who hears sonic differences depending on the knobs you use. But, I do think components can measure the same yet have a different sonic character. You'd know more about this than I do, but if a company invented a silk dome tweeter, a ribbon tweeter, and was able to have them match exactly in terms of frequency response, THD, etc., would they sound exactly the same, or would they have subtly different "characters"?

 

I don't know, I'm just asking questions LOL

i think our statements are opposites. Mine is - just because you can measure differences doesn’t mean you can hear them. And your example is even though they measure the same, they sound different.  To which I would simply add, they didn’t measure the thing that made the sonic difference even though many other factors measured the same.

 

So with respect to “breaking in making an audible difference” …remember that in general you need about a 3dB difference for very  trained listeners to hear a difference.  That would mean something after break-in would have to double or half in the process. Typically what “breaks in” is the surround/compliance.  Doubling would be a pretty big change for simply breaking in.  So certainly the designers would be aware of this. I can’t imagine a releasing a transducer that I knew was gonna double or half.

[PrairieGuy]

On 2/5/2022 at 4:22 PM, dboomer said:

I can say with certainty that speaker components do undergo some changes after break-in having measuring a few dozen. But it should be a very small amount.  Measurable yes but actually perceiving an audible difference, not so much. In my days as a designer, if I had put out a product that you could hear much of a difference, I would have considered that product to be defective. Day to day changes in temperature or humidity I would expect to be making a bigger difference in perception.
 

Changes in mojo?  Well, whatever makes you happy  w

I used to think that speaker break in was a sales tactic to encourage people to keep them for a while, the assumption being that after a period of time your ears would get used to them, they would become the new normal, and you'd be far less likely or willing to return them. Not really different than 30-day mattress guarantees. I really don't know the science so I could be wrong.

 

But if speakers do break in, do they always sound better? Do speakers ever break in and sound worse?

[Anderton]

1 hour ago, dboomer said:

Remember that in general you need about a 3dB difference for very  trained listeners to hear a difference.  That would mean something after break-in would have to double or half in the process. Typically what “breaks in” is the surround/compliance.  

 

I'm not sure about that 3 dB figure, so I decided to do a test. I loaded a mixed piece of music and added shelving EQ, 6 dB slope, corner frequency 900 Hz, and 1 dB boost. I closed my eyes and hit bypass/enable so many times I had no idea which was which. But, I could always (as in 100%) tell when it was enabled. 

 

Then again, the headphone sound difference may have nothing to do with measured frequency response or levels, similarly to how I said ribbon tweeters with the same specs as silk dome tweeters can sound different. What I heard was not a traditional frequency response or level change. It sounded "mechanical," more like an artifact than a change in specs. Maybe there's a "diaphragm friction spec" for which test equipment doesn't exist. It's not really about sounding "better" or "worse" in terms of normal speaker or headphone measurements, but more like having an added artifact that goes away over time.

 

I guess at this point it enters UFO territory - if you haven't seen one, you don't think they exist and if you've seen one, you do. Apparently commercially available speakers are already broken in at the factory, so you won't hear any difference by "breaking them in" any further. I'll know for sure if I end up getting a second set of headphones, and compare "brand new out of the box" to "used over a significant amount of time" to see if I can hear a difference. 

[RABid]

There is also the human factor of what your ears are trained to notice. In the 80's I could listen to a song and tell you what synth was used in a lead by the tone. Moog, Arp, Oberheim, Roland. They all had their own sound characteristics beyond just the slope of the filter. My ears are aging fast and I no longer pick out those nuances, but I could definitely tell that my Infinity speakers started out a bit harsh and they mellowed over time. It is not me just getting used to them. It is a comparison to my reference speakers, a 20 year old pair of NHT's.

[Dave Bryce]

In my experience, some drivers do benefit from a break-in period.  Others, not so much.

 

When I worked with ADAM, their really light and stiff Hexacone drivers did not seem to me to change that noticeably over their initial usage.  Amphions, OTOH, did sound to me like they loosened up some if exercised at first.

 

My headphones are Audezes.  Not sure where they stand on a break-in period.

 

dB

[dboomer]

@C

 

Without doing double blind testing you are likely fooling yourself.  I have fooled myself many times.   So if you wanna step that game up find and load yourself an “ABX tester app”

 

Basically it lets you audition A or B as many times as you want.  Then it randomly plays one or the other and calls it X and asks you which sample that is. At that point if you can repeatedly pick the right answer 10 times in a row you can hear a difference. 
 

 

[Anderton]

3 hours ago, dboomer said:

@C

 

Without doing double blind testing you are likely fooling yourself.  I have fooled myself many times.   So if you wanna step that game up find and load yourself an “ABX tester app”

 

The problem is it won't switch heads. I think the only way to find out for sure is to get a new, out-of-the-box set. They look the same, so I can just put them in a pillowcase, pull them out randomly, and see if I notice a difference.

 

As to hearing the 1 dB of difference in the shelving EQ, AFAIC it was a blind test. I closed my eyes, and just kept hitting enable/bypass in rapid succession so I no longer knew what was selected. I then chose which one I thought it was, opened my eyes, and checked. It really was 100% of the time. There was one instance where it sounded the same "enabled" or "bypassed," so I wondered if I was imagining things. When I opened my eyes, it turned out I had moved the mouse off the bypass button, so clicking didn't change the status.

 

If I came back the next day, someone had selected only enabled or bypassed and asked me to identify which one it was, I don't know if I could. It was only by comparing them that I could tell the difference.

 

FWIW I've never noticed any difference in loudspeaker performance after playing them for a while, but then again, there's no way to compare them to what they sounded like when they were new. They sounded like what they were supposed to sound like. If they'd had some kind of artifact or issue, though, I probably would have noticed. 

[Joe Muscara]

15 hours ago, Anderton said:

The problem is it won't switch heads. I think the only way to find out for sure is to get a new, out-of-the-box set. They look the same, so I can just put them in a pillowcase, pull them out randomly, and see if I notice a difference.

But you'd have to mark them in some way so you could tell which was which in the end. And you'd have to keep track of which one you thought was sounding which way while you did the testing. And it would have to be done in a way that you didn't know which was which while you were testing (you can't see the marking) so you wouldn't know if it was the new or old pair, and perhaps more importantly, you don't want to have a bias towards one set or the other if you consciously or subconsciously think one pair sounds a certain way while you are testing. 

 

Maybe you could have a friend help and hand you each pair, but the friend can't know which is which either, just which is A or B. Even then, the friend might start biasing it based on your reactions. (This is why we do double-blind tests.)

 

Am I making this too complicated? I'm just having fun thinking about how one would have to really do this test, which is probably beyond the scope of this thread.  

[Anderton]

1 hour ago, Joe Muscara said:

Am I making this too complicated? I'm just having fun thinking about how one would have to really do this test, which is probably beyond the scope of this thread. 

 

Just to recap....

 

• Several speaker manufacturers claim that they break in their speakers prior to shipping a finished product.
• My question is whether they do this with headphones, because I thought I heard a difference between what headphones sounded like when new, and what they sounded like a year later.

 

Joe, as to "the pillowcase test," here's how I'd do it:

 

Put the two headphones in a pillowcase. Pull one out. Listen to it. Put it back in Pull the other one out. Listen to it. Put it back in and shake the pillowcase. Do this a few times. If after repeated listening it sounds like there's no difference, end of experiment. If after repeated listenings one of them sounds like what I remember it sounding like when new, then I'd open the battery compartment to see whether it had the batteries it shipped with (the older pair has had the batteries replaced). If I heard the artifacts I heard originally, and the batteries where the ones that came with the headphones, that would also be the end of the experiment. My assumption would be that being low-cost headphones, the manufacturer didn't take the time and expense to burn in prior to shipping, and that would account for the change in sound over time.

 

The problem with trying to get a definitive answer is that like so many audio myths, people making claims about whether something does or does not make a difference are not taking into account all the variables. Yes, many companies have stated that burning in speakers is necessary. So someone buys a speaker, doesn't notice any change in the speakers, and then concludes that burn-in is unnecessary snake oil--without taking into account it was done at the factory. One the other hand, if someone notices a difference, it may be because the speakers were not burned in at the factory for cost or whatever reasons.

 

There are a zillion references to burning in speakers on the web, and engineers at speaker companies claim it makes a difference and back it up with measurements. The following forum post was the most concise reference I found, in a thread in the Stereophile forums. I've bolded the part that I think is most significant.

 

MAP

Joined: Sep 9 2005 - 6:56pm

Re: Speaker Break-in

 

Hi Folks,

 

Interesting thread! I'm joining a bit late, so permit me to comment going back to the original post.

 

1.) "Do you find speaker break-in to be real?" Absolutely. I've been designing speakers for about three decades, the last decade of which has been for one of the world's largest loudspeaker manufacturers. We have mountains of data that prove its existence. In fact, when I saw Paul Messenger's article, my first thought was, "hey - we knew about this stuff more than 30 years ago!" If you were to raise the question of the veracity of speaker break-in with a mechanical engineer or a materials scientist, you would be answered in the affirmative with just as much conviction as if you were to ask whether the sky is blue.

 

2.) Kal raises a very valid point. We know transducer break-in is very real, and we can measure/quantify it, but does it result in verifiable, statistically-significant changes in perceived sonic performance? Within our company, we have in fact proven it with double-blind tests with certain transducers, in certain systems, and with certain program material. So the general answer is "yes," but we must qualify that answer with "but audibility in any given circumstance is subject to a very wide variety of factors."

 

So there you have it. The definitive answer from an expert: "Well, it depends."