Question for the scientifically minded amongst you. How does burn-in actually change the sound of a speaker? I always thought that the concept of audio gear burn-in was more audiophile mumbo jumbo but a recent experience with new speakers has changed my mind. They’ve gone from overly bright ear drum scrapers to sounding great after burning in.
The speaker drivers have surrounds which become more supple with use, just like breaking in a new baseball glove. In the case of the speaker drivers, however, my paranoid young audio enthusiasts friends,… the resonant frequencies of the drivers become more low. All good speaker designers know this and design their speakers to perform optimally for their long term Theil-Small parameters as measured on drivers that have been broken-in properly. Your speakers sound better with use because the drivers are new with stiff surrounds and spiders which changes their Thiel-Small parameters and therefore obviously changes their sound.