Ed Seedhouse wrote:
Joseph Oberlander wrote:


Lastly - I think most of the "break-in" myth was started by people
in the 70's and 80's listening to Alcino magnet speakers.


Well I think Alnico was well out of the picture by then, by and large.
I bought a pair of 8" full range Wharfedale speakers in the early 1960's
that had large ceramic magnets, and I think Alnico was only a niche
market by the 1970's.

Gilbert W. Briggs, founder of Wharfedale, wrote a book about
loudspeakers back in the 1950's and was already talking about speaker
break in at that time. I read it in the Public Library - alas it has
long been lost from the collection.

Interesting.

I lost a URL years ago to an article about Alcino magnets and how
they degrade. They took a pair of old JBL speakers and tested
them after replacing the drivers with new ones. They changed
their sound in days if driven too hard. Of course, re-magnetizing
them fixed this, but the change was not imaginary.

I know that JBL and a few others held onto this technology all
through the 70's and into the first few years of the 80's.

Also, in the 50's and 60's, it was not uncommon to have less
than optimal capacitors and crossovers, as well as surrounds.
Thankfully, this was less of a problem a decade or two later.

Briggs was likely hearing changes due to this and the other
reasons I listed if anything at all. Note - 95% or more of
"break in" is mental, but sometimes speakers do develop changes
in sound due to "breaking down".