18 months old, finally burned in?

James Romeyn · « **on:** 8 Sep 2005, 07:10 pm »

It seems like my RM30s, purchased around Feb/March '03, have increased in smoothness & bloom, even in the past few months. Do any other members have similar experiences? It still occasionally surprises me how fantastic these sound.

KJ · « **Reply #1 on:** 8 Sep 2005, 07:43 pm »

I received mine in January, 2005. Although I believe I am getting better sound all the time, I really can't say how much of it is due to additional break-in as I have been changing gear rather frequently. I am of the opinion that these speakers require more power than I was originally led to believe in order to achieve powerful bass. Except for being enveloped by a larger wall of sound, I really don't feel I am missing anything by not having it's bigger brother, the RM40s.

-KJ

mlawson66 · « **Reply #2 on:** 8 Sep 2005, 08:02 pm »

I agree with KJ, they just keep sounding better. I bought mine Christmas last year. The amp that is driving all but the subs on the RM30s hasn't changed during all the upgrades (Thanks again to all the excellent advice from John Casler) so there is no expectation for those components to keep improving, but they do.

I also agree KJ that RM30s like more power than I expected but bi-amping with NuForce amps driving the subs and Son of Ampzilla driving the rest of the speaker is working nicely. Better every day.

I'm not sure what kind of magic Brian C is doing on these speakers but it is working.

Brian Cheney · « **Reply #3 on:** 8 Sep 2005, 09:24 pm »

Folks, watch out for the next upgrade, it's a doozy.

ScottMayo · « **Reply #4 on:** 8 Sep 2005, 11:00 pm »

Quote from: Brian Cheney

Folks, watch out for the next upgrade, it's a doozy.

Yeah yeah. JC already said it wasn't until January or some such, and no one is handing out any details.

Besides, my RM/x can't *be* any better.

warnerwh · « **Reply #5 on:** 8 Sep 2005, 11:35 pm »

And I thought it was my imagination. Thanks for posting this.

John Casler · « **Reply #6 on:** 9 Sep 2005, 03:53 am »

Strangely enough there are many who don't beleive that a VMPS speakers (or any speaker for that matter) "breaks in".

While obviously it is impossible to to do an A/B for it, I would also swear that mine generally "seem" to get better over a 90-120 day period.

I think Scott is one of the "doubters", so Scott let us know if you find any sonic improvement in you "black laquered monoliths" as you listen.

Inquiring minds want to know. Are they getting better? or is that simply impossible

(since they sound so good already)

ScottMayo · « **Reply #7 on:** 9 Sep 2005, 04:52 am »

Quote from: John Casler

I think Scott is one of the "doubters", so Scott let us know if you find any sonic improvement in you "black laquered monoliths" as you listen.

Hard to be sure. I've made a couple of small changes, and they were improvements, so I don't know if the speaker is changing too. When I pointed the tweeter's vertical adjustment more directly at the listener position (and went two clicks down on the treble), the sound stage got bigger, and cymbals on SACDs just got bloody wonderful, and finger noise on strings got so real it was scary, but I know that's something I caused, in trade for a shorter vertical sweetspot range. I've also been slowly working my way up in listening volume, as I work out what the speakers like and what I like. So there's no way I can compare before and after.

If anything is really changing on its own, it might be the bass. I find I prefer the RM/x's bass alone now, to anything the (inferior, non-VMPS

) subwoofer adds, except on a very few albums that are just badly recorded and need to be processed up to 5.1 to be listenable. I have an old Gerry Rafferty album that just plain hurts, otherwise...

Of course, if you need a critical analysis done on breakin, you know I'm your man, just pop two more RM/x out my way, and I'll do a scrupulous comparison. Don't know if I'd finish it, though. I think having 4 RM/x in my room would probably kill me with bliss, but what a way to go...

lkosova · « **Reply #8 on:** 10 Sep 2005, 12:44 am »

The sound of the RM-30's keeps getting better and better after a year of having them. The midrange and bass keep improving....just when you think it's great ,it just keeps getting better.

And yes these puppies need power. I have 350 watt Cary's on them now but they just came out with dual mono 1,000 watts per channel in 4 ohm......that should be enough to even satisfy JC

Larry

audiochef · « **Reply #9 on:** 10 Sep 2005, 05:02 pm »

So as my 40s, better and better.

meilankev · « **Reply #10 on:** 10 Sep 2005, 06:03 pm »

My experiences were different. Over the first 6 - 8 months of owning my speakers, it became obvious their sound had changed. And since I did a pretty good job of putty/pot work upon setting them up, any change could only be considered a worsening of sound from that point forward.

Their potential for great sound may have increased, but until I re-adjusted the putty and pots, it couldn't be realized. However, after a fresh approach at tuning, my speakers did indeed sound markedly better than anytime during the break-in period.

But I felt there was no noticeable change in sound since this re-adjusment - which occurred about 8 months into ownership.

Kevin

Dunedain · « **Reply #11 on:** 9 Oct 2005, 05:10 pm »

I can confirm that this breaking in of speakers does happen. I had read about it here and elsewhere
many times, but I got to experience it first-hand recently. We have RM2 speakers, which, of course,
sounded fantastic right out of the box.

Well, one day several months after we had gotten them I was listening to a song that I had played
on them many times before. And all of a sudden I stopped in my tracks and noticed that the sound
was quite noticeably smoother in the upper midrange than it had been anytime I played that
song before. I mean, it had always been smooth, but it was *really* smooth now, smooth as silk.

And this was not some psychological factor making me think this, it wasn't like I was expecting the
sound to change like this any day now. This happened out of nowhere and I was taken quite by surprise
when I played that song by how noticeable the improvement was and how suddenly it seemed to happen.
And I had made no stereo equipment changes, so it had to be the speakers.

Perhaps the ribbons and woofers break in like a new pair of shoes after a while, reaching an ideal of
elasticity only after having been worked for months? In any case, there is something very real
happening and it is definitely noticeable to the ear.

SWG255 · « **Reply #12 on:** 9 Oct 2005, 05:34 pm »

I can hardly believe my RM40s will be two years old this coming December. They did indeed exhibit break-in over a nine month period. After that I began to make other system changes, so I cannot attribute changes in the sound of my system strictly to the RM40s breaking in further.

Most recently i've upgraded from stock power cables on my amp and preamp to the VH Audio Flavor 2 and Flavor 4 cables. While these cables improved the sound of my system, they also necissitated some putty adjustments on the RM40s. Because Chris says the PCs need about 100 hours to break in, I've waited until this weekend to begin the putty adjustment, and although i have added a little bit which brought the sound back into focus and improved the lower bass balance in the system, I'm not ready to say the RM40s are dialed-in yet. The new PCs have improved the detail, imaging and transient response but the upper midrange sounds a bit too prominent on several recordings I've played this weekend. I need to spend some time listening to the system with my reference discs to decide what to do next, if anything to the putty or pots on the speakers.

Many audiophiles would certainly balk at speakers one has to adjust each time one makes changes to one's system, but I think this is a real strength of the VMPS designs, the ability to tune the speakers to take full advantage of upgrades as they come along.

James Romeyn · « **Reply #13 on:** 10 Oct 2005, 03:17 am »

Quote from: lkosova

The sound of the RM-30's keeps getting better and better after a year of having them. The midrange and bass keep improving....just when you think it's great ,it just keeps getting better.

And yes these puppies need power. I have 350 watt Cary's on them now but they just came out with dual mono 1,000 watts per channel in 4 ohm......that should be enough to even satisfy JC

Larry

I posted this several times earlier. With my 400WRMS @ 4-Ohm Sunfire amp the dynamic capability of this system is nothing short of scary. The Sunfire's volume change slightly trails the remote control button when it is depressed for an extended period. When I first experienced this, the sound became so loud, with no compression & no audible distortion, that the remote literally & involuntarily was ejected from my hands across the room, in pure absolute terror from the SPL resulting from my mistake. When I repeated the mistake later, it was always to a lesser extent. I learned that lesson the first time.

My wife made the mistake with me sitting next to her. She lowered the volume, her face turned white & graven, & she turned slowly, handing me the remote, saying, "I don't want to handle this", as if it were a WMD.

I worked at the Record Plant with each of the four corners of the control room filled with 2x15" pro-JBL's & a huge horn lens (total 8x15" & four horns). Each corner was biamped with a Crown DC300WRMS stereo amp. The control room is about the size of a large master bedroom & the speakers are about 100dB sensitive. Sly Stone would crank it & I learned to run when he entered the room. It had no more dynamic capability than my system, at least if memory serves (that was the early seventies, 19, not 18.)