question about breaking in speakers and amp

With the speakers anyway, you should hear the bass and the sound stage get better and better as time goes by. What happens is the rubber surrounds on your drivers will loosen up. The tube amp in my experience will get smoother sounding after about 50 hours unless you had teflon V-caps installed then it could take hundreds of hours to smooth out.

Hi Keith, I completely agree with you that equipment should sound perfect within 24 hrs. I did not mean to imply that a tube amp would sound bad when it is new its just that as the capacitors are forming, things should smooth out a little more after about 50 hrs or so depending on what material was used to manufacture the caps with, and teflon takes the longest to form. I had teflon caps installed in my tube amp and they sounded wonderful right from the start and to my ears are getting a little smoother as I put more hours on them.

You guys don't think that capacitors break in or form? I think if you talk to any good tube amp designer and ask them if a cap that is in the signal path ( coupling caps) sounds different after 50 hours than when it is fresh out of the box will tell you that it will.

Tvad, I agree completely!