Break in Period for speakers??

[Hooper]

Hi Everyone,

I understand that speakers have a break in period due to the moving parts (rubber surrounds) and that a speaker will not reach its full potential until that period is up. What I've heard conflicting arguments on is whether or not one is able to turn up the speakers a bit during the break in period.

Some articles I’ve read say not to turn up the speakers at all, to keep them at rather low levels during the break in period – other articles have said that it’s o.k. to turn up new speakers a bit as long as you don’t play them at extremely high “rock concert” levels so to speak.

Does anyone out there know which is more accurate? I’ve got brand new speakers and I’d like to turn them up a bit but I certainly don’t want to hurt them.

What happens if they are turned up to loud for this break in process? Will you know, or does it harm the speaker in some way that you’d never know unless you didn’t do it and had “good” speakers to compare to?

Also, is their any harm in leaving a system running all day to speed up the break in process?

Thanks in advance,

[Santaduck]

Different methods of break-in almost inevitably end up with the same result (better settled sound), but may simply take differing amounts of time to get there. Breaking-in at levels way below normal listening volume however just doesn't make sense to me.

If you're playing regular music, there shouldn't be a problem playing them louder than a normal listening level.

If you're playing specialized audio test tracks with near-ultrasonic test tones (e.g. a warble tone centered around 18kHz), you may damage your tweeters if you turn it up too loud, and of course it's very dangerous for your own ears.

I would wire one of the speakers out-of-phase (switch plus and minus), so that the sound somewhat cancels out farther away. If you do this, and put the speakers almost face-to-face, and throw a blanket over them, it will even be quieter (relatively speaking).

If you're burning in your *electronic* components such as a new amp or preamp, I'd disconnect your speakers and replace them with a 8ohm (or whatever impedance speakers you're using) resistor (one of those big brick-like 10W kind).

The most efficient tracks to break in are those with a wide variety of frequencies. Most audiophile test-cds have a special burn-in track, or a pink-noise/white-noise track. I would use this for a lot of the break-in period.

You may doubt if it's working and that your speakers are defective, but hang in there. In a week or so it will start to change, and a week or so after that, the sound should noticeably bloom and you'll be happy.

However, if you're at home a lot near your speakers, I'd just play regular music at regular levels all day, and just enjoy it. Break it in while you sleep too with the burn-in or noise tracks.

Originally posted by Hooper
Hi Everyone,

I understand that speakers have a break in period due to the moving parts (rubber surrounds) and that a speaker will not reach its full potential until that period is up. What I've heard conflicting arguments on is whether or not one is able to turn up the speakers a bit during the break in period.

Some articles I’ve read say not to turn up the speakers at all, to keep them at rather low levels during the break in period – other articles have said that it’s o.k. to turn up new speakers a bit as long as you don’t play them at extremely high “rock concert” levels so to speak.

Does anyone out there know which is more accurate? I’ve got brand new speakers and I’d like to turn them up a bit but I certainly don’t want to hurt them.

What happens if they are turned up to loud for this break in process? Will you know, or does it harm the speaker in some way that you’d never know unless you didn’t do it and had “good” speakers to compare to?

Also, is their any harm in leaving a system running all day to speed up the break in process?

Thanks in advance,

[ECA]

I tend to over rate my speakers. If I have an 80 watt system I get 160+ watt speakers(I like the responce). It also depends on if you have a Frequency seperator with your speakers. THIS item will send the proper Freq, to each speaker, so as not to Blow tweeters with bass responce.
IF you use them at REGULAR listening volume, not to scare the neibhors, for the breakin time you should be fine.

For those who want to know.
Settingup your OWN speaker system is fun. Buying the speakers so the Freq over lap about 10-20%, using a TUNED freq seperator, you can REALLY get the sound you want.

[Santaduck]

Originally posted by ECA
I tend to over rate my speakers. If I have an 80 watt system I get 160+ watt speakers(I like the responce). It also depends on if you have a Frequency seperator with your speakers. THIS item will send the proper Freq, to each speaker, so as not to Blow tweeters with bass responce.

Settingup your OWN speaker system is fun. Buying the speakers so the Freq over lap about 10-20%, using a TUNED freq seperator, you can REALLY get the sound you want.

Well it's all in your taste I suppose.

Wattage for speakers is really a misnomer. It's really how many decibels (spl) you get for given wattage, in other words, it's a rating of how efficient the speakers are. I mention this because many people will assume that a higher wattage speaker is better, because it's a bigger number. This is not necessarily so, because sound quality doesn't correspond with efficiency-- you have to listen to know your liking for that speaker. A "low-watt" speaker may sound phenomenal, or crap... A "high-watt" speaker might go louder, but sound terrible.... then again it might be the quality of the amp, even between two amplifers of the same wattage... especially with differenet circuit types (class A, Class AB, feedback, 0-feedback, or with tubes: single ended vs. push-pull).

On one extreme, you have super-efficient speakers (90+db rating) like horn-speakers, and are intended for use with a SET (single ended triode) amp which might be a 8W amp-- if you like this sound, it will simply be drippingly gorgeous, but then both the amp and the speaker will likely cost you several grand each. Other people will want very inefficient speakers, and will monoblock a 200W solid state amp, per speaker, for a total of 400W. The sound will likely be loud, but is not necessarily going to have tight bass, natural highs, or liquid mids. Most people will fall in between-- with something for normal home-listening (not a dance club, and not a high-end listening club) that is reasonable in price yet has high performance in sound paramters-- from frequency response, soundstage, "air", localization, sibilance, liquidity, tightness of bass, etc.

Regarding building your own speakers, that's an art. The drivers themselves have to be very nice quality, and certainly the frequency response in total is important-- you don't want either an empty spot, nor too much of an overlap which will cause a response hump. Tweaking this via a crossover is tricky as well, as what you are also doing is playing with phase. That's why a good 2-way speaker will often have more natural sound than a 3-way or 4-way speaker, although most beginner will immediately assume the 4-way super tower speakers are better.

If you are in a small room, it may not even physically support a sound wavelength of low <25 Hz bass anyways, so a huge woofer in a 3- or 4-way system is at best a waste, and at the worst, crossover-induced phase mismatc is compromising the quality of your remaining sound.

That said, it's really a matter of application. If you want an impressive looking and loud home system, this doesn't really matter. If you are concerned with true hi-fidelity to the original source, it does matter. If you are a car-audio buff, and would like to tune the sub to enhance the bass which exists in each song that you play on-the-fly, then you can get gear to do that too (tune center frequency & spread). If you want home-theatre, then again it's a different application which is naturally incompatible with high fidelity because of the center-channel speaker, and exaggerated equalization usually does the trick for theatrical sound.

[ECA]

I think you mean SOUND Volume, over sound quality.
And Watts is not Quality, or responce.
Ohms, is a good thing to look for, but for respnce, you need to HEAR what you want to hear. Take your OWN music in and test the speaker setups. JUST because it says SONY, JVC, or any other big name, dont mean Squat.
I tried a set of sonys and they were to Crisp/tight. For digital music they would probably be fine.
Find a good album/CD, tape(prefer tape), of something like Vivaldi's 4 seasons, or a Synth aqoustic, any thing with a Wide range, to see what you like.

[techfreak]

I thought the normal break in period for speakers is about 8,000 hours? That is what the local Magnolia Hi-Fi says.

[ECA]

Originally posted by techfreak
I thought the normal break in period for speakers is about 8,000 hours? That is what the local Magnolia Hi-Fi says.


Sounds like the END of there warrenty period.
8760 hours in 1 year at 24/7

[Ioman]

I think you mean 80 hours LOL