Originally posted by Reeek
I've read many times in audiofile sources that some so called experts think speaker break in is all but a myth.
Has anyone else heard such arguments? And if so, how do you feel about that?
Originally posted by Reeek
I play just about everyday so I don't understand why we don't just play the darned things until such time that we "think" they sound better.
If you can imagine how many speakers a day speaker manufacturers have coming off of production lines, then how big a building/rig it would take to have hundreds/thousands of speakers humming away, how much power it would take to run that building, then all the employees it would take to hook the speakers up and then disconnect them, and then how much the company would have to charge to cover all of those costs plus overhead, then you can guess why speaker companies don't do it and probably never will.Originally posted by Tone Loco
But I think speaker makers should be the ones doing any required break in so that what you hear is what you're supposed to hear, right outta the box. Especially if they make it sound like its no biggie for their customers to do it... "just do X, Y, Z!"
Fortunately, not all speaker manufacturers feel this way.Originally posted by tonedaddy
If you can imagine how many speakers a day speaker manufacturers have coming off of production lines, then how big a building/rig it would take to have hundreds/thousands of speakers humming away, how much power it would take to run that building, then all the employees it would take to hook the speakers up and then disconnect them, and then how much the company would have to charge to cover all of those costs plus overhead, then you can guess why speaker companies don't do it and probably never will.
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...I decided to use Ted Webers method. I don't think he would mind if I posted this:
OK, on to 'breaking in' a speaker. If you really want to speed up the breaking in period, the easiest method is to connect the speaker to a filament transformer. Having said that, let's look at the precautions you need to take. Since you will be driving the speaker with a steady state signal, you don't want to drive it at its rated power or it will burn up the voice coil. 1/3 power rating is a safe figure to use. So, let's say you have a 50 watt speaker and it is 8 Ohm. 1/3 power is about 17 watts, and at 8 Ohm, that works out to be around 11.5 volts. Using a 12.6 volt transformer will put 20 watts into the speaker. I wouldn't have a problem with that in our products, but just to be safe, you might want to go with a 6.3 volt filament voltage, which will put about 5 watts into your speaker. Another option is to use a variac into the primary side of the 12.6 volt filament transformer and dial in the voltage you want on the secondary. That way, you can dial in the 11.5 volts we originally calculated at the 1/3 power level. I'd also suggest performing the operation in a garage or closet, because listening to the loud 60hz hum from the speaker will grate on your nerves very quickly. Also, if you leave the speaker out of the cabinet, the rear radiation of the speaker will cancel alot of the front radiation and reduce the noise. You need to lay the speaker face up though, so the cone can move as much as possible since the whole idea of this operation is to loosen up the cone and spider. Laying the speaker face down would trap air between the cone and the surface of the table and restrict cone movement. You're going to be surprised how much the cone moves and how loud the speaker is, even at 1/3 power. Here's the math for determining the correct voltage to use in case you have a different wattage and impedance rating than our example above:
1. Take the power rating of the speaker and divide it by 3.
2. Take that number and multiply it by the speaker's Ohm rating (4, 8, or 16)
3. Use your calculator to find the square root of that number.
4. The result is the voltage you need to use to drive the speaker at 1/3 its rated power.
Here is a calculator that will determine a safe voltage to use:
Go here to use his calculator and see the full dialog.
I used a 9v ac transformer running thru my powersoak. I dialed it down to 6 volts and let it hum for a couple of hours two separate times. He doesn't really say how long to do it. I guess I will give it one more session and see how it sounds.