Do an A/B recording of the sound with a good mic to mp3 and post sound clip please.
FWIW, I'll comment on my everyday practical experience on Break-in.
I make my own Guitar/Bass speakers for over 35 years now.
Typical MI construction, with rectilinear paper cone, controlled breakup rings/grooves , heavily doped paper edge, somewhat stiff treated cloth suspension.
It's the one on the right
A closer view:
I usually sell them inside my 2x12" cabinets.
I always must have one of them by my workbench, so customers can try the heads, and I try not to sell it, simply to simplify handling.
My Lab room is cramped (like 99% others) so I prefer Musicians to pick a new, just made cabinet instead, out of the warehouse room, so the "test" one gets heavily worked after a couple months.
Talk about break in !!!
So far, so good, but sometimes a customer says "fine, I like it, but let me test the actual cabinet I'm buying, instead of the "test" one.
So we bring a fresh one , set it aside the "Test" one, and simply plug it in.
No time lost in dismounting and remounting speakers as some have mentioned, just 5 seconds switching.
Boy, the difference is *dramatic*.
So much so, that I have
a) been accused of "testing the amps with a *good* speaker, then cheating and delivering a cheaper one" or
b) had to actually deliver the old, used one.
Even if it's somewhat dirty or has beer glass ring marks or the Tolex was slightly scratched .
So in a nutshell, the difference is real, quite noticeable, and by a lot of people, not only myself.
A picture of a stack of ready to deliver cabinets by my workbench.
The one that usually stays months unsold yet tested with everything that gets on my bench, is the one on the lower right.
Note: *maybe* on a Hi Fi woofer with very soft foam edge there's not that much softening with use, or to be more precise, only the (also soft) suspension ring (spider) softens, but on my speakers (and similar ones) with an originally very stiff paper edge and stiff smaller diameter suspension, the difference after a couple months of heavy use is *dramatic*.
I make my own Guitar/Bass speakers for over 35 years now.
Typical MI construction, with rectilinear paper cone, controlled breakup rings/grooves , heavily doped paper edge, somewhat stiff treated cloth suspension.
It's the one on the right
A closer view:
I usually sell them inside my 2x12" cabinets.
I always must have one of them by my workbench, so customers can try the heads, and I try not to sell it, simply to simplify handling.
My Lab room is cramped (like 99% others) so I prefer Musicians to pick a new, just made cabinet instead, out of the warehouse room, so the "test" one gets heavily worked after a couple months.
Talk about break in !!!
So far, so good, but sometimes a customer says "fine, I like it, but let me test the actual cabinet I'm buying, instead of the "test" one.
So we bring a fresh one , set it aside the "Test" one, and simply plug it in.
No time lost in dismounting and remounting speakers as some have mentioned, just 5 seconds switching.
Boy, the difference is *dramatic*.
So much so, that I have
a) been accused of "testing the amps with a *good* speaker, then cheating and delivering a cheaper one" or
b) had to actually deliver the old, used one.
Even if it's somewhat dirty or has beer glass ring marks or the Tolex was slightly scratched .
So in a nutshell, the difference is real, quite noticeable, and by a lot of people, not only myself.
A picture of a stack of ready to deliver cabinets by my workbench.
The one that usually stays months unsold yet tested with everything that gets on my bench, is the one on the lower right.
Note: *maybe* on a Hi Fi woofer with very soft foam edge there's not that much softening with use, or to be more precise, only the (also soft) suspension ring (spider) softens, but on my speakers (and similar ones) with an originally very stiff paper edge and stiff smaller diameter suspension, the difference after a couple months of heavy use is *dramatic*.
Again, I have to say that it's not that I don't believe in break-in as these are mechanical devices, but we still continue to use anecdotes or hearing impressions. In this day and age of PC A/D sound cards, mp3's, decent mics, and high speed internet, I see no reason why posting sound clips is not just as expected as jpg photos when people are talking about the SOUND of their speakers.
It can't be that new of an idea. Or is the truth that people are a little hesitant or fearful that once the actual recorded sound is given for all to hear and judge, they won't be deemed by others as good as their own impression? Can someone give me reasons why sound clips are not posted?
It can't be that new of an idea. Or is the truth that people are a little hesitant or fearful that once the actual recorded sound is given for all to hear and judge, they won't be deemed by others as good as their own impression? Can someone give me reasons why sound clips are not posted?
Maybe to those of us who are comfortable with PCs, it seems ridiculous not to post sound clips; I still have trouble with jpegs. But I have been happily building speakers, amps, TTs etc for 40 years.
Does that answer your question?
.
I have to say it is easier than building a speaker or amp. It's a matter of having the desire to do it, and you teach yourself. If one can look at a schematic with jfets, mosfets, inductors, caps, transformers, npn, pnp, push-pull, etc and build a working amp, then certainly plugging a mic into the mic port of their pc, opening a recorder program, pushing record, then attaching file to the post is not that hard. It's just motivation. Imagine how boring these forums would be without eye candy jpegs. Now imagine if we can also get ear candy. Maybe I should start a new thread showing how? One day, we will see that posting sounds will be the norm.
Do you have a microphone and means to record sound to electronic file? I am not sure if looking at voltage from sine sweep on o-scope will tell us as much as our ears.
I might have missed a post on this... but has anyone considered the possibility that break-in can actually result in a driver producing WORSE sound? It would stand to reason that every break-in process isn't beneficial if break-in is a real phenomenon.
As mentioned before, it could be that the mind acclimatizes to speakers whether or not the break-in is beneficial to sound quality. Real double-blind testing must be conducted before we can come to any conclusions though. Unlike the OP, I do not think that this debate is settled...
As mentioned before, it could be that the mind acclimatizes to speakers whether or not the break-in is beneficial to sound quality. Real double-blind testing must be conducted before we can come to any conclusions though. Unlike the OP, I do not think that this debate is settled...
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No! Break-in always makes everything better. Speakers, cables, caps, gears, etc. Things never change for the worse.
I know only one person who claims to hear caps change for the worse (get brighter) with play. He designs with that in mind.
The OP did not even make the right comparison, blind or not, to make these claims. He compared a driver with many hours on it to one that is new, but by his own admission, heavily modified. He even says that the reported Fs of the new driver is higher than the other driver. Why did he attribute the perceived lack of bass to break-in? Could it not be equally attributed to the cone treatment of the new driver?
People use dropbox here, that way you can hear a WAVE or FLAC file.
But not often. It is a matter of desire to learn something, correct.
I understand the desire for an MP3.
That said, at least in my case, (can't speak for others), it will not help much, if at all.
Why? Please try to understand what I'm trying to explain:
1) when I test these speakers (any new one vs. another with *heavy* driving for a couple months on a daily basis) I am listening to it direct, with my own ears, 1 meter away, driven by a 100W head on the verge of clipping, the way MI amps are used.
These are true 97dB/W speakers, 2 of them in parallel in a 61x61x31cm box , sitting in the floor in front of me.
I am listening to them ***LOUD*** .
At those levels, I am not only listening with my ears but feel them with my body , even with my feet (my Lab is in a wooden floor room, in an old European type house).
Testing them that way, the difference is not subtle at all, but dramatic.
As I said, so much so that sometimes I have problems with my customers, who think I'm cheating them (demoing with a "good" one, delivering a so-so one).
2) then, so, what's the problem?
After all, it's just recording and posting, isn't it?
Well, that's exactly the problem.
Not the recording itself: any electret capsule is incredibly flat, and a raw WAV file is as flat and transparent as they come, albeit too bulky.
Since we are talking Lab/Demo stuff here, it's better not to compress it , why add unnecessary artifacts?
The Electret capsule will probably have to be modified to avoid saturation , forget about plugging a mic straight on the Sound Card, but there's ample info on the Net to do it properly:
Recording and Measurement Microphones
Of course, the Rich Man's option is to plug a Shure SM57 or better into a reasonably good PC Interface .
So, then, where's the problem?
The problem lies in reproduction .
How will you listen to my Demo, at your home?
What will you listen to it through?
To be more precise: what speaker will you use?
What will you drive it with?
At least in the case of these MI speakers, to hear the same as I (or any customer) , you'll need at least 100W RMS (easy) and a big 100dB/W speaker which most anybody does not have , unless you are in the PA business.
Or you'll have to stand right by me, in the same room.
Remember that the big improvement Break-in brings lies in the lowest octave.
And in my opinion the physical effect is: paper edge and treated cloth suspension fibers get flexed a lot, hard, lose elasticity, get more plasticity, the speaker resonance lowers (even a couple Hz are noticeable, musically it's "another" note, very easy to perceive by a Musician), Q lowers, both cause a downwards shift in the resonant peak and its Q, the speaker becomes more damped.
In fact, although psychologically not as satisfactory, I think it can be shown much better (at least on a Forum) with some graphs.
Even better if old/new can be superimposed.
At this very moment I sold out all of my old batch of speakers (thanks Christmas and "aguinaldo", the 13th salary traditionally paid in December in Latin Culture Countries), including the "shop" one; I'm currently making 50 new ones , so I'll set one pair aside for Bench/Demo use and in a couple months will measure and publish.
Stay tuned.
PS: at least in my case, I am comparing exact same speakers, not modded to unmodded or any other variation.
That said, at least in my case, (can't speak for others), it will not help much, if at all.
Why? Please try to understand what I'm trying to explain:
1) when I test these speakers (any new one vs. another with *heavy* driving for a couple months on a daily basis) I am listening to it direct, with my own ears, 1 meter away, driven by a 100W head on the verge of clipping, the way MI amps are used.
These are true 97dB/W speakers, 2 of them in parallel in a 61x61x31cm box , sitting in the floor in front of me.
I am listening to them ***LOUD*** .
At those levels, I am not only listening with my ears but feel them with my body , even with my feet (my Lab is in a wooden floor room, in an old European type house).
Testing them that way, the difference is not subtle at all, but dramatic.
As I said, so much so that sometimes I have problems with my customers, who think I'm cheating them (demoing with a "good" one, delivering a so-so one).
2) then, so, what's the problem?
After all, it's just recording and posting, isn't it?
Well, that's exactly the problem.
Not the recording itself: any electret capsule is incredibly flat, and a raw WAV file is as flat and transparent as they come, albeit too bulky.
Since we are talking Lab/Demo stuff here, it's better not to compress it , why add unnecessary artifacts?
The Electret capsule will probably have to be modified to avoid saturation , forget about plugging a mic straight on the Sound Card, but there's ample info on the Net to do it properly:
Recording and Measurement Microphones
Of course, the Rich Man's option is to plug a Shure SM57 or better into a reasonably good PC Interface
.So, then, where's the problem?
The problem lies in reproduction .
How will you listen to my Demo, at your home?
What will you listen to it through?
To be more precise: what speaker will you use?
What will you drive it with?
At least in the case of these MI speakers, to hear the same as I (or any customer) , you'll need at least 100W RMS (easy) and a big 100dB/W speaker which most anybody does not have , unless you are in the PA business.
Or you'll have to stand right by me, in the same room
. Remember that the big improvement Break-in brings lies in the lowest octave.
And in my opinion the physical effect is: paper edge and treated cloth suspension fibers get flexed a lot, hard, lose elasticity, get more plasticity, the speaker resonance lowers (even a couple Hz are noticeable, musically it's "another" note, very easy to perceive by a Musician), Q lowers, both cause a downwards shift in the resonant peak and its Q, the speaker becomes more damped.
In fact, although psychologically not as satisfactory, I think it can be shown much better (at least on a Forum) with some graphs.
Even better if old/new can be superimposed.
At this very moment I sold out all of my old batch of speakers (thanks Christmas and "aguinaldo", the 13th salary traditionally paid in December in Latin Culture Countries
), including the "shop" one; I'm currently making 50 new ones , so I'll set one pair aside for Bench/Demo use and in a couple months will measure and publish.Stay tuned.
PS: at least in my case, I am comparing exact same speakers, not modded to unmodded or any other variation.
Yes, agree that *good* headphones will be quite accurate .... and easy to drive to high levels ... at least at your eardrums.
More accurate than practically any speaker, in fact.
You'll still miss the chest thumping and floor vibrating, but hey, nobody's perfect.
As I said, the recording will capture whatever is present there.
As of ZIP, don't take my word for it, but afaik sound files are too "dense", too much information packed inside, so not much "free space" which allows for compression.
Definitely not to MP3 size, which cheats and discards *tons* of data , that's why it's "lossy".
But it's easy to take any WAV file and ZIP it to check.
But the sample I'll eventually provide may be , say, mono, and sampled at 22 KHz (we are trying to show variations in the lowest octave, after all) will be around 2.5Mb
If too large to be posted here, it can be housed somewhare else and linked, so that's not the main problem.
As of listening from a close distance to (always very efficient) guitar speakers, using a clipping to death big power amp, is the norm, rather than the exception in the MI industry.
Of course, tinnitus and plain deafness is the most common "Professional disease".
There's worse.
My customers "La Renga", an Argentine Rock band, play live with 6 100W Tube Guitar heads (1 MBDR, 2 Matchless 120, 3 Marshalls) into 6 to 10 Marshall 4x12" Celestions; the Bass player uses 2 of my tube preamps driving an AB Systems 1500W and a QSC 900W power amps into 4 Ampeg "fridges", the 8x10" classic cabinets.
Part of the bass side. My kids are in the picture too
Part of the guitar side:
Yes, Rock is Madness .
More accurate than practically any speaker, in fact.
You'll still miss the chest thumping and floor vibrating, but hey, nobody's perfect.
As I said, the recording will capture whatever is present there.
As of ZIP, don't take my word for it, but afaik sound files are too "dense", too much information packed inside, so not much "free space" which allows for compression.
Definitely not to MP3 size, which cheats and discards *tons* of data , that's why it's "lossy".
But it's easy to take any WAV file and ZIP it to check.
But the sample I'll eventually provide may be , say, mono, and sampled at 22 KHz (we are trying to show variations in the lowest octave, after all) will be around 2.5Mb
If too large to be posted here, it can be housed somewhare else and linked, so that's not the main problem.
As of listening from a close distance to (always very efficient) guitar speakers, using a clipping to death big power amp, is the norm, rather than the exception in the MI industry.
Of course, tinnitus and plain deafness is the most common "Professional disease".
There's worse.
My customers "La Renga", an Argentine Rock band, play live with 6 100W Tube Guitar heads (1 MBDR, 2 Matchless 120, 3 Marshalls) into 6 to 10 Marshall 4x12" Celestions; the Bass player uses 2 of my tube preamps driving an AB Systems 1500W and a QSC 900W power amps into 4 Ampeg "fridges", the 8x10" classic cabinets.
Part of the bass side. My kids are in the picture too
Part of the guitar side:
Yes, Rock is Madness .
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