Breaking In a new set of Speakers

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Hi everyone, I am now near the completion of my first set of diy speakers and was wondering the best situation for breaking in.

I have heard it takes a good 10 to 20 hours to break in a set of speakers, is this true?

Also is it best to break them in loud, and if so how loud, or is it better to start off soft and turn it up every few hours?

What sort of sounds are best to play through them? Cheers, Nic.
 
My father just got a pair of Maggie MMG's,and then left his apartment to go to a new job in California,so i've been watching his place..
I left the radio on when I wasn't there,fairly low level and it did indeed help break in the Maggies..

Other tricks I use are playing Prodigy and other "fast paced/insane" type stuff.Crank it up for a little bit,and give the speakers a workout.
 
Break in

You can put the speakers face to face and wire one of them out of phase. To get good cancellation you will need a mono signal, so that both speakers recieve exactly the same signal and cancel more completely. You can then turn up the volume while you're out without annoying your neighbours. With a music signal speakers may take weeks to break in.
 
I used 15 hours of 15Hz at Xmax for my FR125's, but that was for testing T/S reasons. Playing them daily at about 100mW power, it took I'd say 200 hours before they settled in to what my ears said "from great to super!"

But, technicalities aside, Vikash is correct, IMO ;)
 
re: speaker break-in

psychocow21 said:
Thanks for the help guys, I'm too lazy to bother with reversing polarities and getting a mono signal so I think i'll probably just do what Vikash said, and i'll play them while i'm out of the house too. Cheers, Nic.

I had some speakers back in college that I threw out the 3rd floor window... but they just broke... didn't break-in per se...

I've never personally experienced speaker break in... other than my own ears becoming accustomed to the sound.

In fact, until some of my successful recent projects, I've found a sort of reverse break in phenomena (break-out?) wherein I build/buy new speakers, amps, etc., think they sound marvelous for a few months until I read more about cables/TIM/IM/whatever and think "geez, maybe there's something to this..." and have to move on to something better, tweak, etc.

Curse of the DIY-er...

auplater
 
panomaniac said:
No one here is saying what happens to a driver during break-in.
That would seem a rather important point for tuning a system.

Does anyone have info on changes in measured parameters b4 and after supposed break-in... I recall reading a few yrs. ago where Tom Nousaine I think did some rather extensive measurements on several woofers b4, during and after many hours of various break-in regimens and found little significant change in VAS, Q, Fs, etc. that could not have just as easily been production run variance.

One would think that such a "well known" phenomena as speaker breakin would be accepted by manufacturers and compensated for in the design of their ultimate systems selling for $$$$$$ . ... one would think...... ;)

Do mfgs. quote specs as average across mfg. runs, b4 "burn-in", etc. Any refernces to such? Being a materials sort of guy, I've spent a significant portion of my career worrying about stress/strain relationships, relaxation effects, carrier migration and vacency formation, plastic transition points, fatigue in materials, composite structures (aerospace firms worry alot about this) all that fun stuff of engineering...

auplater
 
Is is worth spending $100 or so on a decent 2nd hand (ebay) eq? I've never really known whether one of those would be helpful? Do any of you guy have an eq in your set up?

Or would my monies be better spent on a new(er) Rotel amp (eBay again), I have been think for a while that (once funds allow) I might consider getting a new Rotel amp. I like the 90s models (the black ones), they seem to be new enough without the premium of a brand spanking new model.

About 60 - 70wrms seems enough, as the speakers have about that in them and that should be enough without having to upgrade any time soon. Is clipping a major worry if my amp has less than half the power of the speakers?

What are peoples thoughts on Rotel, I've always thought they're a good lot.

I have a Rotel from the 70s or 80s at the moment. It only has ~20wrms per channel and one channel drops of at quiet levels.

Any thoughts?
 
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