Speakers need warm up?

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Hi, been wondering for some years. Know of the fact that tube amps need a warm up. Takes around 20-40 minutes for the amp start running on all cylinders. After 1 hour it runs really good.
But, and this goes for all of my amps, - the real, final "open up" will occur in about 3 hours of playing. (I am using high quality speakers).


Question; Is that 3 hours of warm up not due to the amp, -but the speakers?
The coils, or crossover-filters, or even the speaker-cords getting "warmed" up?


Ideas about this?
 
I used to hear a "warming up" effect back in the day when I was still using horrible stuff like loads of Black Gate capacitors. The second record played always sounded better then the first.
My current valve amplification needs about a minute to be on and stable and sound doesn't change for better or worse after that minute.
 
Warm ears or brain?

Hi, thank´s for the reply on my question. I always thought that this effect was in my ears, -or head anyway.
But as "boswald" writes, i noticed this "fenomen" when coming back to a listening session after been outside for a while, maybe half an hour or sometimes more, listening again to the same records i started with.

And -it´s not the frequense-response or dB´s etc. i mean. It´s the sound itself, more thigter, faster and kind of "leaning out" from the speakers.

Also, it´s not my ears been rested when i take a break from listening, since i´we often been in my noisy workshop.

Anyway all this can be in my head only, -i understand that. Just was a bit curious if someone else has ever noticed the same "fenomen"?
 
I find that my ears/brain adjust to loudness over time as I listen, this can work both ways, that is, I can keep turning the volume up as they appear to desensitise, but, far better, I can keep turning the volume down and they become more sensitive, this is particularly good late at night when there is less background noise. I seem to hear more detail this way, probably for a number of reasons, but I believe primarily because the speaker is moving less, and consequently distorting less.
 
While most of us are aware of the brain aspect of this, I agree wholeheartedly that some drivers do require a warm up period. I'm not big on driver break in as such but warm up, absolutely.

Here's a casual way to check: turn on your system and leave right away. Come back a few hours later and see how it sounds to you. Play the same song a few times and see if you can hear more in it after a few tries.

IMHO most speakers take only about 20 minutes of warm up given a decent run-in, but your method is exactly how I came to the realization.
 
I 'm more curious about the cable warm up period mentioned in the original post :)

i have a heater built into my directional speaker cables to keep the warm up time to a minimum. usually 15 min of warm up gets the electrons in the cryogenicly treated oxygen free copper excited to the point they can flow freely. the heater is battery operated with several emi filters along the path connected to a dedicated ground system to keep the noise to a minimum.

The batteries are lead acid as they produce the lowest noise.

when it comes to charge the batteries i use a regulated isolation transformer to reduce any unwanted line fluctuations into the charging system to insure the plates are evenly charged.

the batteries themselves are gold plated terminal AGM batteries hand build by nude virgins.

the whole system is 20 feet below ground to keep any outside nose from entering the system.

makes my mp3's sound great coming from my unmodified minumus-7's sound great! never got such clear sound from my radioshack ra-155 before i installed the heater system.

best 100,000 dollars i ever spent.

having the led on the amplifier changed to blue next, i hear that makes a huge difference.
 
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I'm not clear what boswald is saying
They don't sound the same when cold as when they've had a chance to warm up. That is particularly obvious with the CSS WR125. Everytime you fire them up they take 15 or 20 minutes to come into their own. The bass is where this is most noticeable. And yes, to realize the effect, it's best to leave the room as boswald says. Make sure your amps are already warm, play one song then go away for the next 20 minutes and play the same song again.
 
makes my mp3's sound great coming from my unmodified minumus-7's sound great! never got such clear sound from my radioshack ra-155 before i installed the heater system.

best 100,000 dollars i ever spent.

having the led on the amplifier changed to blue next, i hear that makes a huge difference.
At last a high end product that actually works on modest equipment and not just price equivalent ' ultra revealing ' gear , 100k is a bit pricy though , maybe a budget version using 99% virgin assembly methods as a first step on the upgrade path ?

Scott , are snails directional ?
 
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