Breaking in speakers....

ecc83

karltone said:

I connect them to the filament wiring on a transformer (6.3v) and give them at least several hours with a few breaks in between to bed them in a bit.

This was my technique when asked to "aged" a drive unit. I do however remain sceptical of the need or benefit. I have been involved in long, sometimes acrimonious threads about "burning in" with respect to hi-fi speakers/monitors and headphones. Never in all the verbiage written on the subject has anyone come up with any direct, .wav evidence of any changes.

My take on high end monitors etc is that they should be made of materials that do not fatigue OR if they DO change properties, they should be burned in at the factory.

I do see that guitar speakers are different in that they have a paper surround that will lose a bit of stiffness. This will lower the cone resonance slightly but since Fo is almost always below bottom E (E= 80Hz, Fo is rarely higher than 75Hz) I cannot see much sonic benefit?

But! Peeps DO report a subjective difference. I would just like to hear it!

Dave.

ICBM

ecc83 said:

I would just like to hear it!

There's a video a few posts further up .

steamabacus said:

vasselmeyer said:

Does "breaking in" speakers actually make any difference?

Listen for yourself....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlS_k4niVMs

It clearly demonstrates that they change, particularly noticeable at the bottom end. If anything I think he underplays the difference on the less bassy sounds a bit - I hear the broken-in speakers as quite a bit more open-sounding, even when the actual 'tone' hasn't changed that much.

Although he does use the 'organic' word unfortunately . (I understand what he means!)

Gassage

Here's a top tip from me.

Get a big jack to small jack connector.

Apply MP3 player- turn to a reasonable vol.

Leave.

I've done it loads of times.

(I'm sure someone will say this is insane and I shouldn't)

impmann

That's what I do - but I leave Ace of Spades playing at high volume overnight for a couple of nights at work in the soundproof booth. Plenty of nice gritty mids to and low end thump.

Drew_TNBD

I've never really had to do it with guitar speakers. Always bought my cabs 2nd hand or ex-demo. I reckon my Egnater cab got a proper working when sat up in GuitarGuitar with all the teenyboppers blasting through it!

simonbeckwith

From what people have said inform only takes 20 or so hours to bed in I'll just keep playing it coz that time will pass extremely quickly. It's had a good 1.5 hrs already, will get the same again tomorrow, maybe a bit today, most of next week then band practice the following Tuesday by which time it'll be pretty much done. Appreciate all tips though chaps!!

imalrightjack

Are there any frequencies to avoid when hooking up an MP3 player to a guitar head?  And is it right that a hemp cone (Cannabis Rex) will take more like 100 hours to break in?

Pete24v

I just play my speakers on gigs to break them in, i like to hear the differences.

I've noticed most speakers go after 10 gigs or so, my Fane's took a little longer, and the tonal differences were not as big as say a V30.

And the V30 is a strange one, I remember chatting to a Celestion rep a few years ago at a guitar show. I asked some silly question, like, why is it called a Vintage 30 yet it's 60w rated. His reply was that the speaker wants to see 30w as that's when it sounds it's best. It will handle more power, but that will change the sound of the speaker. It's meant to sound the way it does fresh out of the box, when the sound changes, the speaker is knackered.

Odd!

ICBM

I really think Celestion don't have a clue what they're on about with the V30. They should go back and read their own ads for it from the 1980s. It's called a Vintage 30 because it was meant to sound like a vintage 30 - ie an old G12H-30 - but with higher power handling. Developed with laser interferometry on the cone movement of the old speakers, no less...

Presumably the fact that it doesn't is considered such an embarrassment that the fact it sounds great in its own right - *especially* when well broken in and driven hard - has been forgotten or deliberately buried. It's really ridiculous to say it's meant to sound like it does fresh out of the box, that would give it a life expectancy of a few dozen hours.

p90fool

Lol true, I've even heard it claimed that they're called Vintage 30 because they're 30cm in diameter.