Ive always read about people talking about speaker burn in. i.e people say that when new spekers are bought they should first be played at low volumes for a long time or else one will risk burining their speakers?? What does this really mean. Ive read many complaints about people burning their THX 550 megaworks speakers. Could this be a remedy??
Speaker Burn-in??
- Thread starter Carlmc79
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ehm as slighty off topic, I first read "Burning Sneakers" 
which is actually finnish band called Bomfunc MC's latest album. (you propably don't know them but few europeans might have heard about them.)
well, at least for me, this is first time I hear about burning speakers when played on full volume straight from the start.
I'll be following this thread with great interest too...
which is actually finnish band called Bomfunc MC's latest album. (you propably don't know them but few europeans might have heard about them.)well, at least for me, this is first time I hear about burning speakers when played on full volume straight from the start.
I'll be following this thread with great interest too...Paul said:
The claim is absurd, shitty speakers or not. If you are going to burn your speakers (typically by running your amplifier into clipping, generating very high levels of high frequency components), you will do so just as effectively after having played your speakers at low levels.
This whole "burning in speakers" thing does have a (very slight) basis in reality. The speaker cone works as a spring, and reacts to the motor force of the magnet assembly with a certain stiffness. The term used is compliance. Depending on construction of the speaker, this compliance may change somewhat as it ages. Slighty right at the start, and more severely when the suspension starts to rot.
These initial changes should be very slight though, and are typically much less than tolerances between individual speaker elements anyway. Also, these changes should really not have any significant impact on the sound. The most critical systems (sixth or higher order bass resonance systems) are more plagued by manufacturing tolerances anyway.Of course the concept of "burning in" a component spread to amplifiers, CD-players, and even speaker wires.
Well, ive read many user complaints about the Megaworks 550THX, i.e in many user reviews of online stores. Some guys have even complained that the speaker hasnt even lasted a week at low volume levels.
look here for some comments:
http://www.pricegrabber.com/rating_getprodrev.php/product_id=651425/id_type=M/ut=3e38e9031ec1318f
look here for some comments:
http://www.pricegrabber.com/rating_getprodrev.php/product_id=651425/id_type=M/ut=3e38e9031ec1318f
Carlmc79 said:
A product problem is a product problem.
Although reading through some of those comments I'd say there is a severe consumer problem.
Playing the speaker at low volumes for a couple of days doesn't make it less likely to break if you play it loudly. There is no proposed cause and effect, if you'll notice. Besides, anyone who bolsters his claim of expertise on " I paid as much as $170 on these speakers so I gotta know what I'm talking about" is an idiot, albeit arguably less so than if he had paid $17000.
Well, what can happen is the material thats used for the "spring" can be a little stiff just after it comes off the manufacturing line, giving a slight taughter, constricted sound. Burning in is loosen this sufficiently.
One way of burning in high end speaker is to have the left and right channels facing each other and then reverse the polarity of one of them so that they are in phase with each other, you can then gradually ratchet up the volume.
On your two points Dave, I would argue that the first will only apply to cheap, low quality speakers. Considering how long they are designed to last for, you would not want the Young modulus of the material to alter so quickly under use; on top of this, hand-built quality speakers will already have been "run-in" during QA testing at the factory (Linn do this all the time, for example).DaveBaumann said:
For your second point, I assume you're talking about having the sound sources 180 degrees out of phase so that you can reduce the amount of sound actually heard during the "run-in" period (ie. you do it to get destructive interference). That will only work for the area between the speakers - they will still project sound behind them.
Its been a while since I last looked into the Hi-Fi scene in terms of speakers as I've been happy with my Tannoy Sixes for many years now, however, no this was avocated for Hi-Fi (not "system" speakers). I would guess that most stuff that you'd find in separtes stores that still have some kind of relative mass market appeal between £150 and £500 (your lower end Tannoys, B&W's, Mission etc., etc.) and are still quite mass produced would require some kind of burn in period.
I believe the point of it is to speed up the process - you effectly double the effect since one cone is pushing while the other is pulling.
[edit] Evidently others have heard about this method as well:
http://audioasylum.com/audio/speakers/messages/22168.html
That message confirms what I was describing, that the method is actually done to reduce the amount of sound actually being produced. That way the speakers remain working, and can be driven fairly hard, but without deafening the house. The drivers won't be working any harder like this.DaveBaumann said:
The important things to remember when doing this is that (1) the speakers must touch each other to prevent any sound from reflecting off the floors, tables, etc (which will ruin the destructive interference you're trying to achieve), and (2) a mono sound source must be used.
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