How to do "traditional break-in period" for new speakers?

[MillionaireNextDoor]

No clue. How do I break in my new Logitech z560s?

(I just know someone's going to suggest physically hitting the speakers but that's not what I had in mind )

"White noise" might have something to do with it

 

[baisezmoi]

first play a michael jackson cd, than brittney spears cd, and then finally play any boyband cd. once you've listened to all them, you passed your break in period.

 

[pillage2001]

<< first play a michael jackson cd, than brittney spears cd, and then finally play any boyband cd. once you've listened to all them, you passed your break in period. >>



OMG!!! OH NO! AIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!! NOOOOOO!O!OO!O!!!!

LOL

You don't have to exactly play all those. Just get some mediocre hard thumping music and DO NOT BLAST it at the first time. Crank it up from there.

 

[Antisocial Virge]

After 50 miles re-torqe the lugnuts and check the oil.

 

[zephyrprime]

Why would speakers need a breakin period.

 

[R2D2]

1. Purchase DVD player.
2. Slap on "Twister."
3. At the final credits, crank up "Respect the Wind" until nose bleeds.
4. Replay until dizzy.

That should do it.


Seriously though, download some "Pink Noise," get an SPL meter (or use your ears), and balance the F/R and L/R. (Reposition sub when playing normal music for best effect)

Check out the review


http://www.extremetech.com/article/0,3396,s%3D200%26a%3D17030,00.asp


BTW: Congrats on the nice setup!
R2

 

[Migroo]

Speakers (hifi speakers) have a break-in period of around 72 hours of playing before they give best performance.

How new speakers are doesnt affect the way they take damage by high volume levels.

 

[yourharddrive]

i just take em outta the box and blast some rap with good bass at the highest level, always works for me

 

[larciel]

my Klipsch sounded awesome from the beginning

it still is best.. oooh

 

[Workin']

<< Speakers (hifi speakers) have a break-in period of around 72 hours of playing before they give best performance. >>

Only if you also believe in fairies and leprechauns.

 

[boyRacer]

go play Michael Bolton... 'I Said I Love You But I Lied'...hahahaha...that'll break in anything.

 

[RalfHutter]

A very good way to break in speakers is to get a source of "white noise" (all frequency spectrums covered) and play it for 50-100 hrs at a moderate to high level. This will break in the electrical circuts (crossovers amd wiring) and the mechanical stuff (driver surrounds and voice coils).

If you can't tolerate the noise you can wire one speaker out of phase with the other and put the speakers facing each other and cover them with blankets or something that will damp the noise.

 

[Workin']

I hear that playing "What a Fool Believes" by the Doobie Brothers is very good for speaker break in.

 

[erikiksaz]

Just play whatever music you listen to. There isn't any set method of "breaking in" speakers or headphones, it's all preference.

 

[MasterHoss]

Just don't go crazy with your speakers too soon. To be safe, don't crank them past say 60% for a week or so. Generally, although there are many who believe otherwise, all break-in periods are null and void...same thing with new cars these days.

EDIT: Put it this way. All speaker manufactures would want their speakers to sound the best--if there a break in period was actually needed, they sure as hell would mention it all over the box, speakers, and manual--since no one mentions break in periods....

 

[Daovonnaex]

<< Just don't go crazy with your speakers too soon. To be safe, don't crank them past say 60% for a week or so. Generally, although there are many who believe otherwise, all break-in periods are null and void...same thing with new cars these days.

EDIT: Put it this way. All speaker manufactures would want their speakers to sound the best--if there a break in period was actually needed, they sure as hell would mention it all over the box, speakers, and manual--since no one mentions break in periods.... >>

Actually, all new engines must still be broken in, which takes about 5,000 miles.

 

[DaLeroy]

<< Just don't go crazy with your speakers too soon. To be safe, don't crank them past say 60% for a week or so. Generally, although there are many who believe otherwise, all break-in periods are null and void...same thing with new cars these days.

EDIT: Put it this way. All speaker manufactures would want their speakers to sound the best--if there a break in period was actually needed, they sure as hell would mention it all over the box, speakers, and manual--since no one mentions break in periods.... >>




Actually, my speakers documentation mentioned breaking the speakers in, and how to. My speakers definately sounded better after a couple of weeks of use, the highs weren't as harsh as when I first used them, made a huge difference.

 

[jteef]

dont play white noise too loudly unless you want to buy some new tweeters. White noise has equal power for every frequency. Pink noise on the other hand, has equal noise per octave. Most tweeters are rated to power handling of musical program material. White noise would have roughly 85% of the power going to the tweeters. at 50 watts per channel, that is nearly 43 watts going directly to the tweeter. Even really high end tweeters (much less a set of 5 computer speakers that sell for less than half the cost of a single high end tweeter) are unsuited to handle that much continuous power. With the Z560s being coaxial speakers, i dont know exactly how this will translate but it surely isn't good.

Pink noise would have equal parts power going to say 16-31hz, 32-63hz, 63-125, 125-250, 250-500, 500-1k, 1k-2k, 2k-4k, 4k-8k, 8k-16k

so 50 watts of pink noise would provide roughly 5 watts to each octave. or 35 watts to the woofers, and 15 watts to the tweeters. These calculations assume crossovers at 2-3khz.

Breaking in electronics is an audio myth. Any sort of fluctuations that would have occured do so milliseconds after you turn it on. Letting your audio gear warm up on the other hand is worth while, not really important in cheap computer speakers though. The bias currents do change drastically under different temperature conditions so it makes sense to allow everything to stabilize. This can take from a couple minutes to a couple hours depending on the circuit. i am thinking computer speaker amplifiers are on the short side of this as they have really small bias currents to begin with and dont heat up as much.

I think speakers can benefit from breaking in because they are mechanical parts. But I think a lot of people would have you believe the effect is much greater than reality. It is going to make the least difference in mass produced parts who's enclosures haven't been compensated for the adjusted T/S parameters. (this would be very time consuming and cost prohibitive to do on a large scale)

The spiders and surrounds are usually stiffer on new speakers, which would lessen the likelyhood damaging the voice coil because it would require more energy for the speaker to bottom out. The stiffer surrounds/spiders can store more energy than one that has been broken in, and the excess energy could be transferred to the chassis or cone in a manner that is not meant to be. This would probably be realized in larger cone resonances, but i am thinking it would be too small for an ear to notice.

jt

 

[superbaby]

Computer speakers aren't sensitive enough to require a breaking-in period.

Now if you had some monsters in your living room that cost over $2k, then that's another story.

 

[A2KLAU]

To break speakers in you will need:

Hammer, Chainsaw, and Drill..

Now what to do:

Set the speakers up nice a beatifully where you want them to be, then you start at low volumes with some music, songs and what have you, and then play it on repeat CD for a few hours, then you turn the volume up abit more, and up and up and repeat this until its at realativerly high volume, i.e 2/3, 3/4 volume.. and then thats it.. they should be broken in..

But to be honist Superbaby said speakers of the computer nature don't really need breaking in..

But FloorStander (Mission 702e) And Sony Surrounds and Sony Bookshelf Speakers all rigged to a 325Watt amp will need somewhere around 28-30 horus breaking in time.. so no good nights sleep when its in the room opposite where you sleep but its all worth it int eh end..

I would think breaking in time for your speakers would be a morning til night time job.. if you really wanted to you could plug it into your Hi-Fi or radio tuner that has a jack and listen to music all day or something..

Those are just my opinions.. Do not hold me responsible for damamge of equipment form misuse or following my advice too closely, i.e Chainsaw, Hammer and Drill...

Albert.

 

[jamarno]

The only reason to break in speakers is to test them for defects, such as an off-center voice coil that will distort the sound (and probably short out eventually).