Speaker Breakin Period

[ddouglass]

As far as blowing speakers go as long as your speakers are rated for a highter wattage than your amp can put out then you won't blow a speaker. It is usually people who use undersized speakers who have this problem.
If a cone on a new speaker was dry and going to crack, no amount of "break-in" is going to help keep it from cracking. In fact when a speaker cone gets in this condition the only thing that can be done is to replace the speaker.
And yes like you two "old-timers" I have been around audio equipment for a long time, though I am not a musician. I have been a technician for 40+ years.

[muzicman144]

Dale, you are absolutely correct. Never undersize your speakers. A lot of people buy high watt amps thinking its better without thinking about what the speaker handles. I have never blown a speaker, but with today's choices of equipment, there is very little guidance for the novice trying to purchase this type of equipment, plus, a lot is not manufactured any more for the real professional sound, but rather by pricing to attract the novice, like bheringer, looks great, stops there.
As for the technician, While i think i know sound, working with techs out of Nashville occasionally, brings me back down to a much humbler approach.
Again, thanks for your service and devotion to this forum.
Muzicman144

[Musicman51]

The input has been great to this age old tech question. I will hold off on giving what my research has uncovered untill some others hopefully weigh in here with their observations. Difference twiched you and me dale, is you are educated, i ain't....lol

[Musicman51]

You are correct in your observations muzicman144 however. Lets not forget that budget gear like Alto, Phonic, Behringer Nady and others have their place and purpose in todays music scene. I wish they had behringer when i was 16. I had to use old worn out guitar amps and beat to death speakers cabs, all i could afford. At least in todays economy, even those that live from payday to payday, can at least purchase a little better speakers and amps then i had to use. Lets take for instance Behringers stomp boxes. I use the Boss DD3 Digital Delay Pedal, with AC adapter this pedal was around 150.00. I tried a behringer delay pedal, and i thought the quality was real close to my Boss pedal, $29.00. Within reach of any kid nowdays, and any hard up working musician. I heard a bunch of young fella's playing up here, and they were powered by all behringer gear. Durn if i could tell the difference in quality. Their band sounded just as good as any other powered by Crown, Peavey, or QSC. Of course you git what ya pay for, i have several pieces of behringer gear in my studio, works fine, and some pieces are going on 5 years old. Do i want to use all behringer stuff? nope. But they do have a place on todays music scene. Just like the imported Fender guitars from Mexico, and the Epiphone guitars from china. I use a 16 Channel Peavey FX16 mixes for karaoke, this mixer is better then any Macki i've ever own, and the effects rival Lexicons...made in china.

[ddouglass]

Originally Posted by Musicman51

The input has been great to this age old tech question. I will hold off on giving what my research has uncovered until some others hopefully weigh in here with their observations. Difference twiched you and me dale, is you are educated, i ain't....lol

Hahaha!! Most of my schooling past my Air Force electronics training was in the school of hard knocks or self taught from books. I do have a degree in Electronics Engineering (Associates) which got me started with computers and led me into working as a network engineer and IT tech, but most of that was self -taught. Anyway, regardless we can all learn if we put our minds to it and I know you have learned a lot just by asking questions in these forums. We are all glad to help and impart our knowledge to others who need it.

[muzicman144]

George, i thoroughly agree with you on the Budget gear a lot of musicians use. I too started with old road worn speakers and amps. All I could afford. Funny, at that time we all thought big was best and that was what we used. Thank goodness for today's technology that makes everything small. What we carried then in a big truck will now go in the trunk of a compact. I still keep my EV system powered by QSC, but don't know why. I use the Bose LII system, best system i have used except the pro sound used in live outdoor venues.
As you said, you git what you pay for and can afford. Move up to the better stuff when you can. Ain't it been a great ride!!!! I have found that when all else fails, music will never let you down!!
muzicman144

[billyo]

Originally Posted by muzicman144

George, i thoroughly agree with you on the Budget gear a lot of musicians use. I too started with old road worn speakers and amps. All I could afford. Funny, at that time we all thought big was best and that was what we used. Thank goodness for today's technology that makes everything small. What we carried then in a big truck will now go in the trunk of a compact. I still keep my EV system powered by QSC, but don't know why. I use the Bose LII system, best system i have used except the pro sound used in live outdoor venues.
As you said, you git what you pay for and can afford. Move up to the better stuff when you can. Ain't it been a great ride!!!! I have found that when all else fails, music will never let you down!!
muzicman144

i totally agree with you, i started with a peavey 6 channel powered board, and kept on buying big speakers thinking bigger is better, till i ended up with a garage full of audio gears ( 8 speakers, 4 18' subs, 6 power amps 3 peavey 12 channel boards, and a bunch of sound processors and road cases ) i had to rent a u-haul everytime i do big venues ,can't even park a car in m 2 car garage anymore, i since got got rid of them , and replaced it with smaller gears, i now have 4 Mackie systems that i used for diff. size venues

[mindonstrike]

Even though the manufactures insist no breakin is needed, I still do it. It just seems to make sense.

The makers of my speaker equipment insist that it can with stand the cold for storage to sub zero but I still keep a heater in the van that kicks on at freezing.

Any tool I use to make a living gets the kid glove treatment, even when the manufacturers say It doesn't need it

Sam

[Lonman]

Originally Posted by ddouglass

As far as blowing speakers go as long as your speakers are rated for a highter wattage than your amp can put out then you won't blow a speaker. It is usually people who use undersized speakers who have this problem.

I have to disagree to a point with this one, while yes you can certainly blow a speaker if the amp is way too powerful for the recommended specs of the speakers, but you can blow a speaker faster with an amp that isn't powerful enough in the first place. An amp should be able to deliver the twice (some engineers & books even recommend 3 x) the RMS power rating. Most speaker manus already add this rating as the 'program' rating. Say for example the Yamaha S115V, it's RMS/PROGRAM/PEAK ratings are 250/500/1000 at 8 ohms. The amp should be pushing at least 500 watts.
I have seen companies blow drivers - mostly high frequency - due to too little power, which seems to be the trend in a lot of companies these days. They see that 250 watt rating and think they can get that or lower & nver blow the amp, truth is, distortion is what is going to kill the speaker, not so much power. While a smaller amp is certainly more than capable of running a show, it may not be doing it with any headroom. The smaller amps once it hits it's rated power, everything over that is going to come in the form of distortion, sometimes not even really audible at first, but the speakers can sure feel it as the voice coils start to heat up. Plus once the amp gets over it's rating, it starts getting almost ear piercingly loud, low frequencies start dropping - typical of MANY shows around here.
If that same system was running with a higher powered amp, the volume at regular listening levels would be much cleaner to start with plus have the headroom to be able to turn up to compensate for crowd noise without the distortion. Now on the flipside, TOO much power can pop a speaker as it will sound pretty good up until speaker failure.

[billyo]

i tend to agree with Lonman, amps should be higher rated than the speakers, if not amps would work harder to bring out the full sound of the cabinets, and this will lead to clipping...

[Musicman51]

So true, an underpower amp is the worse piece of equipment you could own. However, there are exceptions to everything. Depending on what you are going to use the speaker power situation for. But as a general rule, i've never fried a speaker cab by using an underpowered amp, in any situation i've performed at. But i can't say i haven't blown one the other way. If i know i'm going to need more power i take more. I have at times whished i'd had a larger more powerful amp, but i got by with using a bit of common sense. I purchased my new LCD desk top color monitor from Markertek Broadcast Supply, it is actually 5.6" to be exact, and it was $229.00 they work great. The brand name is "Delvcam" you can mount them almost anyplace, 12 Volts, and it runs off a wall wart, and if you turn the screen upside down, the picture remains upright. So there are many mounting options.
Billyo what type of speakers did you say you were using? just curious, not sure you mentioned that, sorry if i didn't catch it. And that sure sounds like a real neat setup system you have. Glad you have it all going well for you.
"May of the home speakers (woofers) have a foam surround at the outer edge of the cone to allow more cone movement for low end frequencies. This foam rots from age and humitity. It will also stretch if the speaker is over driven with much power at the low frequency spectrum and this will somtimes cause the voice coil to rub a little in the magnetic gap that it travels in. If it starts rubbing the coating on the windings of the voice coil the coating will start coming offf and it is possible for the coil to burn in spots until it opens up. The speaker is dead that point. Hope this helps."
Walt you are spot on my man, i have a Peavey Black Widow 1501 Shallow Basket steel guitar speaker, i have 4 of them to be exact. And i took two of these fantastic papar cone speakers, and repaced the magnets with their new Neodymium replacement mags. And the first thing i ran into was that stupid white foam. Peavey told me to wipe the basket clean, and make sure that burnt stuff is all out, then to bolt down the neodymium magnet. I like peavey for the fact that their baskets and mags are field replaceable. And you are in the right direction with that speaker break in as well...

"

[billyo]

i have a pair of Mackie SRM 450 that i used for my show ,and a pair of Mackie 1521z for big venues, a pair of 6" ES (Especial Editon ) KRK Rokit studio monitors paired with a KRK v12s11 v series 10' sub, good enough to used for small clubhouse type parties, and a pair of KRK 8" studio monitors paired with the same 10' subs good enough for backyard parties and all systems has a separate mackie boards and i also have the same type (KRK"s) speakers/subs in my studio that is in my garage.. ( all Mackie/KRK speakers are powered )

[ddouglass]

I also agree that an under powered amp will cause as many problems as over-powering. If you use a 1000 watt amplifier into 250 watt speakers you will blow out the speaker as easily as using a 40 watt amp into 500 watt speakers. So basically try to match your speakers and amp close enough to be able to get the best sound out of both. Your better quality speakers will list a minimum and a maximum power rating.
Now the next question is what percentage do you set your amps at for the optimum output? 50%, 75% or 100%? All of my training has taught me that 75% gives you optimum performance with no distortion or clipping.

[Lonman]

Originally Posted by ddouglass

I also agree that an under powered amp will cause as many problems as over-powering. If you use a 1000 watt amplifier into 250 watt speakers you will blow out the speaker as easily as using a 40 watt amp into 500 watt speakers. So basically try to match your speakers and amp close enough to be able to get the best sound out of both. Your better quality speakers will list a minimum and a maximum power rating.
Now the next question is what percentage do you set your amps at for the optimum output? 50%, 75% or 100%? All of my training has taught me that 75% gives you optimum performance with no distortion or clipping.

I HAVE blown speakers with amps that weren't matched to the speakers - all in live situations however & with heavy rock. When I replaced the amps with the power that the speakers recommended (or a little higher) I never had another problem.
Again I have known SEVERAL people/companies that have blown speakers/drivers with amps that weren't even close to the program ratings of the speaker.
I have always been taught by SEVERAL sound engineers - including 3 that have worked with Nirvana, Pearl Jam & Soundgarden - to open the amps wide open as the mixer is the the pre-amp controller.

[WaltR]

Audio signals are a/c voltages. Speakers will fry if they receive d/c voltage. Some of the older solid state amps could send moemtary d/c voltage spikes to speakers when you first fire the amp up. Most newer quaility amps have delays or protection built into them to prevent this from happening. If you use an amp that doesn't have enough power for your application the tendency is to turn it up beyond it's clean power rating which then starts sending a form of a square wave instead of a sine wave. Depending how bad you are clipping the amp, the square wave is seen to the speaker as some dc voltage. The voice coil overheats and that is bad news for the speaker or driver. Even is you have an amp that is powerful enough for your application it has the protential to send transient peaks that are capable of causing speaker/driver damage. Some amp and powered speakers have clipping L.E.D.'s that show when the amp is clipping. This helps give you a warning as to what your speaker may be seeing. Some have protection built into the amps just for this reason. I like to use a limiter to help prevent to much clipping. I have found that karaoke disks can often have very different output levels from song to song. A limiter will help level things out. I used to rebuild or recone speakers years ago. The only break in I would do was hooking up an low amplification signal generator set for low frequency in order to have the cone move in and out to make sure the coil in the speaker was properly aligned and not rubbing. May of the home speakers (woofers) have a foam surround at the outer edge of the cone to allow more cone movement for low end frequencies. This foam rots from age and humitity. It will also stretch if the speaker is over driven with much power at the low frequency spectrum and this will somtimes cause the voice coil to rub a little in the magnetic gap that it travels in. If it starts rubbing the coating on the windings of the voice coil the coating will start coming offf and it is possible for the coil to burn in spots until it opens up. The speaker is dead that point. Hope this helps.

[BooBoo]

I agree with Lonman for several reasons. Speakers are not designed to have DC running through them and the distortion is DC when an amp is red lined. It's much better to have twice the amp or more than the speakers and control yourself by not running the amp too high. This is also good for the amp as they are better able to handle the heat they generate at half power versus red lined. I also think that speakers, on the other hand, operate best when pushed to their program rating or slightly higher with a good clean signal. The cabs are designed to resonate best at certain amplitudes.

Gain staging is also important to the speaker. Distorting at the preamp, for instance, simply provides a DC signal to amplify all the way through the chain.

I don't bite on the breaking in and warming up of the speakers. If a speaker has an issue when its cold or first put into use, it has an issue period. You might be able to warm up a speaker with an issue and maybe get less coil sticking, but the speaker still has an issue and should be replaced.

Turning the amp down and input signals down when powering up/down eliminates the initial DC signal most amps provide hence the pop. After that, the speakers should be ready to go. I have an old STX1600 amp I use at home that I love and I think it has a delay circuit to eliminate that initial POP sent to speakers at power up and power down, although I am not gonna test it..

Oops, see others have covered this as well.. sorry about that!..