Breaking in New Speakers

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MetalThrasher

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I have an incoming 2x12 cab with an Eminence Wizard / Swamp Thang combo. I understand that it takes about 20 hours of play time to break the speakers in. Questions, how loud do I need to be playing when breaking these in (slightly louder then bedroom volume or bust out the ear plugs volume)? Are there any shortcuts to breaking in the speakers faster?
 
The speaker needs to be moving some air for a faster break-in. Good luck, the Swamp Thang is a damn loud speaker.
 
I've used this with a few cabs; it is recommended by Yamaha who presumably knows what it's talking about:
https://www.taralabs.com/cascade-noise-burn-in
At the time, I had an Axe FX so I just ran from a lap top through that into the power amp/cab.

I covered the cab in heavy blankets and had it to as loud as I thought I could get away with before my family murdered me. It will sound like space aliens are invading your basement.

I don't think it has to be super loud. In fact, a speaker burn in track like this sweeps very low, so you may not want a ton of volume. The low frequency should give the cone plenty of excursion at moderate volume.
 
There are methods to put a load on the speaker to speed this up. Dave at Avatar has such a method. Not sure if he could do it for you. I know he does it to his Hellatone speaker brand as I mentioned in your other thread. There is info on Google about breaking in guitar speakers I just don't remember the source. Depending on the amp, you could set it to clean and run a "insert music device" through it but I don't think that be the same guitar (frequencies). Are you in a hurry to record or gig or something?
 
311splawndude said:
There are methods to put a load on the speaker to speed this up. Dave at Avatar has such a method. Not sure if he could do it for you. I know he does it to his Hellatone speaker brand as I mentioned in your other thread. There is info on Google about breaking in guitar speakers I just don't remember the source. Depending on the amp, you could set it to clean and run a "insert music device" through it but I don't think that be the same guitar (frequencies). Are you in a hurry to record or gig or something?
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I'm not a hurry to record or gig at all. Just more curious. I'll just let them break in with natural playing time!
 
ive had new cabs and speakers before and never experienced this magical speaker break in people talk about, always seemed more like a convenient excuse as to why someone isnt digging their new cab :dunno:
 
I notice the break in with the higher frequencies. Some speakers out the box will be a bit harsh to me and will mellow out a bit as time goes on.

To the OP. if you play often enough at moderate volume in no time they'll start to break in. It goes quicker than you think.
 
RaceU4her said:
ive had new cabs and speakers before and never experienced this magical speaker break in people talk about, always seemed more like a convenient excuse as to why someone isnt digging their new cab :dunno:
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Call me crazy but I noticed that my Orange PPC412 seemed to get smoother if I can describe it that way after a few weeks or so. That was back in the day when I played a lot more. :sick:
 
RaceU4her said:
ive had new cabs and speakers before and never experienced this magical speaker break in people talk about, always seemed more like a convenient excuse as to why someone isnt digging their new cab :dunno:
Click to expand...
I bought a new from the box 1960AV last year that sounded terrible (brittle, harsh, no low end) until a few days of running that speaker burn in track through it. At least that was my experience.
 
MetalThrasher said:
Call me crazy but I noticed that my Orange PPC412 seemed to get smoother if I can describe it that way after a few weeks or so. That was back in the day when I played a lot more. :sick:
Click to expand...

Im not saying there’s no tonal change, I just never experienced a speaker completely changing character like some say, and im not sure broken in always means sounding better like we usually assume
 
I always heard you use a variac to loosen up the spider & the speaker surround.

Take the wattage of the speaker, divide by 3, then multiply that by the Ω rating of the speaker, then take the square root of that number.

That gives you the safe voltage to set the variac to send a 60Hz signal into the speaker.
 
To break-in new speakers, I hook up a drum machine into my Fryette 2/50/2 power amp then into the speaker cab.
Crank it up for a few hours and that does a great job.
 
^ THIS

RaceU4her said:
ive had new cabs and speakers before and never experienced this magical speaker break in people talk about, always seemed more like a convenient excuse as to why someone isnt digging their new cab :dunno:
Click to expand...

I definitely noticed it with my brand new Splawn cab. It was pretty harsh, especially in the upper register. I was like "WTF is everyone raving about these Small Block speakers for". Didn't take to long for that to mellow out so that's why I stand by the 24 hour thing. I didn't notice it as much with my Avatar but I was also a complete noob.
 
Get a variac, set it to 14 volts (for these exact speakers), then run it for about 10 days. And I do mean run it, all the time, for 10 days. If they're not broken in after 10 days, blast the f**k out of it with a 100w head. Good luck.
 
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