Do speakers and subs need to be broken in?

[LosIsATool 5,000+ posts]

I've never broken in a car. I think I'm up to number 20 now.

 

[Papermaker85 5,000+ posts]

I've never broken in a car. I think I'm up to number 20 now.

From the first crank wear lowers compression and buildup occurs.. Regular oil chanes and maintance=maxium engine life..

Same with spiders. Hell anything.. Breakdown occurs.

In the same sinse though some cars do need a peroid to actually wear into spec so to say. Same with some highend drivers..

 

[LosIsATool 5,000+ posts]

When I rode crotch rockets years ago we where told to ride them out the gate how you intended to ride them. And those had 14000 rpm motors. But you never expected to go high mileage with one.

 

[Papermaker85 5,000+ posts]

When I rode crotch rockets years ago we where told to ride them out the gate how you intended to ride them. And those had 14000 rpm motors. But you never expected to go high mileage with one.

Yea. They wont last quite as long if you are rev happy but **** lets face it they cost 2k to rebuild.. Lol

 

[n2audio 5,000+ posts]

Subwoofer "break in" is a myth started by a few unscrupulous companies as a way to weasel out of warranty repairs on poorly built products. From my experience if the glue is dried your sub is ready for a beating. If it breaks out of the gate, it was built wrong or you're abusing it to a point where it would have broken regardless of what superstitious ritual you performed first.

Completely agree.

Plus, even a speaker that does change over a period of time will only change slightly. Unless you have significantly better than average hearing it's not going to matter anyway.

Install it right and listen as you please.

 

[ciaonzo 5,000+ posts]

When you're breaking in an engine, you're wearing down the micro-imperfections in the various moving parts until things are smoothed and "seated". For instance, the oil rings to the cylinder walls. The special needs with that are no lugging the engine and no keeping the RPM's in one place. You should always be moderately accelerating or backing out of the throttle for the first 500-1000 miles, change the oil, then drive it as normal.

Breaking in of subwoofers and other drivers happens no matter what approach you take. The spider is impregnated with phenolic resins that are pretty stiff, even if only on a micro-level, and as you put the driver under excursion duty it progressively creates tiny cracks in this resin. This is the softening of the suspension. If you never plan to abuse the driver, you likely won't need to do any break in. It will be fine to "plug and play", and you may notice a slightly less boomy character over time as the break-in happens in a gradual manner.

If you DO plan to take a driver with an incredibly stiff suspension and beat the living piss out of it for the deebeez, you may want to ease into things. Now, hispls is right in what he wrote but even a driver that was designed properly can experience the side effects of not giving the suspension at least some small version of break-in. This can be a lead letting go, or it might be a tear in the spider someplace and these can be the result of things pulling tight that are not able to give as much as they will be able to later when things are softer. Ask me how I know.

The one that people don't see coming, though, is the heat that is a result of you dumping gobs of current into a coil that is not moving as much as it could if the driver were well-beaten and moving a bit easier. Those brand new tight suspensions can lead to a smelly coil quick fast and in a hurry. You go full throttle and you can't appreciate that this is happening, you may be the next victim of not properly breaking in the suspension.

Overall, about 50-200 hours is the range where the measureable change takes place. But as the others already indicated, the change is marginal and has very little if any effect on the Cms, Vas, Fs and other figures.

It's more a common sense thing to just ease into things. As men, we all learn that simple lesson at some point in our lives. Right? Pickin' up what I'm layin' down?

 

[n2audio 5,000+ posts]

The one that people don't see coming, though, is the heat that is a result of you dumping gobs of current into a coil that is not moving as much as it could if the driver were well-beaten and moving a bit easier. Those brand new tight suspensions can lead to a smelly coil quick fast and in a hurry. You go full throttle and you can't appreciate that this is happening, you may be the next victim of not properly breaking in the suspension.

I don't disagree with the theory, but in practice I'll take a WAG and say you're talking about a percent or two difference in cone movement. Whatever the number is I think it's something else that goes in the "doesn't really make any difference" category.

 

[ciaonzo 5,000+ posts]

I don't disagree with the theory, but in practice I'll take a WAG and say you're talking about a percent or two difference in cone movement. Whatever the number is I think it's something else that goes in the "doesn't really make any difference" category.

I hear you. This is true for most of us with some working knowledge of the topic. I just wanted to add it for consideration because I had a driver that was built like that and I put it through the usual amount of bench testing and break-in only to find that it got much hotter than other drivers that were subjected to the same torture. I even suspected the magnet was not carrying the proper charge but it was a direct result of the incredibly stiff suspension, and it even made slight ticking and clicking noises (heavy resin cracking) as I gently pushed the suspension further and further toward max excursion, and across a few hours. Ultimately, after twenty hours or so it got quiet and smooth and the heat issue was less prominent. This is tantamount to taking a driver and holding the cone down with your hand to keep it from moving and dumping current into it. That coil is going to get hot.
The only other thing I would add is that the percentage of change on the mechanical parameters of very stiff drivers might actually be closer to something like 10-15% over the 1-2% you suggested. But overall, I concede. This is just not much of an issue for most. It's going to be a rare occasion and just the right set of circumstances that any type of failure will be seen. If it doesn't fail for you on the first song or first day, you're probably in the clear. But that is still technically break-in!