Breaking in a speaker?

[Liquid]

I keep hearing about this and i have no idea what this means. How does the sound change? About how long does it take for a standard 12'1 speaker take to break in? How will the speaker sound before its broken in?

[Liquid]

Re: Breaking in a speaker?

Oh come on now some one knows.

[Jeroen]

Re: Breaking in a speaker?

I was also hoping your topic would have generated some response by now. I'm very interested to hear some opinions, although I do have a suspicion

[greendy123]

Re: Breaking in a speaker?

Trying search the search function there was a speaker break in thread last week.

[Stevo]

Re: Breaking in a speaker?

10-11 hours of metal jamming, volume on 11!

Actually it depends on your style, volume etc. I think it takes me about 8 hours on the average. And yes, it makes a difference. The speaker will be more musical and sensetive after you break it in.

Some people plug in stereos, to the input of their amps - then let the music blare for a few hours - that's another way to break in a speaker

[75lespaul]

Re: Breaking in a speaker?

I've heard it's more like 40 hours. It softens the membrane and takes away the harshness that's typical for a brand new speaker. Lotsa people get a new speaker, slam it in the amp or cab and think it sucks but they haven't broken it in, so it sounds harsh and brittle. The hempcone speakers take about a hundred hours or so I'm told. I'm up to about 80 hours breaking mine in now by playing a CD player through the amp.

By the way I learned all this on this forum. I knew speakers needed some breakin time, but never really how much until I started reading up about it here.

[gproud]

Re: Breaking in a speaker?

This is from the Celestion site:

Important Note! Before breaking it in it's advisable to "warm up" the speaker gently for a few minutes with low-level playing or background hum.

Break in a speaker with a fat, clean tone: turn up the power amp volume to full, and control the level with the preamp gain. Use a level that will be quite loud, but not painful in a normal size room.

Have the bass and mid up full, and the treble at least half. On your guitar, use the middle pick up position (if your guitar has more than one pick up) and play for 10-15 minutes using lots of open chords, and chunky percussive playing. This will get the cone moving, and should excite all the cone modes and get everything to settle in nicely. The speaker will continue to mature over the years, but this will get it 95% of the way to tonal perfection in the shortest time.